August 2024- Autumn is here..
What happened to Summer?
Well, that was a disappointing Summer. although we had a few warm and sunny days in August, and even as I write the sun is teasing me to come out and work outside. The evidence for little sunshine and heat is everywhere that I look.
The tomatoes are still struggling to ripen.
Some of my dahlia plants have not bloomed yet - by now I would normally be deadheading daily.
Some Data from Met Eireann - below average temps. Rainfall not as bad as last year, but above average.
We took a day trip to a friend’s young forest on the shores of the Shannon - beside lake Boderg - a lake of which I was unaware. We learned about 3 lakes on the Shannon in school- Allen, Ree, Derg, but there are lots more. Anyhow, we lounged by the lake, read books, pottered around in a boat and ate delicious food, it was a perfect summers day.
We also managed to spend an overnight at our tree farm during one of the sunny spells. It was all beautiful and relaxing, except for the cloud of midges that descended once it was dark. At this point, I’m happy to see or feel bugs of any kind, given the losses that we are experiencing. But I need to remember my head net the next time - my scalp was covered in bites that lasted a week.
On a hopeful note - many flowers did very well in spite of the poor weather. Ammi and Daucus carota have been delivering for weeks on end. A small section of snapdragons has kept producing also - great use of a tiny space. Sanguisorba has been pumping out the blooms while buried in meadow grass. And now the gladioli are velvety and gorgeous.
You can get your hands on some of these though flower subscription offering - €55 for 4 weeks of flowers - to be collected from the Refill Mill or from Greenpark Meadows where I live and grow a lot of my flowers.
Seasonal Activities
I’m eating potatoes for all the meals - rosti with a fried egg for breakfast, frittata for lunch and cottage pie for dinner. I stopped by Water Street association in Castlepollard last week - I helped them with their no-dig garden back at the start of the summer. Everything was doing wonderfully which was very gratifying - they have been minding it well, and I came away with loads of courgettes.
I’m enjoying beetroot salad these days - grated (raw) beetroot and a little grated carrot, toasted sesame oil, white pepper, soy sauce and some sesame seeds.
I make loads of blackcurrant jam to test out techniques for an upcoming workshop. Some with rhubarb, and some just plain blackcurrant, which is a favourite of my menfolk. And we ran out of chilli jam, so I made some with apple pectin and grapes. Not a strong grape flavour - the chillies dominate, but a beautiful colour.
We planted fennel, the cats lay on it, and something ate it, so we planted more. And now it’s going to seed before it bulks up. I’m having success with aubergines for the first time this year, we have them in very large pots in the tunnel, so I just need to persist with the fennel, and eventually I’ll figure out how to get it right.
Coole Meadow
The trees that were moved from Dublin last month are putting out new growth, so they didn’t die. I didn’t have high hopes for their survival, but every one of them had given me signs of new life, so hopefully they will make it through the winter and thrive next year.
We started a Johnson-Su bioreactor with chaff from Bell Lane - but we didn't have enough to fill it, so we added some dry hay - the arisings from previous weeks scything. When I went to remove the air poles, they were very hot, so all is progressing as it should. If we can use the Johnson-Su method on the arisings, that will produce amazing compost, so we will continue to experiment. The only difficulty will be to get the arisings dry first!
Scything continues in Coole, the rough bits are slow going, but the meadow that was cut last year is much easier and faster to cut. We now need to get all that cut, and left on the ground so that the ripe seeds fall. We will create temporary compost bins to hold the dry arisings and we will use that next year for mulch for trees and potatoes.
Some of the cardoon blooms are falling over- so I’m stacking them and other thick stems in this hazel pyramid to make a bug hotel. There are plenty of other places for bugs to live, so this is possibly just cosmetic, but it’s a good signal to anyone looking over the gate that we are biodiversity friendly.
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I’m just back (29th August) from a sunny day in Coole meadow, and for the first time since Spring, there were lots of butterflies. I spotted Red admiral, Peacock and Cabbage white. I have to say that it lifted my heart to see them - we are doing all the right things there to look after pollinators in general and butterflies in particular. So it’s been worrying this summer. Here’s the live that I recorded with butterfly feeding and habitat.
Workshops
I had a beautiful morning at Swainstown farm, teaching soap making in their yurt.I picked up some delicious vegetables while I was there too. If you are in Meath or North Dublin, they have a great event coming up on September 21st - a steam threshing, a farmers market - and all going well there will be 2 workshops there also - Kombucha and fermented food - see below for details,
I was delighted to be asked to run 2 scavenger hunts as part of Heritage week. One was in Streamstown on the greenway, and the other was in Belvedere in the walled garden. Both were great fun and both kids and adults really enjoyed slowing down and really looking at the detail and listening for bids and bees. But the biodiversity on view in the greenway - with all the native plants - was much more interesting I felt than the floriferous planting in the walled garden.
Flower Farming
I’m planting lots of biennial seeds- sweet william, wallflower, foxgloves, clary sage, daucus carota . Orlaya is still to be planted - I need fresh seed for that, so I have let my plants go to seed and I’m waiting till they are ripe to plant - maybe this week. I’ll have orlaya seeds and lots of other seeds in Athlone Library on September 26th - details below.
The annuals that I planted out in early July are not looking great - they probably won’t do much this year, and most of them won’t survive the winter either. I’ll have to decide soon and replace them with the biennials.
I ran a planting experiment, where I put the same seeds in Johnson-su compost and normal compost. Unfortunately the seeds were not viable, so nothing happened at all in either one. I may repeat that experiment with better seeds!
Learning
I found time to go to a few events during Heritage week - the best for me was the craft demo arranged by the Irish Heritage crafts Co-op in Seanbothar farm. There was basket weaving, spoon carving and leather work. I was particularly taken with Pauline Hogan’s plans to grow flax and revive tanning to support more heritage crafters.
I’m also looking forward to finishing up the week with Field exchange in Brookfield farm. there are still tickets for the Saturday and Sunday events if you are interested. Come say hi if you do, I’ll be there on Saturday.
Upcoming events
As I mentioned previously, I’m excited to be part of a fabulous day out in Streamstown Farm - on Sept 21st, they have a steam threshing, and a farmers market. I’m collaborating with Nadia Pickersgill to bring two workshops to the Yurt that day - Kombucha making and Fermented foods (kimchee, Sauerkraut, pickles. Early bird rate if you book soon. If you’d like to do both, get in touch and I can arrange a special rate for that.
My ‘Gardening for Biodiversity’ event in the Refill Mill (Sept 10th) has a few places left due to a cancellation, and I’ll be running a similar (free) event on 3rd September in Athlone library , 6pm-7:30. Here’s the link to book Athlone.
As part of the libraries Sustainable Development goals week, I have a seed saving workshop in Athlone on 26th of September at 6pm. I’ll be in Castlepollard earlier that week talking about Food waste (so there will doubtless be something to taste- I’m working on a stale bread chocolate cake that’s getting rave reviews) - thats 24th September, 11am.
I’m running another Food waste event in Ballinamore on Sept 28th, at 11am. Get in touch with Leitrim Libraries to book that.
The Jams and Chutney workshop in Cuige is fully booked, let me know if you want to be on the wait list for that. There may be cancellations when I remind people about their booking close to the date.
I have done some planning with my Cuige partners and we have planned no-knead sourdough baking on October 16th, and adult and child flower crown event during the mid-term (October 30th), soap making on November 20th ( in time for you to make lots of lovely gifts) and a wreath workshop in December. These are all on early bird rates at the moment.
I’m also running a Composting workshop in Laois on October 5th, in one of the libraries.
We are back in Pure Camping 13-15th of September, Brian will be checking in with the people that we introduced to scything back in May. Most likely on Saturday 14th of September, if you’d like to find out about peening and sharpening.
Finally, just to remind you all that I grow and sell flowers. It’s a little less convenient than dropping into a florist, I need a day or so notice - but considerably better for the future of the human race :-)
Subscription - €55 for 4 weeks. Collect on Thursdays from the Refill mill or Greenpark meadows
Bunch of fragrant seasonal flowers - €25
Large Seasonal Bouquet - €50
For the music choice this week - a song that reminds me of driving through Utah in the early 90s, when I was on a break from my programmer job and goofing off in the desert as a bus driver for a rafting company.