Growing.....polytunnel

Our early potatoes are up....myself and Viola and the kids planted them.

 Rainbow chard

 Spinach

 Blosoms on our peach tree

 Steffen and Elke planting peas

 Steffen, Jonas and Elke planting peas

 Thorben, Steffen, Elke, and Jonas planting peas

 Buds on an apple tree in the tunnel, note Elke watering in the background..

 Thorben going in the new gate Steffen made for the kids area.

 Bastian (woofer from Germany) moving topsoil

Lego police and robbers



Permaculture Plan for Lockstown Cottage

 

Back in February we employed Suzie Cahn of Carrig Dulra in Glenealy, Wicklow to help us form some kind of long term plan for our land. She visited us three times with her lovely family and really made us think outside the box. These sheets above are what she came up with.

We have started to implement some of it the shelter belt, the childrens play area in the polytunnel and planting beds.

Map 1; existing features
Map 2; Zones
Map 3; Water harvesting
Map 4; Proposed forest garden plan
Map 5; Implementation guide ;pigs and poultry
Examples of map 1 on base map, map 2 on base map

The month of April...soap making and polytunnel progress

 Viola (Bastians girlfriend), Bastian(our german woofer), and Aoife making soap with a recipe from Rhondas blog ....down to earth.

 The soap in moulds ..looking good

 Bastian and Steffen built the beds...Jonas helped.

 Bastian working away.

 The beds full of manure and topsoil..the hens having a look too.

A third of the tunnel has been made into a kids play area..a slide, a play sand table, a place to dig and imagine...note two apples trees planted either side of entrance, one early apple, one late and a peach tree down the back on rhs, also vine planted on left but can not be seen.

 A seed sowing area before the play area down the back. The tunnel almost complete.

 The twenty ton top soil delivered during the week...the truck got stuck in the lawn for most of the day....thanks to a neighbour with a jcb he got out. The trailer has horse manure in it that we got from olga...its great stuff..

 slates we will use for labelling our beds.

The month of March.Thorbens birthday at the zoo, arrival of second woofer Bastian from Germany, planting 350 trees, polytunnel progress

 Thorben turns four...the farmer boy

 The adventurers

 Hard work...cleaning the sand table

 The polytunnel......what a mess

 Jonas took this picture

 Granny looking arty

 Jonas is our chief egg collector...

1.  We planted 350 trees as a shelter belt around our land. Bastian planting trees. Our friends and neighbours helped plant the trees...Bruno, Tanya, Eileen, Shann, Roisin, Anthony, Susanne, Pedro, Rebecca, Bastian, Brona.

 The Tree labellers...Eileen, Elke and Becca

 Having soup and tea

 The joy of a large cardboard box....and a load of chalk

 At the zoo

 All the Klauers at the zoo, Bastian took the picture.

 The birthday boy at the zoo

 The rice krispie four i moulded in a cardboard mould i made.

 Thorbens pirate ship..the best present ever

 Singing happy birthday, aunty Nora and William(from London) called for a cuppa..a great birthday.....



The month of February ..first woofer, sausage making, Jonas's birthday

I made sausages with Aoife and Jo, Aoife had the machine and mincer. Jo supplied the herbs for Scarborough Fair sausages..parsley, rosemary and Thyme. We made 25 of them and also chorizo and pork ones.  We used pork from our own pig from the freezer.

 The sausage machine

 The grandparents and kids

 Our friends from Dublin up our forest

The boys den ...

 Our first woofer Susanna from Ohio working here with Thorben,finding our hedge again after a winter and mulching it. She lived with us for a week, and was a lovely guest to have stay. I learned new soups from her and also a great cake ..the winning heart and minds cake.

 Susanna also weeded our herb patch. We hope she may visit us again in the summer.

 Susanna with the kids in beautiful Glendalough

 Us with the kids, Axel is in a buggy and not in the shot

 Jonas's sixth birthday cake, a joint effort by myself and Steffen up after midnight doing it, it worked out well in the end.

 Susanna with jonas and elke, walking our land.

 We had snow in February, our new hens with the older ones having breakfast. The red ones are the new ones.

 our home

 Elke, Jonas and Thorben with sticks and bike helmets...essential for adventuring...the next few photos are of our beloved home and land...we are starting to really enjoy being outside again and appreciating our freedom.

 One eyed kitten we have taken in.

 The kids running around the land around the house.The sun was beautiful this afternoon.