Hello everyone I hope your week is going well : ) We’ve been busy in the garden, digging, planting, watering and weeding. The greenhouse is rocking! It’s amazing how fast things are growing now, it’s like magic.

You can grow your own food and it’s delicious, did you know? Surprises the hell out of me every day.

So far I have a great variety of herbs and salad. Even the smallest amount packs a full on flavour punch and soon I’ll have courgettes and I hope, courgette flowers for stuffing. Sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, spring onions, fennel, tomatoes, can’t wait for the tomatoes, peppers, chillies, celery, strawberries and more. In the autumn I’ll have blueberries, blackcurrants, plums, a handful of apples and a hedge full of sloes. The sloes are wild and make great wine.

The children love every day to walk around and check how everything is doing. One of these days I’ll give you the tour.

With everything growing mad in the greenhouse and desperate for planting out the pressures been on to get the beds on the hill ready so over the weekend we went searching for them…

Do you remember this line?… ‘and the gold dust coming up from the trampled buttercup’…It often comes to mind.

Golden Stockings

Golden stockings you had on
In the meadow where you ran;
And your little knees together
Bobbed like pippins in the weather,
When the breezes rush and fight
For those dimples of delight,
And they dance from the pursuit,
And the leaf looks like the fruit.
I have a many sight in mind
That would last if I were blind;
Many verses I could write
That would bring me many a sight.
Now I only see but one,
See you running in the sun,
And the gold-dust coming up
From the trampled buttercup.

Oliver St. John Gogarty
(August 17, 1878—September 22, 1957.

They’re in here somewhere…

As you can see things have been growing mad in places other than the greenhouse but the beds are in here somewhere! Do you see the slight impression down the middle? That’s the path.

Hours of work (by Adrian) later two boxes were uncovered and just in the nick of time as some of the veggies were desperate for planting out…

Veggies safely transplanted on the hill our next project was making a wigwam to grow our peas on. Isn’t that a lovely idea? I found it on Pinterest click HERE for the original link.

So Saturday evening we headed over the lane to find some hazel to made the wigwam frame. Time is of the essence once again as the peas currently in the greenhouse, will soon need to be planted out and the ground has to be prepped as well, not just the house!

The lane is looking beautiful right now…

Willowfield Road, Ballinamore, Co Leitrim

Hazel rods gathered we headed back to the house for dinner in the garden because it was just that kind of evening you know and you can’t let them go by and while Adrian worked on the wigwam…and fell out with the wigwam a few times heehee I went in to make dinner.

I did give him some helpful pointers first though!

Inside I threw open my windows and doors and put some music on. I’d left out a bag of frozen pre-cooked prawns to defrost earlier (8 hours approx or 20 minutes in cold water if it’s a last minute thing). I’ve given it before but it’s worth giving twice, it’s my recipe for Garlic Chilli Prawns…yep you could be excited. I’m always excited when there’s prawns about!

I put a few generous glugs of olive oil in a pan and added one or more sliced cloves of garlic and some chilli flakes (not too many as had the smallies to think of). I heated this gently to infuse the flavours and put the pasta on. The next part needs to be done quickly as you don’t want to overdo the prawns so I added the lovely prawns and stirred gently for a moment. I added a tbsp of pesto or you could use tomato puree. I added half a glass of white wine, drank the other half and absentmindedly answered questions and settled arguments. I brought it to a quick boil, removed from the heat and stirred in a dollop of greek yoghurt and some coriander but you could use rocket or parsley or none of these as you wish.

Et voila, delicious. This is one of my favourite easy dishes and one that everyone in the house eats, hallelujah! Adding more or less of every ingredient to suit your taste just adds to the beauty of it. Simple cooking at its best.

That’s the latest folks. If you follow me on Facebook you already know my computer hard drive is gone : (

I have a new/second hand laptop ordered but it may take a few weeks which is about how long its taken me to pull this post together on the oldest slowest lap top in the world sooo it may be a lean time for blog posts but bear with me as I endeavour to persevere : )

Also if your’e willing to nominate me for an award in the Irish Blog Awards I’d be very grateful and happy. The three relevant categories are…

• Best Newcomer Blog
• Best Personal Blog
• Best Lifestyle Blog

You can vote for me in all three. For the link to the blog award nominations click HERE

Other information for voting you need is…

• My email which is janebarry17@gmail.com
• For the best Newcomer blog the start date which for me is the 2nd of September 2012
• In general you need the blog url so just copy and paste the link from the tool bar or from HERE

Talk to you soon : )

Willowfield