The days can be long. The days can be lonely, boring, and hopeless. It is a different world when you are unemployed, time moves slower, shops are more expensive, the cloud has no silver edge. One afternoon in January I had an idea. This happens sometimes, especially when I garden. Digging a vegetable bed, pullingContinue reading “The New Growth Project – The Seed is Growing…”
Author Archives: Ciaran Burke
Autumn Fire – early autumnal morning in our garden
A cool start, a foggy dawn. The mellow light tinted the milky haze of fog rising from the earth, too beautiful for even the wind to disturb. The usual west of Ireland wind stayed respectfully still and silent. As the sun sleepily woke and rose over the horizon the fog dispersed to the air, leavingContinue reading “Autumn Fire – early autumnal morning in our garden”
The New Season Starts Now- 5 things to do in the garden now…
Traditionally autumn is the harvest festival, apples have been picked, the jams made and as the nights get longer and the days cooler, we gardeners may be tempted into hibernation. Yet, there is lots to do in the garden. October is time to start planing and planting for next year’s harvest. Five jobs to doContinue reading “The New Season Starts Now- 5 things to do in the garden now…”
Wild Carrot Seed Spice Cake – Recipe
We have collected quite a bunch of wild carrot seeds from along the bog road that leads to our house. It is a quiet road which does not have much traffic travelling along it. The concave seed heads make them easy to identify and they are quick to pick. Harvest them when dry and removeContinue reading “Wild Carrot Seed Spice Cake – Recipe”
Wild Carrot Seeds- Spice up your life!
Adventure, variety and spice. Black tomatoes, orange tomatoes, red brussels sprouts, red onions, blue french beans, just some of the variety of vegetable that we grew in the garden this year. We let two fruit develop on our white fruiting red strawberry, admired the pink flowers on another variety, it is always nice to tryContinue reading “Wild Carrot Seeds- Spice up your life!”
Rustic Italian Grape Cake -Recipe
24 pots of jam have been made from our haul of grapes, also nearly four liters of grape cordial Hanna made a delicious cake from an Italian recipe replacing sweet wine with white port. YUM! THE RUSTIC ITALIAN GRAPE CAKE Ingredients 225ml dessert white port wine 200g light muscovado sugar 100g softened butter 3 eggsContinue reading “Rustic Italian Grape Cake -Recipe”
Fruit of the vine- a gift of grapes means lots of grape jam
I got the call on Sunday morning,” I have friend of a friend who has a grape vine…”. The vine grower now lives in France, but the vine in question grows in Sligo. Nobody wanted the grapes, the caller thought of me, “would I like the grapes?” Yes, definitely. We arranged to meet on TuesdayContinue reading “Fruit of the vine- a gift of grapes means lots of grape jam”
Ciaran The Gardener 