Spring meadow

A blast of Spring colour from miniature daffodils and mascari bulbs in early Spring up in the meadow.

And for the GAA minded – in the Clare colours, you will note.

The geese in action…

Well, most of the animals we have had here have been very cute/productive/appealing, but I must note one quite cantankerous exception.

We handreared a small number of alyesbury ducks and two geese over summer 2010, who we thought we had a pretty good relationship with. The geese grew into two lovely looking birds – we didn’t know if male or female… until just after Christmas, when it turned out that one was a gander – and he developed the worst case of bad attitude ever!

From then on we generally saw him coming with his head stretched out, ready to bite whoever he could sink his (surprisingly sharp) teeth into. We tried to see it as protecting his lady, but he gave her a rough time too, and even the ducks suffered a couple of unspeakable attacks.

I still don’t know if all ganders are like that or what we did wrong. I do know, however that he tasted great and that his lady is now a very peaceful and elegant leader of the ducks around the garden and noone seemed to miss him much!

Spring colour

The tulips in 2011 gave a lovely mix of vibrant colours by Eastertime. They are coming up now – hopefully it won’t be long before we will have a similar show. Roll on Spring!

With alot of help from wwoofers, family & friends

As we have gone through a few seasons in the garden as small scale commercial growers the one thing that has struck me most is how labour intensive market gardening is on our scale. We are too small for a mechanised system and yet one person in the garden feels like a David and Goliath battle when you are trying to keep up with hoeing, planting and harvesting by early summer.

It is with this in mind that I would like to sincerely thank all of the helpers that have come through our garden and spent time helping us to develop our garden and to share in the food that we have produced. We have been amazed at the number of people who willingly give their time and effort to grow and it has always been a positive experience to work alongside others in the garden. It lends itself to team effort and two people working together undoubtedly do the work of three on their own.

Many of our helpers have said that they feel better just for working in a garden – and there definitely seems to be a therapeutic effect, aside of the obvious benefit of eating fresh produce. I know that the simplicity of hoeing in the tunnel on a rainy day or planting a new bed of lettuce relaxes me away from other worries. It is always a positive thing to grow, and to grow food feels like an all round winning way to spend the day.

So, to all the wwoofers, friends, volunteers, trainees and of course family members who have given us their time and shared the effort to make our garden grow – thank you so much for your help. You all are a big part of the engine of Good & Green!

Good & Green and tasty too

A selection of our garden harvest for Friday orders in 2011.

In early summer there is an array of colour and shades of green in the garden – roll on summer 2012!

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