Our 200th post!

Today we have something to celebrate. This is our 200^th blog post and we are just as excited about our garden and eco-buildings as we were when we started writing about them back in 2015.

We usually put up about sixteen pictures with each post and write around five hundred words. So to date this blog contains approximately three thousand two hundred images and one hundred thousand words.

It was set up mostly as a diary and a way to practice writing in English as it is a second language. Along the way we have made some great friends and what makes us most happy are the comments and feedback we receive from other bloggers and readers. In this post we would like to share a few images of the place and how it has changed and developed over the years.

2012

2016

When we moved in our land was just one big field with some conifer hedges around the boundaries and it has been a very fulfilling to transform it over the last six years.

Creating the large pond in 2013.

Same view in 2018.

We now have a garden that is both productive, resilient and we think, easy on the eyes. All our designs are built on spirals, circles and curves and we use only natural materials for plant supports and fences.

2015

2018

We have designed the planting with increasing floods, droughts, storms and uncertainty in mind.  We have chosen lots of different varieties of fruit, berries, annual and perennial vegetables for a good chance of a decent harvest.

Vegetables in July 2018.

We have also included ponds, bog gardens, flowers and herbs all through the seasons and feeding stations for birds. Wildlife is an important part of our garden as we do not use any chemicals. The frogs and newts are keeping the slug population down and the birds, spiders and bats eat a lot of small flies and other insects.

2012

Same view 2018.

The cottage was tiny to start off with and we have added to it in instalments as soon as time and budget has allowed. We are now at a point where we can all live comfortably enough but there are still a few items on the agenda, like finally finishing our kitchen. The ceiling is too low and we will raise it up to allow for an extractor fan to be installed.

Picture from the kitchen when we viewed the house in September 2012.

Same place today.

There are many projects that are not quite finished, with perhaps a bit of tiling, painting, filling, planting or construction still to do.We are not too stressed about it though as life is for living in the here and now and if you are always looking ahead we believe a lot of the journey is lost. At the moment we are very grateful and happy to be just where we are, relatively healthy and with so much to look forward to. There are always new growing practices to be explored, planting areas to improve and friends to meet. Thank you all for being a part of our journey so far and we hope to share much more with you in the future.

It is early March and everything is bursting with energy in our garden. Buds swollen, sunlight filtering through blossoms and the stream filled with gushing water. We are ready for another beautiful growing season in the West of Ireland.