Read about Bloom in the Times today

Lots of Bloom coverage in the Irish times. I think I'll be buying the paper for the photos!

Make your own Natural Beverages.

Like a nice sparkling beverage on a summer’s evening? Love the smell of early summer? Well you can bottle that smell, and have it available year round.
Learn to Make Elderflower Cordial, Elderflower Champagne and Ginger Beer this year. The elderflowers are just coming into bloom, so now’s the time. Join me for a series of 3 classes – Tuesday June 8th, Thursday June 10th, and Tuesday June 15th at Mullingar Educate Together NS. Classes begin at 8:00pm, and the cost is €60. For further details, or to book, contact Anna Browne at annambrowne@gmail.com or 087 2222562. Deadline for booking is Thursday 3rd June.

Bloom 2010 - more details

I got an update from Klara Golez at Bord Bia on the Lost and forgotten skills demonstrations at Bloom. And now I want to go there every day! These talks will take place alongside the food market.

Times are subject to change - currently the first talk starts at 12pm and the final talk of the day starts at 4pm. I'd imagine that there will be details posted somewhere at Bloom when you arrive. Here's the line up:

Thursday 3rd June
Blood Pudding and Sausages
History of Irish Farming
Apples and Cider
Cheese-making

Friday
Butter-making
Oysters
Forgotten Skills with Darina Allen
Home baking and preserves

Saturday
Seaweed
Boxty and Irish Potatoes
Guided Tastings with Dillisk and Connemara Peat Whiskey
Honey producing

Sunday
TBC (Possible Smoked Salmon- subject to change)
Seaweed
Soda Bread and Jams
Honey producing

Monday
Boxty
Guided Tasting with Peter Ward
Poitin talk and tasting with Bunratty Poitin

The ones I'm excited about -
Blood Pudding and Sausages
Seaweed
Apples and Cider
Cheese-making

So I'm hoping to get there on Thursday at least. All going well I'll be tweeting about it when I'm there - follow me @greenannabrowne

Another GIY article

Another GIY article published - possibly a better activity for earlier, bit it's not too late to plant some potatoes.

Also, Posted some photos of phase I of the recycled bottle greenhouse in an album on the site. We ran out of 2 lt bottles, so if you're in the Mullingar area, and you have 2 lt plastic bottles, drop them by Educate Together (asap) - we're hoping to have another go at it on Wednesday morning - and build the frames for the roof, the door, and the other 2 sides.

It's turning out to be a really great project - from a community point of view, as well as recycling and making a greenhouse for the school.

Bloom 2010 - Lost and forgotten skills

I'm intrigued by something which is getting a minor mention in the Bloom web site. The Artisan tent will host demonstrations of things like cheese making, butter churning, apple pressing and fish smoking. I'd love to see a schedule of when these will take place - guess I'll have to keep an eye on the food part of the site as that info gets worked out.

I've made butter - accidentally, and made a bit of soft cheese, but I'd love to see a mozzarella made - believe it's very easy, and I'd love to see apple juice made too - given that my kids drink so much, it would be cost effective for me to grow a lot more apples! If I get any more info about this, I'll post it here.

Bloom 2010

Now that First Communion is over, I can start looking forward to some fun events. I'll be speaking at the next GIY event in Belevedere - May 20th - I'll be showing how to grow upside down tomatoes.

Then we have the June Bank holiday to look forward to, and 5 days of gardening at Bloom. I found the show very inspirational last year - especially the school garden. See photos above. The weather was fabulous too, which always helps - with 5 days to choose from, there are bound to be a few good ones.

Something else that I love about Bloom - there will be lots of food producers showing their wares - I didn't have a lot of time last year to sample, but a quick trip through the Artisan Food market had me licking my lips.

There was lots of kids to do last year - this year looks to be even better. Maybe I'll have to spend a day there on my own, and another day with the kids :-) Looking forward to getting even more ideas for my Summer camp there.

Slugs back

I ran out of inside space for my tomatoes, so moved them to a Lidl Tent greenhouse a few weeks ago. A few of them got burned by the frost, and not the slugs are back in action - in spite of copious amount of vaseline on pots. The sooner I can get the tomatoes upside down the better. But ti's still a bit cold.

An interesting article here at Irish Gardeners.


Also, we burned some slugs in our wood file, and hope to mix the ash with some rainwater - as a biodynamic deterrent - but I haven't found a recipe, and suspect that I would need to stir for an hour, so not sure if I have the patience for that. Not to mention it's probably the wrong time of the month.

Another solution I saw was to boil garlic and chillies, and spray with the water from that - worth a try - it would sure be wonderful to find something that works.

In the meantime the hooch from my sourdough starter is outside in bowls, and some slugs are meeting a happy end there...