Incredable value.

Most days I hear  reports of the housing crisis in the UK, people wanting to own their own homes but can't due to the high cost of housing over there or wanting to downsize into a county area but are unable to sell their homes as they are too expensive for the younger generation to afford. Many end up emigrating to Spain, Portugal or France, mainly people who have taken very early retirement, want a debt free life and a little bit of land. At one time these countries did offer real value for money but for a cheap property you will normally end up with one that needs extensive work doing. Spain and Portugal are hot in the summer but can be very cold in the winter, insulation is virtually unheard of and there is also the language problem. More and more people are choosing a place much nearer to home. Ireland, easy to get to, easy to go back to the UK to visit friends, no language problems and a fantastic cheap housing stock.

Fantastic value.

 I wonder where else you can buy a three double bedroom house with a fantastic kitchen dining room, one and a half bathrooms, two living rooms, full central heating, needing no work, orchard, vegetable garden, lovely views, set in three quarters of an acre?

The asking price for this gem is just 130.000 euros, less than £100.000. There are many properties like this around Ireland, especially in the West of Ireland.

http://www.daft.ie/1985714
Anyone who might be interested in this house just leave me a comment and will put you in touch with the owner.

Peach tree is looking set to deliver a good crop.

It seems as though spring has finally arrived, in just four days all the daffodils have burst into bloom, and buds are swelling on the trees, even the peach tree is now full of blossom and has had it first hand pollination done, this will be repeated in a couple of days, there are still a few buds not fully open. Although we lost one third of the tree last year, it was so heavily laden the top third snapped, we still have over fifty blooms on it so look forward to a good harvest again.

The two rebuilt beds.

The tunnel  now resembles some order, two of the  beds have been reduced in width and increased in height, making them easier to work, they had previously been the strawberry beds,

I couldn't bear to throw out these plants.

well one still is, despite my good intentions. Although the straw bale bed so far is looking good I want to make sure that we end up with a good crop of strawberries, so the plants have been severely thinned and cleaned and replanted in one of the new raised beds.

Looking fine.

Not that I think I needed to worry, the plants in the straw bales have all taken,

Ten days ago.

Ten days on.

produced incredible growth

and many of the plants now have flowers, all in the space of ten days.   I think it must be the increased warmth from the bales. We should be picking the first fruit around the middle of April, only a couple of weeks later than normal.

Set for an early crop of new potatoes.

 The first early potatoes in the tunnel are growing well, another couple of weeks and they will be ready for the first earthing up.
The spare new bed in the tunnel will be for  calabrese and cauliflowers, all the seeds geminated and are now at the second leaf stage and will be ready for transplanting in a week or so, the first mange tout are ready to be planted into the tunnel but will only need half a bed so they can share with the half bed of onions, the outside onions will get planted tomorrow, this leaves us with one spare bed in the tunnel, I will probably plant some French beans in this to give us an early crop.
Four out of the five tomato seeds germinated, which is fine as we only needed four plants, but for the price of the seed I would have expected 100% germination, it works out to fifty cents a seed which I think is expensive, these are Sun Gold, a lovely cherry tomato and an excellent cropper, but pricy!