Margaret Leahy

I agree. It's getting as bad as the other place

There is so much to pick in the hedgerows and shores. Rowan berries for schnapps, apples, and blackberries for a cake and sugar kelp for crisps. It's a great time of the year for wild food

As I'm picking from the hedges around my garden tis only the dog who gets to eat the lower berries, and boy does she love them

This is my annual reminder to pick blackberries above the P Line
What is the P Line I hear you ask?
Well, think about the height of the average dog, his hind leg .... .. and pick above that 😉

The Connemara Bog to Bay Food Tour is 24th-28th August. Join me as we meet oyster farmers, learn how to smoke salmon, walk castle grounds, enjoy sheep dog trials,taste grest local produce,and enjoy chats and the craic. Staying in Renvyle House Hotel, there is no single supplement for solo travellers

I've started a weekly reel on insta - Green Bites - tiny tales of plants and plates, where I share interesting stories about the plants I grow or forage and different dishes I cook and enjoy. Courgette or zucchini is this week's topic
www.instagram.com/reel/DLur5aM...

It's so good

Had a few ripe lemons in the glasshouse and lots of lovely lemon verbena, so I dug out Mary Berrys drizzle cake recipe. It never disappoints. Using organic lemons ensures the zest is just that rather than the chemical coating on conventional lemons

It's the karst landscape of The Burren - a UNESCO world geopark

Really enjoyed spending the day with these wonderful women on a food and culture tour of the Burren

They are quite tart so they taste better when cooked. Didn't know they're not a thing over there

It's gooseberry season. Picked one bush clean yesterday, and I found the last few elderflower heads to make compot. The flavour is amazing

It's the eve of Mayday, so gather a few flowers and leave them on your doorstep. In Irish folklore, the fairies are active tonight, but they won't cross the sweet flowers, so your home will have good luck

The birdsong on this wee video is fabulous. It's a magical time of year, and I am so grateful to have beautiful old woods that I can enjoy walks with Willow in and gather wild food

Todays salad is entirely from the garden. Lettuce, spinach, dandelions, pea shoots, viola flowers, swede flowers and chives. #growyourownfood

It's so warm and exotic along a Connemara boreen

Blue skies, the smell of gorse fills the air and quiet boreens to walk Willow. Life is good

It's wonderful to see the variety of pollinators on the apple blossoms. Without pollinators we'd have no apples or other fruits.
They may fly on to other flowers like dandelions. If these are sprayed with glyphosate the pollinator will die.
No pollinators=no fruit for us

The best Easter eggs.
Beannachtaí na Cásca ort. Happy Easter #speirgorm

I could listen to Olivia O'Leary all day. Great voice, writer, and a fellow hat wearer. As always,there was a great musical choice to follow

First spinach harvest of the season.

These four ladies are enjoying semi retirement with me now their time at the organic egg farm is over.They will no longer lay enough eggs to be commercially viable but are perfect for me. Willow is still sizing them up

I do! I run Fable tours - farm to table tours and tales in the west of Ireland
www.fabletours.com

What a lovely day I had with this family. On our food tour, they went foraging, tasted amazing food, met a local grower, and watched cheese being made. The blue skies were a bonus #foodtours

Ewe got it in one!

I love my life! I was speaking to guests on a food tour yesterday about sheep farming when we had to stop to let these ewes pass. Timing is everything #ireland

You can see the outline of the lazy beds that would have grown the potatoes and vegetables for families. We were practising no dig over a hundred years ago #Ireland

Potted mine on a few weeks ago and glad I found homes for all the extra seedlings. Hate wasting them!

Me and my inner child had a great chat with Paddington in Westport #mayo

Stumbled into a lovely traditional pub in Connemara recently. The toasted sandwich in a bag took me back twenty years. Coupled with a pot of strong tea and an open fire, we had a grand afternoon #retro