Irish Seed Savers Association in Co. Clare

I was thrilled to discover that the Irish Seed Savers Association (http://www.irishseedsavers.ie/visit-us-in-scarriff.php) is located within minutes of my ancestors' town in County Clare.  What a great opportunity it will be to visit their extensive organic gardens and orchards, as well as their cob house, earth oven, polytunnel (hoophouse) and shop, where they sell organic and open-pollinated seed for rare and native varieties, along with garden accessories and books on seed saving and growing.  Pretty cool place for gardeners to shop for an Irish souvenir!  I would treasure being able to work in my own garden with a garden tool that came from a town in Ireland so close to where my ancestors lived.  I'll post pix of our visit, so stay tuned!

Here are some pictures of our hoophouse, which is providing us this winter with lettuces, kale, chard, Asian greens, and carrots and turnips.

In early November, before any snow fell, our older lab Drew watched me

cover our hoophouse frames with the greenhouse plastic. 

A few days later, it looked like this!

Currently, the cold frame is in another part of the garden, covered in snow! 
Inside are lettuces, claytonia (aka miner's lettuce), mache (aka corn salad), and beets.