A day at the beach=bags of seaweed

Sea field Quilty the easiest beach to drive on to for seaweed

I was home in Clare on Sunday.  Walking through the farm I spotted the slash hook in the ditch and sure enough Dad was giving the willows a haircut. It wouldn't be so bad but the branches that filled the ditch were just about to bloom!! Good job Jack wasan't there to see it!

Apricot blossoms

Anyway the upside of the day, apart from a delicious dinner, a good catch up with everyone and two walks with Bailey (the Labrador), was a trip back to the beach for seaweed. I need more for the fruit trees, and even though the apricot is flowering and the pears just about to bloom its a case of better late than never. There was tonnes of it on the beach (no gold doubloons before you ask)!!, mostly the long and gangly kelp. I went to Sea field beach in Quilty where we learnt to swim as Children. Although my aunt swears that coastal erosion has changed it since we swam there years ago it is still one of the most access able beaches to collect seaweed on as you can drive onto the beach directly, and the seaweed is washed up quite high by the tide.

kelp wrestling is a dirty business prepare to get wet

I don't think it really matters which type of seaweed you use. I try to walk around getting a mix of a few types but that's a slow business and you need plenty of time, not losing daylight and fighting a turning tide as we were on Sunday evening. As great piles of kelp were 99% of the seaweed on the beach they were the best to quickly fill the bags.You can snap off the long stems of the kelp and just bringing the green leathery leaves. This makes packing it into bags easier, makes the bags lighter to carry and means a  faster decomposition around your trees. I'm sure the stalks are great too but they are heavy, often with stones attached to their roots and very slow to break down, so leave them behind.

a good return on 1 hours work

It's not smelly when its fresh so you wont pass out from the fumes if you had a bag in the boot of the car. Even if you are not at the beach until summer its worth bringing seaweed home in whatever quantities you can manage. Add it to the compost heap, make a liquid feed or use it as a mulch- its brilliant for everything. If you are using it as a mulch just put it in a circle around your fruit trees or bushes. It should break down quickly. Owing to the now ridiculous quantity of fruit trees on our land I'm fairly sure I don't have enough for every tree. Although it would be nice to give it to them all in Spring time it doesn't matter when it gets delivered as long as you manage to do it at some stage. Seaweed is great for the veg garden too. Its been used for centuries on the coast for growing spuds and its valuable micro mineral load make it really excellent for Brassicas in particular.

one tree down, many many more to go....

You can of course eat it! I get dried seaweed from the Spanish Point Sea Vegetables company in the Limerick market and through the healthfood shops. You can have a bath with seaweed too, though I bet some types of seaweed are better than others for this.

Strandhill in Sligo has the best seaweed baths just oozing a lovely soft gel that would remind you of aloe vera. If you fancy a D.I.Y. Spa seaweed bath  do yourself a favour and make sure its minus fishing lines, rubbish, sandflies and crabs before you climb into the bath!