Sonairte's Organic Garden

One day in the spring of 1985 a motley group of people found themselves in an abandoned garden. it was attached to an old ruined farmhouse with roofless stables and sheds, and brambles grew right over the ancient apple trees. But under the long grass there was dark, fertile soil and the sun was shining.

Twenty five years on Sonairte has just put in an updated composting demonstration, the cutting garden is being expanded by students from the local college who are visiting for work experience and the garden sends over €500 worth of organic vegetables to the Dublin Food Coop's market every week. Organic gardening courses run almost every week, ecology students swarm along the nature trail, closely inspecting the meadow, woodland and salt marshes that are part of the center's ten organically certified acres.

Within the gentle shelter of Sonairte's walls apple trees can live healthily to 200 years old and still give an annual harvest of delicious fruit, pests controlled by the bluetits and robins that nest in the ancient stones and green ivy while on the banks of the river Nanny we can forage for wild sea beet and the Alexanders that the Romans brought to Ireland to feed the visitors who come to try out the slow food of the Mustard Seed Cafe

Most of the workers at Sonairte are still volunteers, drawn from all over the world to work together to teach and learn sustainable living

Organic gardening is easy

Every time I start to teach a new organic gardening course someone will ask me whether there is any way to go organic without a lot of extra work. it makes me really happy when they come back to me, sometimes years later, to say I was right when I said that organic is the easy way to garden.

It is the cheap way too - after all you aren't spending lots of unnecessary money on chemicals.

And it just so happens that November is a really good time start gardening. After all, you have all winter to plan and to get any structures you want in place before spring comes bursting into life.

As all my friends know, my garden has got badly neglected in recent years. I'm a full time volunteer at Sonairte, where we teach children and adults about the environment that surrounds us, about the life of our planet and, of course, how to be an organic gardener. It hasn't been leaving a lot of time for my own gardening so the garden is full of brambles, bindweed, scutch and all the other problems that beginner gardeners need to deal with. This blog is a way of encouraging myself to get on with it.

It will also record the way we use the food we grow, sustainable ways to do as little housework as possible, and the fun we have using crafts that were part of our grandparents' way of life around our home and garden. Because we are very, very busy people there will be long gaps between entries but I hope that something useful will gradually emerge - and it may even get some catch-up done around the garden and house.