Whether you’re a child or an adult, have lots of experience or none at all, are living in a house with a huge back garden or just have a balcony and some window sills – right now is a super time to start growing something.
Obviously, you need some soil and some seeds or seedlings and possibly also some pots and maybe gardening tools.
You’ll find that many people have had exactly that idea in these lock-down times. It might take a bit of work to source seeds – but it’s not impossible, and there is, of course, always the possibility to benefit from a friendly fellow gardener. See also our recent blog post on plant sharing! Or join our Facebook group for Skerries Food Gardening.
Here are a few websites that today (10 April 2020) do have at least some seeds available for order:
- The Organic Centre – while many seeds are sold out, others are available! (Today, out of 187 vegetable seeds, 22 were available. Some really nice ones! I’m ordering the radishes…)
- The Irish Seed Savers Store is hoping to reopen their online ordering system on 14 April.
- The people of the non-profit organisation Grow It Yourself are doing their best to catch up with order volumes. Practically all of their super Growboxes (great for complete beginners) are currently sold out, but they do still have Grow Your Own Herbs. They do have a good selection of books (Grow Cook Eat is one useful book; it goes with the TV series. For everyone, including children AND adults, GIY’s Know-itAllmanac is a great and fun intro to food gardening.)
GIY still do have some seed starter packs, and also a few individual seeds.
Joanna and Klaus Laitenberger’s Green Vegetable Seeds is normally a favourite, but they have closed their online shop for now. Do check, they are hoping it will only be down for “a short period”! And let us know by email to sustainableskerriesnewsletter@gmail.com when you see it’s open again, so we can update this post. Thank you!
Where to find tips for new food gardeners
Of course you can google “how to grow radishes” (or tomatoes or Jerusalem artichokes), but the results may not always be best suited for conditions here in Ireland.
So here are a two Irish online places that we found particularly helpful.
- Grow It Yourself has lots of super-easy-to-follow texts and videos for complete beginners. Start with their month-by-month info in the grower’s calendar, consult their veg directory or watch how to do what you need to do in their list of video tutorials.
- Klaus Laitenberger of Green Vegetable Seeds sends out very useful monthly email newsletters. You can see the archive on the Green Vegetable Seeds General Garden Info page – a handy source for information on what to do in April (or May or June etc.).
There is also a video channel that I particularly like. RED Gardens Project (RED stands for Research Education and Development) consists of 6 family scale gardens each one 100m2 (1000sqf) and following a different methodology, or approach to growing vegetable. It’s based in Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary (yes, the eco village!), and Bruce Darrell publishes regular, highly data-driven videos comparing different (organic) ways of growing your food.
So in the end… it’s all about the beginning!
The biggest reason that any of my own gardening projects have failed in the past is that… I had great plans, but didn’t get around to actually putting those seeds in the soil! This year, what with being at home a bit more and all that, I’ve finally managed to start some tomatoes and beetroot on the kitchen windowsill. I stuck a few potatoes into the ground. And I have more new seeds that I will make use of over the weekend. What a great way to spend Easter, planting on my tomatoes and sowing some radishes!
Join us in the Skerries Food Growing Group, subscribe to our Sustainable Skerries Newsletter and let us know how you are getting on with your planting!
PS: Want to do that little bit extra for climate action? Make your garden regenerative! https://kisstheground.com/5-ways-to-make-your-garden-regenerative/
PPS: Remember the pollinators! Read Charlie’s recent blog post here on our website.
PPPS: And these tips by Ernestine about plant sharing are also well worth a read.
One of the great things about having an established garden is that I can pass on cuttings and seedlings or bits of plants that needed to be divided to friends neighbours and even passers-by. Chats and walks in the garden ensued, and visitors would walk away with bags brimful of bits and pieces.
In these times of spacial distance this is no longer possible. However, more people are finding an interest in gardening, at a time when gardening centres are closed and many online gardening sites are unable to keep up with the demand.
One way of overcoming this unfortunate set of circumstances is by sharing plants. Simply leave surplus plants in your porch (in a bucket of water) and tell friends via social media what they can collect.
Some points to consider for the donor:
- If possible, pass on bare rooted plants, for immediate planting.
- If plants come with soil attached, try to remove the roots of weeds that may be lurking.
- Do not pass on plants that are diseased.
- Be willing to pass on some gardening knowledge to the recipients.
For the recipient:
- Bring your own container
- Take only what you need, there may be others interested also.
- Check your new plants for weeds and signs of disease.
That way we can share plants which may otherwise have been composted or placed in the brown bin.
Apart from everybody’s personal social network connections like Whats App, Twitter, Facebook etc there are dedicated sites and Facebook groups, such as Free Skerries Stuff and Skerries Connected… and our very own Skerries Food Gardening, set up by Sustainable Skerries!
Give it a try. Gardening is a gift that keeps on giving.
Let us know how you get on. 🌱
Ernestine Woelger
We live in strange times and all must make sacrifices of some kind or another but here in Ireland the covid outbreak has had an unexpected consequence: an upsurge of interest in gardening.
I found this out the hard way recently when going online to stock up on Irish wildflower seeds; every single site was sold out. Should have done my panic buying earlier!
Perhaps we should see this as a good thing; a small silver lining of hope and positivity as people plan and plant for the future. And if we are indeed to plant for the future, now is an excellent time to plant pollinator friendly flowers.
There are two different ways of going about this. Mention ‘pollinator friendly’ to most people and they will automatically assume wild seed mixes and undisturbed areas of the garden. More and more people are going this way, which is great news, but possibly not to everybody’s taste. Some might prefer more traditional cultivated plants and that’s okay, we’re all different after all.
Let’s deal with both in turn, starting with the wildflower approach.
The first thing to realise is that when dealing with wildflowers we’re immediately confronted with a gardener’s paradox. Most of us have spent years trying to improve soil fertility, whether to grow abundant vegetables or vibrant blooms. We’ve added peat, collected seaweed, mulched in compost and manure, some have used chemical fertilizers; anything to inject more nutrients and get things really going.
But guess what? Wildflowers prefer poor soil!
That’s a broad generalisation of course, and different species will have different optimum preferences, but it’s a good rule of thumb none the less. It’s also something of a lie. It’s not so much that they can’t grow on rich soil so much as they are out-competed by stronger plants, especially grasses; they quite simply get swamped.
If sowing wildflower seeds, the best thing to do is dig out as many of the perennial weeds and grass roots as reasonably possible, make sure there is as much bare earth as you can, scatter your seeds and stand well back. Repeat next spring.
Establishing a permanent wildflower meadow actually requires more work and takes years to achieve, up to ten believe it or not. Another paradox.
Christine and Mike Mullan Jensen wish to see a vibrant show of wildflowers this summer and are in an excellent position to do so. They moved into a newly built house a couple of years ago and their front garden was pretty much a barren wasteland of builder’s rubble which grew a few weeds and not much else.
Long story short: the weeds are now gone, the area landscaped, and the bare earth about to be seeded. Watch this space!
On to the traditional cultivated style of garden:
Just because flowers have been selectively bred to enhance their beauty and showiness does not always mean that they are of no use to pollinators. They often are, but not always. The trick is to pick the right ones.
This is not always easy to do. Look at a daffodil, it looks like it should be full of nectar and pollen but in fact it’s pretty useless. By contrast, a grape hyacinth appears insignificant but is in fact far better. Has anyone noticed that Fingal have now started mixing them in with their roadside plantings of daffodils by the way?
There are guidelines. Anything double petalled can be written off. This includes such as roses and dahlias, both excellent in their open-faced single form and no use at all as doubles. The stamens have been selectively bred out to be replaced by petals, bees find them impossible to negotiate.
Some cultivars of sunflower should be avoided. Ludicrous as it sounds, these have been bred to have little or no pollen. Reason? As cut flowers they don’t drop inconvenient yellow powder on the living-room table.
Honestly! The things we humans come up with.
‘Proper’ sunflowers are excellent by the way.
Lovers of hanging baskets might be dismayed to hear that petunias are useless.
Plants such as pansies and double begonias offer little benefit to bees due to their shape and little-to-no production of pollen or nectar,
Here’s a copy and paste list of some of the better ones:
- Asters
- Clover
- Dahlias
- Foxglove
- Geraniums
- Marigolds
- Poppies
- Roses
- Snowdrops
- Sunflowers
- Bluebells
- Honeysuckle
Crocus – all types provide rich sources of pollen
Cheiranthus and Erysimum – wallflowers for pollen and nectar
Galanthus – snowdrops are valuable because they flower so early
Muscari – grape hyacinth are good for pollen
Annual and Perennial Flowers
Aubretia – long flowering season
Centauria (cornflower)
Echium
All native geraniums [NB NOT pelargonium]
Helianthus (Sunflower)
Impatiens
Kniphofia (red-hot pokers)
Lilium -excellent for pollen
Lavatera (mallow)
Limanthes douglasii (poached egg plant)
Lithodora
Nepeta (cat nip)
Papaver (poppies) excellent for pollen
Phacelia tanacetifolia
Romneya coulteri (californian poppy)
Solidago (Golden Rod)
Herbs are good for bees
Boragio and related herbs like comfrey
Lavandula (lavender)
Mentha (mint)
Origanum (marjoram, oregano)
Rosemarinus (rosemary)
Thymus (thyme)
Late Summer – Autumn Plants for Bees
Asters, especially multiple heads like Michaelmas daisies
Calluna (ling heather)
Erica (bell heather)
Gaillardia
Hydrangea (choose lace-cap varieties)
Hypericum (rose of sharon)
Lamium (dead nettles)
Nemophila (shoo-fly plant)
Sedum (ice plant)
Stranvaesia
One final word:
It’s worth remembering that bees and other pollinators desperately need pollen and nectar both in early Spring and late Summer/Autumn. In Spring because they’ve just come out of hibernation and urgently need food; in late Summer to build up reserves to survive the Winter. Planting both early and late flowering varieties gets the pollen and nectar to them when they need it most.
—————————————–
And another final word:
We have a limited supply of wildflower seed to give away. First come, first served.
Also, we have set up a WhatsApp group for anyone interested in the above. Intended for those who wish to exchange ideas, information, experience etc.
If you wish to be added to the group email charleseheasman@gmail.com
Whether they preferred cooking or eating, or both – the people of Skerries were invited to the 1st Sustainable Skerries Global Feast on Saturday, 8 March 2020. It was a true celebration of all the different cultures here in Skerries. The Old School at Skerries Community Centre was a great venue for this event and really added to the atmosphere.
Everyone was thinking global and did their best to buy the ingredients locally. Especially good was the no-waste ethos: The organisers, Christine and Co, had asked everyone to bring their own plate, cutlery, cup… This worked really well, and is something we will certainly try to replicate for future Sustainable Skerries events!
There was space for 15 local people to volunteer to prepare a dish or dessert each, and for just over 60 in total to be at the event. There would have been demand for way more spaces, and once such events are possible again, we hope to run something similar.
The chefs brought in wonderful food that was laid out buffet style. We all sat around tables of 8 and tucked in. The atmosphere was wonderful, as was the food, and it felt as though not just new contacts, but possibly new friendships were made. Recipes were exchanged, and there was even a bit of singing!
The guests had been encouraged to bring containers in case they’d like to bring some food home. In the end, there were few leftovers, but they were all taken home eagerly. No food waste at this event, that’s for sure. And even better they took their own dirty dishes home! Little did we know that this would be the last in person event for a while.
The event was made possible thanks to funding from the Communities Integration Grant of the Office for Promotion of Migrant Integration.
There was also a great article about this in Skerries News, see below.
Photographs by Sabine, Vivek (2)
All the chefs! 
Beautiful singing from India. 
Sat 21 March, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Skerries Sailing Club
Formerly the Head Gardener at the Organic Centre at Rossinver, Co. Leitrim, Ireland, Klaus Laitenberger has been growing vegetables organically for 20 years in the UK and Ireland. He has given a couple of gardening courses in Skerries before, which were very well received, so we are delighted to welcome him back. Book early!
Klaus will be giving a full day talk on growing organic vegetables on Saturday 21st March. Venue to be confirmed.
Cost €5, payable at the door. Maximum 50 places.Subsidised by Sustainable Skerries as part of our Communities Integration Fund grant.
To book your space, send an email as soon as possible to marsie.mary@gmail.com – this will soon be fully booked!
To learn more about green vegetable seeds, growing your own vegetables etc., see his website (click on the image below or go to https://greenvegetableseeds.com/)
Whether you prefer cooking or eating, or indeed like both – you are invited to our 1st Global Feast! It’s a chance to celebrate all the different cultures we have in Skerries.
- Sun 8 March 2020, 1 – 3 p.m.
- Room 1, The Old School at the Community Centre Skerries
- Fully booked – we are hoping to report on this event soon after it takes place, and to run another one in the not-too-distant future!
We have capacity for 64 guests, including as many as 15 people preparing food. We would love to have a mix of our global and Irish cuisine at the event and are looking for cooks to create dishes from different cultures that you make at home. So far we have Danish, Brazilian, Hungarian, Irish, Polish, Italian, Indian, Vietnamese, German and Turkish food being prepared. What a super collection! Can you add to that? Let us know if you’d like to be involved and what dish(es) you think would work to share on the day. We would recommend that the food is prepared in advance to ensure smooth running on the day. Since it is a public event we would advise that all ingredients are listed.
WE HAVE REACHED THE CAPACITY OF COOKS, TOO, THANK YOU!
Cooks will receive €20 towards your ingredients, thanks to funding from the Communities Integration Grant of the Office for Promotion of Migrant Integration. This is a free event, but there will be a donation box with moneys collected going to a relevant charity.
We look forward to making this booked-out Global Feast the first of many!
Zaneta will lead a foraging walk, starting at Skerries South Strand.
This event is funded through our Communities Integration Fund grant.
Zaneta is no stranger to Sustainable Skerries, as she was one of our founding members! She now lives in rural Ireland, from where she runs her company, Rerooting the Future, and we are very happy to welcome her back for a visit to our town for this foraging workshop.
Foraging is just one of the many things she teaches (they also include fermentation, making your own body care products, cooking with reduced food waste…).
Zaneta will lead a foraging walk on Saturday 4th April from 2 p.m., starting on the South Strand. Meet at the public toilets close to Gerry’s Supermarket, be prepared for all weather! The walk will take roughly two hours. It is free, but limited to 30 spaces – secure yours on our Eventbrite page!
Children must be accompanied and supervised by a responsible adult.
This event has been postponed due to health concerns arising from the spread of COVID-19 (particularly now the WHO is declaring it a pandemic and there is a rapid increase in cases). A new date will be found as soon as possible.
Skerries welcomes Éanna Ní Lamhna (The Tree Council) & Kevin Halpenny (Fingal County Council) for a Tree- and Biodiversity- Focused Evening
Are you interested in trees and how they can contribute to life and biodiversity in our town?
On Thursday 12 March, at 8 p.m. (doors open 7.40 p.m.), in the Little Theatre, well-known environmentalist and media personality Éanna Ní Lamhna (Vice Chair of The Tree Council) will talk about “The Importance of Trees” – followed by a presentation by Fingal County Council’s Parks Superintendent Kevin Halpenny.
Kevin is in charge of the current review of Fingal’s Tree Strategy and will be talking about “Biodiversity and the Draft Fingal Tree Strategy.”
After the two presentations, there will be time for discussion and questions and answers.
This promises to be a very interesting evening. It is organised by a number of groups with an active interest in trees in Skerries: The Skerries Community Association, Skerries Tidy Towns, Crann Padraig, and Sustainable Skerries. The organisers hope it will inform significantly their input into the draft Tree Strategy, which is currently being drawn up.
- This is a free event, but space is limited, so please book your ticket here: SustainableSkerries.Eventbrite.ie
Sabine McKenna writes: I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. While on a train. While walking. While in the garden. Folding laundry. Packing a suitcase before going away. Doing the dishes. And many of them have recently been sustainability-focused. Here’s a few that might be of interest to others, too!
- Podcasts are on-demand audio programs that you can usually listen to on a website or through a podcast app.
- If you’re on a phone, listening through an app is easiest. I use Podbean, my family are more on PodcastAddict; Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast are others.
- Many podcasts are also available as videos, most often on YouTube – great for those who prefer watching to listening!
By the way, there’s a monthly Sustainable Chat Club here in Skerries which involves the host(s) picking a podcast or two, or a video, to which we listen and about which we then talk. If you’re interested, send an email to SustainableSkerriesNewsletter@gmail.com !
My Top 3 Choices: Podcasts with an Eco Twist
The Rich Roll Podcast: We Can Solve Climate Change
Website: https://www.richroll.com/podcast/paul-hawken-473/
Podcast: Rich Roll Podcast # 473
- Climate Change can be solved.
- Paul Hawken talks about how in his book: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Google it.
- Paul Hawken and his team of researchers have looked at the proven ways. Guess what the top three are. Then listen. Or take a look at the top 10 here if you don’t want to listen to it all…
Rich Roll is an American podcaster who loves the “long form” podcast. He does in-depth interviews which I find very good for long slow runs, or an extended session in the garden. Here’s a bit of his bio:
A graduate of Stanford University and Cornell Law School, Rich is a 50-year old, accomplished vegan ultra-endurance athlete and former entertainment attorney turned full-time wellness & plant-based nutrition advocate, popular public speaker, husband, father of 4 and inspiration to people worldwide as a transformative example of courageous and healthy living.
Mothers of Invention: You probably have everything you need.
Fashion and climate. Who would have thought that the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, was going to co-host this really entertaining as well as educational podcast! She and her co-host, comedian Maeve Higgins, talk about different climate change topics to (mostly) women from around the world.
Season 2 – Episode 8is of particular interest to those who want to be more considerate when it comes to fashion and the environment.
From the show notes:
As a result of long supply chains and energy intensive production, the fashion industry is now the fifth-largest polluting sector in the world constituting 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this week’s episode, we take a look at the $2.5 trillion dollar industry to explore the potential of a triple bottom line: people, profits and planet. This week’s guest host is Vietnamese-born, Thao Vu, an eco-fashion designer and founder of label, Kilomet109. Her return to traditional dying practices, handmade silk production and waste management is opening up conversations on how to rethink what we expect from our clothing. And Céline Semaan is a Lebanese-Canadian sustainability literacy consultant and educator for the fashion industry based in New York. She talks us through the concepts of slow fashion and circularity, and whether it really can affect change in the industry.
Green Dreamer: Restoring the New York Harbor to the thriving marine ecosystem it once was (Interview with Murray Fisher of Billion Oyster Project)
In this podcast episode, Murray sheds light on why restoring oyster reefs will be a crucial step towards restoring the New York Harbor to being one of the most ecologically diverse marine ecosystems as it once was; the power in leading restoration and rewilding projects in the heart of urban landscapes as opposed to in more remote regions; and more.
I love this episode for a number of reasons. It shows wonderfully how environmental challenges can be tackled if people and communities work together. It stresses the importance of education and portrays a very different high school. It is about New York, one of my favourite places on this planet. (Don’t ask, I don’t know myself why that is the case.) And it shows how step by step, a huge project can grow.
Green Dreamer? A very well-produced, easy-to-listen-to podcast that even has an “onboarding” program for those new to it, with daily emails that point you in the direction of those podcasts that might be of most interest to you. And given that there are now 195 episodes, that is a very helpful offer!
By the way, the latest episode seems highly interesting, too (I haven’t heard it yet): Creating community gardens in food deserts to improve access to good health (Interview with Rob Horton of Trap Garden) I think I’ll have to go on a long (podcast) walk tomorrow…
- Are you a podcast or vlog fan? Do you have favourite TEDx talks or YouTube videos that you think we should feature here? Please send an email to SustainableSkerriesNewsletter@gmail.com with your ideas – and maybe you’d like to join us for the next monthly Sustainable Fireside Chat? Same email address!
Sustainable Skerries recently held their second Repair Café, and it was an even bigger success than the first.
The venue was changed for this event; being held this time in the Little Theatre. This gave everyone plenty of space to work and move around in and good light in order to see what they were doing, particularly for the fiddly intricate stuff.
The main focus was once again on clothing and fabric repairs but, given the time of year, it was only natural that Christmas decorations featured heavily as well.
Local artist Niamh Sharkey had a table making Christmas cards, very popular with the adults as well as the youngsters; Connie Lai demonstrated Danish decorations; fabric repairs were facilitated by Ernestine Woelger, Mary Marsden, Nara Fritch and others.
The Men’s Shed had a table, where they demonstrated, amongst other things, restoration projects they had completed for Skerries Mills.
Local artisan silversmith Ed Cooke brought along a toolbox full of mysterious implements and demonstrated jewellery repairs and how to clean antique silver.
Back on the festive front, Marion and Charlie Heasman were showing how to make Christmas table centrepieces from logs decorated with berries and greenery plucked from the hedgerow.
Most importantly, Karen McCaffrey and Niamh Quigley kept everyone supplied with tea, coffee and cake.
Apologies to those I’ve omitted to mention and thanks to everyone who pitched in
The beauty of this sort of event is that we all not only learn how to reduce our environmental footprint but we save money into the bargain. What’s more, it’s fun; the kids in the photos certainly seemed to think so.
Sustainable Skerries 