Interest growing in sustainable living

RECORD cold weather has meant hard ground and difficult conditions for plants and gardeners alike. Frozen out of the garden for most of the winter, many are now waiting with anticipation for the coming season, considering their seed choices and planning their way towards the garden of their dreams. Two South Galway women hope to help.
Anna Jeffrey Gibson and Lynn O’Keeffe-Lascar founded Kinvara Sustainable Living two years ago and since then, the interest in sustainability and growing one’s own vegetables and fruit has soared.
“There definitely is a renewed interest in sustainability. One course which we had a lot of interest in last year was growing soft fruit and making jam and ice cream. We are running that again. I think people are getting back into jam and chutney making,” outlines Lynn.
“Poultry keeping is popular with young people and teenagers, who are entrepreneurial and want to make a bit of money from selling eggs to their neighbours,” she adds.
Indeed, it is not just the traditional gardening fraternity enlisting the guidance of Kinvara Sustainable Development. It is now working with local businesses and with pupils in nearby Seamount College to develop their horticultural skills.
“We have provided staff training for Hotel Doolin, who bought in a polytunnel to grow herbs and vegetables for the kitchen. We started with Seamount College this Wednesday teaching horticulture to transition-year students. Seamount has a beautiful garden from the convent and there are the remnants of a vegetable garden and orchard and a green house there. There are lots of careers in horticulture now for people to get into and it is also a brilliant life skill to be able to grow their own food. Lots of houses in the countryside are on half an acre and there is plenty of food that can be grown on half an acre. I think it would be great to see people utilising this asset,” Lynn believes.
Kinvara Sustainable Development’s latest programmes of grow-your-own classes and courses are starting in February. Lynn and Anna are running spring evening classes in Kinvara village and Athenry town, as well as day-long courses throughout the year covering topics as diverse as poultry keeping, cob oven building, poly tunnel cultivation and orchard husbandry.
“Fresh fruit and veg means good food. Jam making is now part of our late summer schedule and we always provide home baking for our evening classes and excellent homemade lunches for our day courses,” adds Anna.
For those who would love to start growing their own food but are at a loss as to how to begin, Anna believes the answer is to get together in a class with a group of like-minded people and learn together. Fruit growing for beginners kicks off at the beginning of February and runs on Thursdays in Athenry, with days and times in Kinvara to be arranged.
“Now is the time to plan your fruit garden. You’ll save money buying bare root plants, available up to March, and have healthy well-established plants come spring. This course will cover planning an orchard and soft fruit garden, buying bare root plants,  what varieties to buy, how to prepare the soil and site, staking and pruning. It will also cover how to grow strawberries, raspberries and currants and the basics of making jam,” outlines Anna.
Ten weeks of fruit and vegetable growing evening classes will also start next month. This comprises four evenings on fruit growing and six evenings plus a half-day in the garden on vegetables.
In March, there will be a six-evening create your own kitchen garden course outlining the basics of growing vegetables with a half-day practical class. This course will cover locating a vegetable plot, preparing the soil, soil types and testing, raised beds, successful seed sowing, manures and composts, rotations, what to sow when and growing vegetables. The half-day practical will take place at Doorus Orchard project in Kinvara, where there are vegetable gardens, polytunnels and fruit gardens.
The goal of Kinvara Sustainable Living is to encourage and support practical small-scale food production in the community to enable people to grow their own food and improve their quality of life.
“Sustainable food production means looking after the land and raising plants and animals without the use of toxic chemicals. An increased awareness of the seasonal nature of locally grown food follows logically. Eating local produce is environmentally sound – reducing food miles and, if grown in a sustainable manner, limiting pollution,” explains Anna.
For further information, see www.kinvarasustainableliving.com, call Lynn on 091 638099, or email Lynn or Anna at Kinvarasustainableliving@gmail.com.