In a new series on growing your own, garden designer Fionnuala Fallonon how urban farmers can get the basics of where, when and how to begin
WHEN MY husband and I first bought our very old and very ramshackle, country farmhouse on almost five acres, it was the garden that we immediately fell in love with.
Not that you could call the wild meadow, which sloped gently down to the nearby river, a proper garden, but it did hold out the firm promise of one.
As a garden designer, I began to daydream of blowsy herbaceous borders, formal avenues of pleached lime trees and delicate wildflower meadows. More than anything else, though, I lusted after my own beautiful and productive fruit and vegetable garden, crammed full of fresh, seasonal produce and native fruit trees. Four years later, as the inch-by-inch, often DIY renovations limp to a close, I’m finally putting pen to tracing paper and sketching out the rough design. I can’t wait to get going, and I’m delighted to discover that I’ll be in good company as more and more people discover the pleasures of producing their own food.
But what’s particularly interesting about the recent surge of interest in growing your own (GYO) is that it’s not just amongst country dwellers with large gardens. As sales of vegetable seeds soar, waiting lists for allotments lengthen and productive school and community gardens pop up all over towns and cities, a new species of gardener, fondly nicknamed the “urban farmer”, has begun to appear.
They’re young-ish, enthusiastic and as likely to grow their own in a window box, tiny balcony or community garden as in the more traditional back garden veg plot. They’ve already decided that the best kind of garden is the edible kind – their only stumbling block is a certain lack of know-how.
It’s the very basics of where, when and how to begin GYO that’s sometimes causing difficulties. As Bruce Darrell, founder of the Dublin Food Group, said: “The primary limitation for most people is not space. It’s the lack of knowledge about how to grow food that is our biggest issue.”
My own conversations with friends and relatives, many of them recent converts to GYO, confirmed this. “It’s the practical things I want answers to,” says a friend and recent GYO convert. “Like where to source organic seeds, well-rotted manure, decent top soil and railway sleepers to make raised beds.”
“What exactly,” asked another friend, “is potato chitting?”
“What I’d really love,” said another, “is a hands-on, weekly guide to GYO, that’s particular to the Irish climate.”
Great idea, I thought, and decided that a visit to the OPW’s newly restored, Victorian walled fruit and vegetable garden in the Phoenix Park was just what was required. Along with interesting, economical and labour-saving design ideas, I was on the hunt for more practical information on the nuts and bolts of GYO food.
Opened in 2007, the organic walled garden at Ashtown Demesne is maintained by OPW gardener, Declan Donohoe, and his two young protégés, Brian Quinn and Meeda Downey. All three are graduates of the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, so when it comes to the practical, nitty-gritty business of gardening, they know their stuff. Over the last four years, they’ve helped to transform a former wasteland, knee-high with weeds, into the truly beautiful and productive garden that it is today. If anybody knows the answers to the who, what, where, when and how of beginning to GYO in Ireland, they do.
Over the next three months, this column will be following weekly events in the garden at Ashtown and featuring plenty of useful advice gleaned from the gardeners, as well as a weekly “to do” list. By the end of it, you should be well on your way to growing your own fresh, delicious food and, hopefully, you’ll also see a big difference in your food bills.
Even if you haven’t used a rake since you were a teenager earning some pocket money, you’re also likely to discover that GYO can be fun, creative and curiously addictive, as well as highly competitive.
Just ask the gardeners in Ashtown: according to Declan Donohoe, his fellow gardener Brian Quinn has become so caught up with beating the world record for the biggest pumpkin that it’s becoming something of an obsession.
“It’s just getting ridiculous,” says Donohoe, rolling his eyes to heaven with a grin.
“It’s all he wants to talk about these days. We’ve had to start asking him to change the subject.”
When?
Now is the time to get started as the growing season has definitely arrived. Prepare the ground/ clean out plant pots and get ready to GYO. You’ll need a decent garden fork, a spade, a hoe and a rake (unless you’re gardening only in containers).
A hand trowel and a decent watering-can/garden hose are also fairly essential, as is a good wheelbarrow for those with largish gardens.
Follow the weekly “to do” list from next week, which will give details of which vegetables can be sown/planted out each week.
Where?
Vegetables and fruit trees/bushes like a rich, fertile, well-drained soil in full sun (consider pots, containers and window-boxes if you’re an apartment dweller with limited space). If you don’t have your own garden, think about renting an allotment or joining a community garden. Check out the Dublin Food Growing Group at http://dublinfoodgrowing.org as well as the Cork Food Web at http://corkfoodweb.ning.com and the Waterford Food Producers’ Network at www.michaelkelly.ie for more details.
Alternatively, perhaps a friend or relative with a large, little-used garden might be happy to lend you a corner of it in return for some of your produce.
Start small: a well-tended raised bed will produce far more than a badly maintained half-acre.
Why?
There are so many reasons. For better flavour and greater variety; for the fact that you’ll be eating truly fresh food that is always in season; for peace of mind as regards hidden pesticides or chemicals and wasteful food miles; to save lots of money; but most of all for the satisfaction and pleasure it will bring you.
How?
Get the basics right and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how easy it is. Always start with the soil: experienced gardeners enthuse about great soil because they know from bitter experience what a huge difference it makes in terms of maintenance and the end result, the produce. If you’re starting from scratch on a green site, you need to clear the ground of all weeds, then dig and manure it.
In Ashtown, Declan took a long-term practical approach, and after levelling and marking out the site, he sprayed emerging weeds several times over a couple of months with RoundUp, a non-residual weedkiller that breaks down on contact with the soil.
His reasoning is that it’s much easier to subsequently use organic-only methods if you start off with a completely weed-free site (others prefer to kill weeds by covering the ground with heavy-gauge black polythene, an approach that takes six to 12 months to be effective).
Once Declan was sure that the ground was clear, his team then edged the beds with pressure-treated timber and brought in tonnes of well-rotted manure, which was dug in well. If you have limited space or very poor soil, think about building a raised bed using railway sleepers as retaining edges.
Fill it with top soil and manure, making sure to gently tread down the soil as you go, to avoid subsidence.
In next week’s Property supplement Urban Farmer will cover planting your first asparagus
Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer
