DIARY DATE:THE WEATHER IS in a foul mood when I visit the allotments at Friarstown, near Tallaght, Dublin. Ink-stained clouds tumble overhead, driven by fierce winds bolting off the Dublin Mountains. They shed their load of water – wet, diagonal rain – before moving on their way, newly metamorphosed into well-behaved clusters of celestial white cotton wool. There will be more like them along shortly though, as the near persistent breeze guarantees that the weather doesn't stay the same for long up here.
“The wind is the greatest obstacle,” says Joe Brooks, who is secretary of the South Dublin Allotments Association. He stands in his plot, which – in common with most of the others here – is enclosed with turquoise windbreak netting. Within its confines is a mighty array of produce: potatoes (two kinds), swedes, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, kale, red cabbage, broccoli, peas, scallions, celeriac, courgettes, rhubarb, raspberries, currants, and all manner of herbs. (Many of the seeds for the aforementioned good things were acquired during a seed exchange and distribution day that took place earlier in the season. Seeds, bought in bulk, were resold for a euro a packet, and plot-holders with surplus seed of their own shared and swapped with their fellow gardeners.)
All around Brooks, the polypropylene netting boundaries shimmer iridescently in the sunlight, so that the entire southwest-facing slope, and its 128 plots, is overlaid with a giant sea-green cobweb. The wind up here has a benign side too: the air is rarely still enough for frost to form, and it also seems to deter some winged pests. And rabbits, which have not yet made their cute but horribly destructive little presences known in the three years since the site was opened, would find it difficult to negotiate the green netting boundaries.
The soil, hauled here after being removed for building works near the Square in Tallaght, is beautifully fertile. Most of Brooks’s crops have been in the ground for just two months, but they have put on prodigious amounts of growth in that short period. Michael Fox, chair of South Dublin Allotments Association, who has brought me here, is visibly envious. His own allotment, at the smaller Tymon Park in Tallaght, where there are just 13 plots, and which is more sheltered, has not yet this year produced anything to compare with this bounty. (Michael teaches a gardening course from his own back garden and allotment, see www.plottopot.ie for details.)
Besides Tymon and Friarstown, South Dublin County Council has allotment sites at Palmerstown and Corkagh Park. Fingal and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown local authorities also have operational or planned sites, while Dublin City Council is proposing to provide plots at St Anne’s Park. At present, there are hundreds of allotments in the four Dublin local authority areas, a cheering increase on the number – less than 100 in a single site – available a decade ago. Still, this is a trifle compared to the 7,413 plots that were in use in the Dublin Corporation area during the “Emergency”.
In the future, the possibility of growing our food on an allotment may be every bit as urgent as it was during the war years. Or so believes Michael Fox – and I’m inclined to agree with him. “We now have a convergence of far more factors than ever before,” he explains, “climate change, peak oil, food security issues, food miles, soil degradation, air degradation, water shortages, and so on.” All of this, he says, makes the idea of a plot of ground for people to grow their own food very relevant today.
Local authority allotments are reasonably priced (those in South Dublin are €40), making them affordable for those on reduced incomes. There are lengthening waiting lists for allotments in Dublin, as more and more individuals contact the development departments at their city and county council offices. (But don’t let this put you off, if you fancy the idea of tending a piece of land and coaxing food out of it. The more people who request allotments, the more the local authority has to take notice.)
Allotments, as everyone who has anything to do with them knows, are more than just a place to grow food. They are vibrant fresh air communities where people take exercise and interact with each other. A well managed and carefully designed site makes all of this easier. At Friarstown, for instance, the plots are divided by post and wire fencing (good fences make good neighbours), bark mulch is supplied for paths, and the rows of plots are accessed by tarmac lanes (wide enough for a car to drop off heavy materials). Water stands have been installed, and there are storage facilities for tools.
The oldest plots here opened just three years ago, but already the individual spaces are well imprinted with the personalities of the people who cultivate them. Some are scrupulously tidy, geometric projects, with raised beds edged in pristine timber and perfect slab paths; others are more impulsive creations, with beds dug the first place the spade landed; still others are tributes to the skip-foraging prowess of their owners – with old lumber, reused containers, and curious pieces of ironwork serving indefinable but important purposes.
There is something wonderfully optimistic about these 148 separate domains on this windswept hillside near Tallaght. Together they make a dynamic little world, visibly strung together by green netting, and invisibly too, by the energy of hundreds of people re-establishing mankind’s ancient and deeply satisfying connection with the soil.
jpowers@irishtimes.com
For further information on food growing in Dublin, see: www.dublinfoodgrowing.org
South Dublin Allotments Association hosts an open day at Friarstown Allotments on Saturday, July 25th, 12-4pm, in co-operation with South Dublin County Council and An Taisce Green Communities. Guided tours, talks, best vegetable prizes, advice. Admission free.
This week's work
If you've sown early potatoes, get them out of the ground now: leave them in any longer and underground slugs and other pests may find them. Potatoes are martyrs to pests and diseases, and should never be grown in the same soil for two years running. Make them part of a three-year rotation (or longer, ideally), to avoid a build-up of soil-borne problems.
For the same reason, be sure to remove all tubers, even the tiniest ones, when harvesting. Potatoes belong to the same family (Solanaceae) as tomatoes, peppers and aubergines, so avoid planting these afterwards.
At this point in the season, many gardeners have become weary of fiddling around with vegetable seeds. Nonetheless, I would urge you to sow purple sprouting broccoli for next spring, if you haven't yet done so. Chard (rainbow and ruby, and the traditional white-ribbed Swiss chard) is another excellent overwintering crop to sow now. You may also sow French and runner beans for late crops, as well as salad leaves, scallions and radishes.