Tag: organic

Categories
All Posts

Promoting Local – LoveFresh

Are you a local egg supplier in Ballyboughal ? Maybe a parsley grower in Tubbercurry ? Maybe you are are an ethical traveller and looking to eat the most local produce possible ? What if you did and found a cheese producer in Bandon and simply wanted to tell the whole world about them ?

One of the hardest things, even for me living in farmland county nowhere is finding the most locally sourced produce. The fact that it maybe organic or homegrown is [and so it should be] to your preference, but what if you wanted to globally make a difference ?

Someone it seems just has. What if I told you that via technology local could become international….?

Personally, I really enjoyed listening to Mark Spofforth and the story of Lovefresh

Call it what you may – but once again this is the individual doing something for the greater good and promoting what is local rather than what is greater for a promotional body. It is more than that putting the small guy, the local guy live on the map for the entire world to see and that has to be a good thing.

What do you think….?

Contact Mark and his friends at Lovefresh

  • Lovefresh on the web
  • Via Twitter @lovefreshHQ or Mark @MarkSpoff
  • email: mark@lovefre.sh
  • telpehone: [0044] 0207 617 7183

I like this bit for producers….

Producers – we connect you with your community!

Lovefre.sh bridges the gap between producer and community by providing producers with some simple, social tools. We will soon be rolling out our Producer specific features;

– ‘Claim’ your location and provide contact details and opening times, which are then viewable in the app. As people travel near you, they will be advised of your location and can contact you with a click.

– ‘Blip’ ‘What’s Fresh’ on a daily basis, to anyone who is local to you.

– ‘Menu’ allows you to maintain a simple 10 item list of what’s good, fresh and in stock.

– ‘Profile’ lets producers curate their favourite photo’s, audio and comments about their business. From within the app. A superbly easy way for you to establish a web presence, with a few clicks.

We want to encourage you to interact with your community. Our goal is to make that very easy for you to do.

We hope you’ll get in touch with us so we can get you involved in Lovefre.sh and help your business thrive. Contact us here, or e-mail beta@lovefre.sh so we can set you up as a Producer Beta Tester – which will give you early access to all features, as we roll them out.

Give us a call if you’d like to chat more.

Best,

Mark

Categories
All Posts Garden Talks and Events with Peter Donegan

Grow Your Own Garden Class

  • course title: grow your own garden class
  • where: ballyboughal [just outside Swords, north Dublin]
  • when: saturday 21st August 2010
  • time: 9.30am – 3.30pm
  • cost: €75 – including morning tea, lunch and all materials
  • numbers limit: minimum of 8 and 12 people max


Who is it for:

  • If you don’t wish to farm your entire garden
  • or remortgage the house so you can garden full time
  • If don’t [or do] have an allotment
  • or you simply wish to gather the simple basics to get started
  • whether you have a window ledge or a small patio
  • or just wish to grow in pots on that amount of space
  • I’ll assume you have a life, possibly kids and a full time job
  • or just enough time in life between eastenders and the 9 o’clock news.

A similar set up to the previous GYO class, the theory is that in one session you will go home with enough skills to be able to look after yourself from a grow your own – without the use of a tractor – point of view 😉

Interested or want to book yourself in ? :

very simple….

  • leave a comment below
  • email me info[at]doneganlandscaping.com
  • telephone mobile 087-6594688
  • or do so via the contact page

Note:

if numbers are 8 or more it’ll run – if not no bother. If you do put your name down keep an eye on this blog post. But I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t. Weather won’t pose a problem. Numbers will include only the first 8/12 names down on the list.

There’s an idea:

interested in having your very own personalised class done at your place of work or home for your group of friends or colleagues…. ? contact details above.

Categories
All Posts

The Real Pumpkin Farm…

pumpkin
pumpkins

I had written an article last year on growing pumpkins from seed [check out the comments for ] and it seems many of you are on the hunt for pumpkins…. particularly pumpkin farms.

I did try and I did put the S.O.S out there for you. But there was very little response. If you know of anyone – leave a comment & make them famous 😉 But I did ring Natasha in Sonairte [click here], a place I have visited in Co. Meath [ just past balbriggan] many times. The mother of all gig for kids has to be the pumpkin carving course….. It’s times like this even I wish I had children 😉

Natasha sent me this email:

Pumpkins are such cheerful bumps in the garden aren’t they?  The perfect colour to remind us which season we are in. Growing up in Australia, one of my fav winter dishes was pumpkin soup and you can’t beat roast pumpkin sprinkled with rosemary, thyme and salt.

News just in!! I have been out in the garden just this afternoon, chatting to the gardeners. They tell me that due to the inclement weather this year, our stocks are depleted, and everything has now been harvested! But don’t worry, there are still some left including some big rounded beauties! They are a bit pricier than what you would buy in other shops, not for growing up organic, but because they should keep for several months.

Sonairte’s pumpkins and our other organic produce and plants can be found at the Dublin Food Coop every Saturday, 9.30-4pm. Its an indoor market, Newmarket Square just off the Combe, Dublin 8. Here you will find fantastic organic food products including wines, breads, cheeses, dry goods and good coffee. www.dublinfood.coop. The market has a lovely, friendly atmosphere and you can by lunch and read the papers at your leisure. Alternatively pop into Sonairte itself and visit our ecoshop. We are on the Laytown Road just off Meaths coastline! Only 40 minutes from Dublin, there’s a bus service stopping right outside. Most convenient, especially if you’re carrying a pumpkin! The ecoshop, café and river walk are open 10.30 – 5pm wednesday to sunday

FYI, Sonairte hosts a Pumpkin Carving workshop, for adults and children. Its next Friday 30th Oct, Time: 11 -1pm, Cost: 20€ (1 adult, 1 child,1 pumpkin!).

For anyone who would like to learn more about growing their own veg and fruit, here are the details of other courses.

Thanks Peter for your time. If readers have any organic gardening queries, they can feel free to give us a buzz.

Cheers

Natasha

pumpkin-jack-o-lanten-2
pumpkins...

Other sonairte courses this year:

SOFT FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES IN THE GARDEN

With Kathy Marsh. A complete course on fruit growing for amateurs, covering choosing, planting, pruning and propagating.

Date: November 7th and 8th, 10- 4pm Cost: €120 or €75/ day (incl. lunch)

DRY STONE WALL BUILDING

With Bob Wilson (CELT). Covering basic techniques from foundation to capping. Also corners, steps, stiles, retaining walls and garden features and introduction to the use of lime mortar. Bring strong boots and rainwear .

Date: November 7th and 8th, 10am – 5pm. Cost: €150 (incl. lunch)

GROW IT YOURSELF

Course tutors Kathy Marsh and Geraldine O’Toole. A one day course at an affordable price to get you started on producing tasty, cheap and nutritious organic vegetables in even the smallest garden

Date: Saturday November 14th. Time: 10am – 4pm. Cost: €35.

*Please note that lunch is not provided. Our cafe will be open or you can bring your own and eat it at our garden picnic tables. All our courses can be viewed on our website. For more information and to book: Call 0419827572, e-mail: info@sonairte.org, website: www.sonairte.org

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Categories
All Posts

organic, recycled gardens …?

...unless you own a truck that is
...unless you own a truck that is

Why is there a picture of a man sitting on a truck at the bottom of this post…? The man is my good friend Thomas. You may know him from his most unusual garden guest post here. But you may also know Thomas from the much famed Irish Allotments – something, unknowns to most, he does in his spare time. All told that makes him a pretty good guy. And he is. Genuinely.

Anyhow Thomas and Máire [another story, but, via genuinely the sincerest gesture of genorosity I’ve ever heard – yes niceness still exists 🙂 ] have just moved out of their apartment and into their first house home. Naturally, like all young couples – the extra dollars didn’t exist for their first garden to look like Southfork immediately… and Thomas being an eco-geek like myself wanted it to have a story anyway charachter.

Tommy, would you like a recycled garden… ?

...organic gardens
...organic gardens

To answer the original question… We had taken apart a garden recently and rather than dump the stone to landfill, I called Thomas. Client also agreed and felt it was very much the ‘thing to do’. A truck was hired for one hundred euro.

What had actually accumulated was

  • 45 metres squared paving
  • 2 tonne of decorative gravel
  • 20 metres squared steppings
  • 25 metres squared cobbles
  • and some chicken wire
  • …and a half sheet of trellice
thomas...
thomas...

I thought of some of my friends, years ago, when the starter home and mortgage deposits were being paid back to the sibblings they were borrowed from [funny thing, a story like that would probably make the news today 🙂 ]. A shed, a fence, a something to enhance the eyesore was required and we all chipped in. All of the friends. There were *no* complaints, it was the done thing. Feng Shui’s weren’t on the wish list. Thomas was starting were I started 🙂

As a by the way he lives in Cork and although I will be there whenever he needs help… I will not be responsible for the final outcome of the ‘design’. Note no.2 is that apart from the truck hire of €100 all materials were taken/ given free gratis. More important. There was a massive feel good factor for all parties concerned. Everyone felt good about this story. Thomas has also agreed to write a little story with pictures of the complete garden and its progress on his weblog:)

So from now, if I do a garden and the client decides/ agrees with the decision to do so – I will take the ‘whatever it is’ to my home rather than to landfill [where possible] and write a post on my blog to see if we can find a good home for it.

What do you think?