Local campaigner for Limerick Allotments,Trish Forde-Brennan has criticised the lack of vision shown by Limerick County Council in planning for allotments for the county. In its July meeting it was stated:
“The level of expressed interest in allotments on public land has been low.Community and Enterprise Section has received 6 expressions of interest for allotments since Sept 2008.” Read the rest of this entry »
The October meeting of the Limerick GIY group will be on Tuesday 26th October at 18-00, in the Savoy, Henry Street
Inaugural Limerick Meeting: Tuesday 12th October at 6:30 in Killoran House, Catherine Place, Limerick (Mandate office)
Day long Dublin session Saturday 30th October in the RDS; full details on website
Minister of State with special responsibility for Horticulture, Ciaran Cuffe will attend a series of events next week to promote National Organic Week 2010. Members of the media are invited to attend the following events:
Jim Cronin is running his growing course again this autumn; website
I recently met the Mayoress, Maria Byrne who committed to facilitating a meeting with city council to discuss putting a plan in place which would look at unused or derelict sites and identify how best they could be used. This would open up the possibility of Community Gardens, Allotments and Sustainable Communities. Today, I again contacted the Mayor’s office to get this meeting. Time is passing and people are eager to see real action not just talk.
For those living within the county authority and again reminded them that by late spring this year they would know more about what possible land might be available from completed road schemes. This is a slim option for site provision as there will be issues around entry/exit points to and from roads. Dara McGuigan has informed me that a report is being compiled for the councillors re the feasibility of providing allotments to people. We need to track this and make our voices heard. I am convinced that the council believes demand for sites is small so please contact me if you are interested in availing of an allotment site either within the city or county. It is now or never for those of us who wish to grow our own.
We had a meeting with officials from Limerick County Council to identify possible site provision and to make the council aware of the information we had gathered. It was a worthwhile meeting because we learned that while land may be available in West Limerick possible sites located close to the suburbs was problematic. There may be small pockets of land free when the National Roads Authority has completed road projects. The timeline identified for when this could be ascertained is the end of spring 2010. Even if land is available for allotments, exit and entry points could be an issue due to the location of such land. This timeline is now up and we are again recommencing our campaign.
Privately, sites are available in Annacotty and Murroe. We have contact details and information on these so if anyone is interested please email us and we will forward information to you. In the city there are disused sites which could be transformed into community gardens and allotment sites. Our next step is the setting up of a blogsite: “Limerick Allotments” to promote the campaign and to give advice to those who are growing fruit and vegetables or who would love to try.
Joy Larkcom has been growing vegetables for over 40 years and is one of the world’s leading experts in the field. As well as having built herself an enviable reputation as an author and gardener, Joy is also a well known journalist, lecturer and a well known radio and television broadcaster with the BBC.
Her books include Creative Vegetable Gardener, Oriental Vegetables, Salads for Small Gardens, The Organic Salad Garden, Grow Your Own Vegetables, and the revisions of the classic The Vegetable Garden Displayed.
Joy has won the Garden Writer of the Year award three times and in 1993 was awarded the prestigious Veitch Memorial Medal for services to horticulture. In November 2003 Joy was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Garden Writers Guild.
Joy Larkcom singlehandedly transformed the way we think about salad growing. In the mid-70’s, Joy and her young family set off on what they called ‘The Grand Vegetable Tour’, travelling around Europe seeking out unusual salad varieties, including many we now think of as salad garden standards, such as rocket and mizuna.
Vegetable growing is a passion with people from all walks of life, all races, all ages, and the plots they cultivate range from large country gardens to allotments, to tiny urban patches, to window boxes. For me, it is a very personal passion. In the 1970s my husband and I and our two young children spent a year touring western Europe in a caravan, studying vegetable growing and collecting old varieties. We “rediscovered” forgotten salad plants like rocket and chicory, as well as the then new red and green Italian Lollo lettuces. On our return we introduced them to the UK, along with the productive cut-and-come-again technique for growing salad seedlings.
I’ve always felt it is misleading to say growing vegetables is easy. It isn’t. Most vegetables need reasonably good soil, and there are lots of tricks to learn about raising them, harvesting them, growing the right amount for the family you are feeding. But newcomers shouldn’t be daunted. Vegetable growers are a generous community – never happier than when sharing experiences or the fruits of their labour. Never be afraid to ask advice, and watch carefully what the old hands are doing.
If you are setting out, start on a small scale. Little by little, what seemed daunting at first will become second nature, so never despair. Something will always succeed: a bad year for pumpkins will be a good year for peas.
A once in a lifetime event not to be missed by anyone with a green thumb!
See also: http://www.murroe.net/
