Let’s Grow Food!

Let’s Grow Food!

Onions from Niche Garden
Ripened Onions at Niche Community Garden, Cork

It’s January 2021 and time to start thinking of what food to grow this year.

You may be new to growing vegetables and fruits or you may have a lot of experience. You may or may not have a garden. The good news is that you can grow food anywhere. We are going to dedicate our work this year to discovering the joys of growing our own. We will be providing information on how to start, where to get seeds, what to grow, how to improve your soil. What month is best to grow what vegetables and so much more. We will also be visiting local gardens

and food growing communities in Cork and asking people to share their experiences. This site will serve as a go to resource for links to published articles, youtube videos, recommended books and manuals and so much more.

Covid 19 Lockdown and new opportunities for growing food

During the first Covid 19 lockdown the difficulty of getting seeds was an indication of the soaring level of interest in gardening across our country. Many seed suppliers had to temporarily close their sites to cope with the unforeseen demand. Such a surge of interest in growing was unprecedented in modern times. But people had more time on their hands, they were limited in where they could go. They began to look at their own space and how they might use it. For those who had long wanted to grow food but never got the chance this was a great opportunity. Across the country people began to discover the satisfaction of growing food for the first time.

Cork Food Policy Council’s aims

We want to support this effort to grow food. Cork Food Policy Council is dedicated to promoting local sustainably produced food. We are endeavouring to highlight the impact of food production on our health and on our environment. What can be more healthy than food that is grown locally. Even better, food that is grown in our own garden or local area. Can we begin to replace imported food varieties, that can easily be grown here, with our own? What about food security and the future impact of climate change to our food supply. What is the carbon footprint of imported into our country? Is this sustainable?

Time to get back our food growing skills

There are undeniable health benefits of working with the soil, of getting your hands in the earth, of connecting with nature. It is only in the last fifty years or so that we have turned away from growing food; most of our grandparents grew vegetables and fruit. But we lost those skills in the main and now is the time, if ever there was the right time to get back them back.

So come join us and together with our children we will embark on this wonderful adventure of growing our own!

FIVE TIPS FOR JANUARY

  1. Buy a garden diary, hardcover preferably to record dates of sowing, harvesting, seed varieties you have purchased and any other useful information
  2. If you are new to gardening and you have a garden take time to contemplate what part of your garden gets the most consistent sunlight, think about access. You might do an exercise of writing up an hourly observation of the sunlight trajection.
  3. Consider what vegetable / fruit varieties you would like to grow. What is your favourite vegetable, what would you eat most of?
  4. Begin to look at seed catalogues, this is great fun. Please see below for seed providers in Ireland. When you have decided what you wish to grow purchase your seed early to avoid disappointment.
  5. Mark out the ground in your garden you think would be most suitable for growing, you can do this by sticking twigs in the ground at the corners. Then measure the size and write it into your diary.

SEED PROVIDERS

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