This article is from page 30 of the 2007-10-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 30 JPG
GARDENING the way our grand- parents might have done it is making a comeback.
A community garden in east Clare is providing inspiration for many local people who had never turned their hand to growing their own fruit and vegetables before.
Brendan Sanders is part of the esroup which set up the community garden two years ago and now that it has been so successful, he hopes to see a project on a larger scale get off the ground with a community allot- ment of a few acres.
The garden became possible thanks to the generosity of a local woman, Mary Henchy, who owned one eight of an acre of land behind Brian and Joe’s Café in Scarif.
She wanted to see some use made
of it rather than simply keeping the grass and weeds under control and she offered it to the intrepid garden- ing group.
‘Four people got together initially to set up the garden project,’ said Brendan. “It’s a place where people can come and work in the garden or learn about growing plants and veg- etables or just come and sit.”
Local people drop in from time to time to get advice on growing or to see what is being done in the garden and some come to help.
It is also used by clients of the Brother’s of Charity.
The gardeners also cultivate me- dicinal and culinary herbs and trees, making it a woodland garden.
One day a week, it’s the setting for a sculpture workshop.
“We had two local girls in their twenties drop in last week. They
were very interested in learning how to grow their own food and they’ve agreed to come and work with us. We also get older people coming in and they tell us how there was always a bit of land on their parent’s farms where vegetables and fruit were grown for the house,” said Brendan.
Parents often call at weekends with their children to show them around and school groups come in from time to time.
The Alpha Project, an alternative second-level education project, has a module on gardening on it’s curricu- lum and the youngsters involved do the module in the garden.
“It’s a way of bringing different sections of the community together, doing something which 1s sustain- able and productive,” said Brendan.
Recently, a community composting facility has been started in the gar-
den with funding from Agenda 21 for a compost bin and two wormer- ies. Nearby households were given plastic composting buckets and they bring their compostable waste which will be put to use as garden fertiliser once it has been broken down.
“We’re hoping in the future that this idea will expand and that we will be able to get a larger piece of land for people to work as a community allot- ment, where crops could be grown on a small scale and more people would get involved,’ said Brendan.