There is always a tendency to consider food growing as something that always has to happen in a field or large garden – GIYing is, unfortunately, often considered the preserve of country people or farmers. In reality, it’s an equally viable hobby in an urban environment. Every vegetable you could possibly want to grow, can be grown just as successfully in a container on...
10% of People in Ireland living in Food Poverty Home-grown food could help lift people out of the Food Poverty trap Average sized vegetable patch can yield €500 worth of food each year GIY calls on Government to make more land available for allotments Not for profit organisation GIY (Grow it Yourself) Ireland has today highlighted the potential of home-grown food to help lift p...
Dear fellow growers Help us create a map to illustrate where SPUDS research is taking place and encourage communication between our community based research teams. Just log on to http://research.spuds.ie/ and put your research on the map. If you fill in your profile details you will see yourself appear instantly on the map! Registration is completely confidentia and freel, none of you...
I have just received an email from Kitty Scully informing me that Teagasc will be growing trial crops of genetically manipulated potatoes. I know that many millions of euros of taxpayers money have been invested in the breeding of these new GM varieties and they are probably quite pleased with themselves. They may even convince a few people with the opinion that they could produce heal...
GIY wins Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Award Calls on Government to put food growing on the curriculum and make land available for allotments Grow it Yourself (GIY), which wants to transform the nation's wellbeing, strengthen communities and protect the environment by helping people to grow their own food, has been awarded a 2011 Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Award. The org...
The Great GIY Food Debate was held on Sunday of the GIY Gathering with an expert panel including GIY founder Michael Kelly, Bob Flowerdew, Darina Allen, John Mc Kenna, farmerPat Lawlor, journalistDr Oliver Moore andPaddy Gleeson, Woodies DIY with Ella Mc Sweeney as chair. Ella asked each panelist to come up with an action that GIYers could take away from the debate. Her...
IT’S THE kind of story more and more of us are becoming more and more familiar with. You meet your friend and she looks like she has just popped out of Edvard Munch’s The Scream : drawn, troubled, low, anxious. Slowly, half-suspecting the answer, you work your way around to asking, what’s wrong? They’ve split up. He’s moved out. He hasn’t been himse...
Bigger than the Oscars, better than the Grammys – it’s GIY Award Season The time has come for GIY Bray to relinquish the Group of the Year tiara which it has worn so beautifully and humbly (!!) for the last 12 months. At this year’s GIY Gathering 2011, we are giving awards to Groups of the Year in each province in addition to an overall GIY Group of the Year awar...
Harry’s Restaurant in Bridgend has been getting rave reviews and much-deserved plaudits of late including an award from Bord Bia as the “Just Ask Restaurant of the Year”. Run by Donal Doherty, Harry’s is managing to buck the recessionary trend in the hospitality sector by attracting people in their droves to one of the remotest parts of Ireland on the Inishow...
In times past they used to refer this time of the year as the “Hungry Gap”, which I always think is a wonderful expression. The hungry gap was the gap between the last of last year’s produce and the first of this year’s – it was called the hungry gap because of course back then people actually went hungry while they were waiting for the new season&rsquo...;