GIY Ireland, Together We Grow

The Gathering 2013

Dates Announced

The 2013 GIY Gathering takes place on September 14th & 15th.  More to follow. 

Be Inspired. Be Informed. Be at the GIY Gathering.

The 4th annual GIY Gathering took place  on the 15th and 16th of September last as part of the Waterford Harvest Festival in Waterford City.  The event brought together over 400 people from around Ireland for a two day festival of learning about home-grown food.  It included talks, debates, demos, workshops, Q&A sessions.  This year's Gathering had a truly international feel, bringing together some of the world's leading experts and advocates on food growing from Ireland, UK, US and New Zealand.  

Speakers included BBC Gardeners World presenter and author Alys Fowler; River Cottage garden team leader and author Mark Diacono; inspiration for the Obama White House veg garden Roger Doiron; founder of OOOOBY Pete Russell; Guardian writer and author Lia Leendertz; founder of Pop Up Farm and Incredible Edible Paul Clarke; author of The Self Sufficiency Bible Simon Dawson; Paddy Gleeson (Woodies DIY and RTE Supergarden judge), Joy Larkcom, Klaus Laitenberger, Fionnuala Fallon, Darina Allen, Joyce Russell, Michael Kelly, Trevor Sargent, Peter Dowdall, Kitty Scully and many more.  

Host

Ella McSweeney (Ire)

Ella McSweeney started her career studying zoology before working for BBC radio and television. Since joining RTE she has specialised in farming, food and wildlife programmes.

Credits include Nature's Web, The Green Light, Farm Week, RTE's Big Science Debate, Into the Deep, Mind Matters and the wildlife and walking series Shanks Mare. On television she presented an RTE 1 series on frugality called 'Living Lightly' and regularly presents Ear to the Ground and Countrywide. She recently completely a radio series on traditions in farming called Home Grown.

Master Class Strand

Alys Fowler (UK)

Alys Fowler started gardening in her early teens and trained at the Royal Horticultural Society, the New York Botanical Gardens and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She is a presenter for BBC’s Gardeners’ World and has her own BBC TV series The Edible Garden. She writes for The Guardian, BBC’s Gardeners’ World magazine and Gardens Illustrated as well as publishing her own four books, The Thrifty Gardener,  Garden Anywhere, The Edible Garden and The Thrifty Forager..

She continues her passion to fuse traditional gardening with modern eco-friendly culture. 

See Alys's GIY Profile 

Mark Diacono (UK)

An award winning writer and photographer, who runs the pioneering Otter Farm, and is known for his commitment to sustainable, ethically produced food. Having led the Garden Team at River Cottage and appearing in the TV series, runs courses and events at River Cottage HQ. Mark's book Veg Patch: River Cottage Handbook Number 4 was named Practical Book of the Year at the Garden Media Guild Awards 2009 and A Taste of the Unexpected won the Guild of Food Writers' Book of the Year 2011.

See Mark's GIY Profile 

Joy Larkcom (Ire)

Joy Larkcom's seminal work "Grow your own Vegetables" is the bible for vegetable growers everywhere. Joy has been researching, growing and writing about vegetables for over 40 years. Retired to a windy site in West Cork in 2002. Joy has been awarded the RHS Veitch Memorial Medal and the Garden Writer's Guild Lifetime Award.

This is Joy's third appearance at The Gathering, and this year she will focus on "Creative Vegetable Gardening".  'I sometimes think of GIY as the struggling Health Service's secret weapon in the preventive medicine department,' says Joy.

See Joy's GIY Profile

Klaus Laitenberger (Ire)

Klaus Laitenberger, is the former head gardener at Rossinver Organic Centre and co-ordinator of the restoration of Victorian gardens at Lissadell House.  Also, a writer, trainer, mentor and consultant in organic horticulture with over twenty years gardening experienc in the UK and Ireland. 

Last year he completed his PgDip in Organic Farming. His first book, Vegetables For the Irish Garden, is the number one selling book on the GIY website and a must-read for Irish veg growers.  HIs second book Vegetables for the Polytunnel and Greenhouse, was published in Spring 2012 . This is Klaus' 3rd GIY Gathering - his previous masterclasses were "standing-room only"!

Read Klaus's GIY Profile 

Innovators

Roger Doiron (US)

Roger is a garden writer, speaker and founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, a US-based nonprofit network of over 20,000 gardeners from 100 countries.  In addition to his kitchen garden advocacy work, Doiron is a free-lance writer and public speaker specializing in gardening and sustainable food systems

He is best known for having led the successful campaign for a kitchen garden at the White House, a feat that earned him Hearst Media's "Heart of Green" award and recognition by the editors of Fast Company magazine as one of the "10 most inspiring people in sustainable food".  He lives, gardens and eats on the coast of Maine with his wife and their three Belgo-American sons.

See Roger's GIY Profile

Pete Russell, (NZ)

Pete Russell, founder of Ooooby, is an food industry entrepreneur and expert in food supply chain systems.  3 years ago Pete jumped the chasm from running an international food supply chain business to now running a local food supply chain system to make local food easier and more affordable than standard supermarket food.

Ooooby began as a social network for food growers and has evolved to be a commons based organisation that provides a turn key solution for starting and running a local food system in your own town or city.

Michael Kelly (Ire)

Michael Kelly is a journalist, author and founder of  GIY. Michael is an Ashoka Fellow, a Social Entrepreneurs Ireland awardee and a recipient of the inaugural 2010 Arthur Guinness Fund Award. He is a member of the TASTE Council of Ireland.

He writes columns on growing your own food for The Irish Independent, The Evening Echo and Food & Wine Magazine. His bestselling first book, Trading Paces (O'Brien Press) was published in April 2008. His second book, Tales from the Home Farm was published in late 2009. Michael is a passionate speaker on food issues, self-sufficiency, sustainability and growing your own food. 

Paul Clarke (UK)

Paul Clarke is a director of Sustainable Leadership at Cambridge Education/Mott MacDonald and Professor of Education at St Mary's University in London.

He was a founding member and director of Incredible Edible Ltd, and he now runs Pop-Up-Farm - a sustainability project working in schools and communities on the practicalities of establishing resilient communities in the UK, Africa, North America, China and Australia. His new book Education for Sustainability has recently been published by Routledge.

See Paul' s GIY Profile

Practical Growing

Lia Leendertz (UK)

Lia Leendertz is an award-winning garden writer who writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, and Gardens Illustrated, and is a columnist for the Royal Horticultural Society’s magazine The Garden. She has an 80-ft town garden in Bristol and an allotment run along communal lines with a group of friends.

She has written several books on growing your own including The Half Hour Allotment, a guide to managing a plot alongside a busy life. 

See Lia's GIY Profile 

Fionnuala Fallon

Horticulturist, writer and garden designer, is a weekly contributor to The Irish Times. A longstanding contributor to The Irish Garden, she has written on a range of subjects. A frequent collaborator with her husband, photographer Richard Johnston. 

See Fionnuala's GIY Profile

Joyce Russell (Ire)

Joyce has been growing organic fruit and vegetables in West Cork for over 30 years. Joyce wrote for Organic Gardening Magazine for ten years, now is a principal contributor to 
Kitchen Garden Magazine and a columnist for the Southern Star. Her articles have appeared in many publications in Ireland, the UK and France.

The Polytunnel Book: Fruit And Vegetables All Year Round was published in 2011. Joyce’s hands-on approach and husband Ben’s beautiful photographs, have helped make this book the bible for polytunnel gardeners.  A new face at the GIY Gathering, Joyce looks forward to an inspiring exchange of  information and expertise in her polytunnel masterclass.

Kitty Scully (Ire)

After working on organic farms all over the world, Kitty Scully returned to Ireland to complete a Diploma in Organic Horticulture and Sustainable Living. Best known for her RTE 1 series How to Create a Garden, she also writes a feature on seasonal food for Organic Matters and contributes a weekly organic gardening and foraging column to the Irish Examiner.

Kitty has been working in practical environmental education for the last 5 years. She teaches courses in organic gardening, herb production, school gardening and preserving throughout the country.

In 2009, gaelic speaking Kitty contributed to TG4’s gardening programme, An Garraí Glas and in 2010 she visited community gardens around Ireland, co presenting RTÉ’s Corrigan Cooks Naturally.

See Kitty's GIY Profile

Food For Thought

Paddy Gleeson (Ire)

Paddy Gleeson is Special Horticulture Advisor with Woodies DIY and Garden Centre. He was the Teagasc national nursery stock specialist for over 25 years, during which time he lead the development of the modern Irish nursery stock industry.  More recently Paddy has been a judge on RTE's Supergarden.  This is Paddy's 3rd visit to the GIY Gathering.

Simon Dawson (UK)

Simon moved to Exmoor with his wife Debbie to become a self sufficient smallholder and writer. He is now one of this country’s go-to experts for advice, quotes or funny stories. In 2007 & 2008 the couple appeared with Gary Rhodes and Michael Caines on Local Food Heroes, coming first for the South-West.

He has appeared on BBC1’s Countryfile and Sky1 and is in constant demand on West Country radio. He runs courses on smallholding, butchery, food processing and nose-to-tail eating; works as a journalist and broadcaster, he looks after countless animals on their land. His first book The Self Sufficiency Bible was published in 2009 and his second, Pigs in Clover is due out late 2012.

Hans Wieland (Ire)

Hans Wieland from Cliffony in Co. Sligo was an organic cheese maker for 20 years and works and teaches at The Organic Centre, Rossinver, Co. Leitrim since 1997. He developed the first HSE funded “Community Food Project” in 2004 and has initiated SEED in 2010, a collaboration of 6 organic centres and 2 education colleges, to bring an organic garden to every school in the country. 

He loves gardening and is an expert in storing and preserving.
See Han's GIY Profile

Darina Allen (Ire)

Founder and owner of Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, Darina Allen is Ireland's most famous chef. She is also a teacher, food writer, newspaper columnist, cookbook author and TV-cook. She presented nine series of her cookery programme, 'Simply Delicious' and is the author of over a dozen books.

Darina founded the first Farmers Markets in Ireland and is a councillor for Ireland in the Slow Food Movement. ‘GIY is the ‘magic bullet’ that can solve many of our society ills,' says Darina, "as well as reconnecting neighbours and entire communities both in rural and urban areas.’  This will be Darina's 3rd GIY Gathering.

Trevor Sargent (Ire)

Trevor Sargent has been growing for 30 years, in his small patch in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin known as ‘Trevor's Kitchen Garden’.A volunteer in the organic walled garden at Sonairte,  the Ecology Centre, which he co-founded in 1988. 

He has now published a week-by-week illustrated guide to growing called 'Trevor's Kitchen Garden' All proceeds from the book go to the charity SEED, the Schools Earth Education gardening courses run by organic centres countrywide. SEED is very happy to be working closely with GIY Ireland.

See Trevor's GIY Profile

Stella Coffey (Ire)

I'm attempting to develop a kitchen garden between the house and a tunnel about 40 metres away. It's weed- and scutchgrass-infested and has an enormous rabbit population. My ploy is to put everything out of the rabbits' reach and so Richard's stash of reject scaffolding boards is being raided for raised beds. At a height of three boards I'm hoping to keep the rabbits at bay. The plan is to eventually overpower the scutchgrass and other intruding plants with  a cardboard and newspaper mulch. When the giant pile of branches gets chipped they will be added to the mulch and hopefully will reduce the tendancy to slip on post-rain cardboard.

Conor McGovern (Ire)

Conor McGovern is a consultant environmental scientist and charteredwaste manager conducting work for RPS Group. He works in municipal solid waste management, energy and sustainability with a focus upon biological treatment of waste, market development and regulatory compliance issues.

Conor is the Organics Manager of rx3  http://www.rx3.ie for the Dept of Environment, Heritage, and Local government. 

He was a founding member, Treasurer and Chair of Cré, the Composting and Anaerobic Digestion Association of Ireland. Conor is also and active member in the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management since 2010.

See Conor's GIY Profile

Deirdre O'Sullivan (Ire)

Deirdre has been an organic farmer for 22 years. She farms 40 acres in Co.Kildare with her husband Norman. They produce a wide range of vegetables, eggs  for farmers markets and wholesalers and wheat for feeding the hens.
Deirdre discovered Co-Creative gardening 14 years ago and credits this system of gardening with taking the hassle out of growing. Since converting to Co-Creative gardening  Deirdre and Norman have installed a reed bed, a wind and solar generating system, a natural swimming pond while rearing 3 children and paying for the land.

Mark O'Sullivan (Ire)

If there was an easy, non-toxic solution to ridding your plants of slugs you'd want to know about it. That's what Mark O'Sullivan thought after discovering Agrohomeopathy - or the application of Homeopathic remedies to treat plants of their pests and ailments.

A practising homeopath, when not treating people, Mark raises awareness with gardeners on how to treat plants in an organic, non-toxic and sustainable manner using Agrohomeopathy.  Mark studied with Rob Hopkins for his Permaculture design cert and grows herbs on his Ranelagh patio.

GIY Profile of Mark

The Gathering Hub

The GIY Hub in the Large Room is where you can register, meet up with other GIYers in the Discussion PODs, check out the Gathering shop, visit stallholders, and the SPUDs Story Booth. 

Bring along some of your Zany-shaped vegetable for the Crazy Veg Display.

The Zanist Veg will win a prize of Michael Kelly's book, Tales from Home Farm. 

Dorcas Barry (Ire)

Dorcas's enjoyment of ingredients and her constantly growing cookery book obsession have fed an insatiable knowledge for good food for over 25 years now.

Dorcas has a first degree in Home Economics & Resource Management and a diploma in Clinical Nutrition. She teaches cookery classes with a focus on healthy food and works in the corporate sector running healthy eating events in the workplace.  Dorcas has completed various courses on raw food and continues to learn about raw, vegan and vegetarian food and how they can contibute to a healthy diet,  she combines her love and knowledge of food, ingredients, diet and health to teach about delicious food for people who love to eat.

See Dorcas's GIY Profile

Mary Bulfin (Ire)

With a background in science, chefing, and natural medicine, foraging has been part of her life since she could walk and accompany her granny on woodland strolls.

Foraging is the oldest human method of gathering food. It mainly consists of collecting naturally growing green leaves, flowers, berries, nuts, mushrooms and roots.

Mary brings 15 years of culinary skills, but most importantly an infectious and knowledgeable background of Wild Foods.

See Mary's GIY Profile

Theresa Storey (Ire)

Theresa has spent her life growing and preserving homegrown and wild fruit and vegetables. She study Botany and Plant Science in University and returned home to take over the family business " The Green Apron" at her farmhouse in Limerick, to continue the tradition.

Green Apron has won several awards for preserves including The Bridgestone Award, Blas Na h-Eireann and three international Great Taste Awards. She shares her knowledge with lectures in Sustainable Living, Foraging and Organic Growing throughout the country.

See Theresa's GIY Profile 

The GIY Awards Ceremony

This year GIY Ireland hosted the RDS Allotments Awards cermony.  The 2012 winners in the following categories:

Novice Allotment Gardener Award

The winner of the Novice Gardener Award, which includes a cheque for €500 and an RDS Silver Medal, was Ms Angela O’Callaghan of Piltown Allotments, Co. Kilkenny.

Second place and recipient of an RDS Certificate of Merit and a cheque for €300 went Ms Catherine Donovan of the Epilepsy Care Foundation, Malahide Allotments, Co. Dublin.

Third place went to Mr Eddie Quigley and Mr Wesley Dawson, who run a shared allotment at Ballyconnell Allotments, Co. Wicklow.

Experienced Allotment Gardener Award
The winner of this year’s Experienced Gardener Award and recipient of an RDS Silver Medal and a cheque for €500 was Monika Halwax-Sherry of Goatstown Allotments, Dublin.

The runner up in the Experience Gardner category and recipient of an RDS Certificate of Merit and a cheque for €300 was Desmond Reynolds of Shannon Allotments, Co. Clare.

The Third Place award winner and recipient of an RDS Certificate of Merit and a cheque for €200 went to Maureen Kelly of Rathbeggan Allotments.

Allotment Provider Award
The winner of this year’s Allotment Provider Award, which included a cheque for €1,000 and an RDS Silver Medal, was Rathbeggan Lakes Allotments, Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath, who were represented by Dave Robinson on the day.

The judging panel commended the Rathbeggan Lakes Allotments for the work they have done on the overall allotment site, and were particularly impressed with the range of facilities provided, including a shop, an apple tree area, a bee area, a woodland walk, a demonstration allotment plot and compost facilities among others.

The Judging Panel recognised also the work of, the Epilepsy Care Foundation in Malahide for their work for people with disabilities, helping to improve their quality of life in a community environment and the Skerries Allotment Association, who the panel believed were a great example of a community based project that promotes healthy and sustainable lifestyles.

View Winners here