LOCAL AGENDA 21 - Donadea Tree Nursery Project!

GROW have been granted two Local Agenda 21 grants this year to continue on with our woodland education programme!! Yay! We've been successful for the first time in receiving a grant from Kildare County Council for this project, so finally getting stuck in locally with our beautiful North Kildare woods - Donadea Forest Park. We're hoping to be able to link in and work with the schools local to the area, and really make it a 'local' woodland education programme, with the main focus with this project being the development of a 'Tree Nursery Project', the idea being that in the autumn the kids will gather tree seeds from the woods, bring them to their school, build a nursery bed and plant the seeds in the bed. They will then be nursed and minded by the students and hopefully in the spring time then there will be a healthy bed of young saplings, with the idea that maybe in a couple of years time they might be able to plant the trees back into Donadea and plant a native woodland in their own school. Very exciting! If you're a school in the Donadea area please feel free to get in touch with us, we'd be delighted to hear from you! I'll be keeping the blog updated as the project develops!

*NEW COMMUNITY GARDEN PROJECT AT PIPER'S HILL, NAAS*

I have just been asked ot get involved with the development of a new community garden at the Piper's Hill school in Naas, CO. Kildare. the idea is to kick start a garden that will be used by the whole school, the initial plan is to work with a group of parents to get the garden going. This project will be starting in February 2012! Watch this space...

GROW - growing for 'EDIBLE' at the SCIENCE GALLERY!!

GROW have recently been asked to get involved in the next exhibition at the Science Gallery in Dublin. The next exhibitions' theme is 'EDIBLE', so it deals with contemporary concerns around food, eating, heath, biodiversity, local food, slow food etc. We've been asked and have been working on for the past  month a project with heritage potatoes and seeds, specifically working with Irish Seedsavers, who have kindly sent us up several heritage potato varieties and seeds to grow and work with. The potatoes are currently chitting in my office! And we are trying to trick the seedlings into thinking its spring already in a heated propagator in Mairtin's polytunnel in Newbridge! These heritage seeds and potatoes, look to raise people's awareness around preserving the diverse heritage of our native seeds, potato tubers and apple trees. The exhibition is opening on February 10th and should be well worth checking out!

www.sciencegallery.com
www.irishseedsavers.ie

November 2011 - Lucy on Dublin City Fm - The Sod Show

I met up with and had an informal chat with landscaper and radio presenter Peter Donegan who presents The Sod Show, a gardening programme on Dublin City Fm every Friday at 3pm. We met in November in The Loft Bookshop, which is upstairs in The Twisted Pepper, to have a chat about the importance of growing and eating our own food, especially in relation to educating children about the importance of growing your own food and thinking about where it comes from. We talked specifically about 'The Year Round Organic Garden', the book I co-wrote with Kerry Earth Education Project and Irish Seed Savers aimed at helping teachers set up school gardens. We talked about the importance of people growing their own food, and the misconceptions around 'dirty' vegetables and unusually shaped vegetables, looking at how we've become obsessed with clean, straight vegetables, and we nearly won't eat anything that looks different to what our perception of what a carrot or a tomato is and looks like!  Check it out!

http://blog.doneganlandscaping.com/2011/11/25/the-sodshow-friday-25th-november-dublin-garden-radio-podcast/

Donadea woods woodland wander

Men's Group at Donadea Woods - Tree Seed Collecting

Last week I took my men's group to Donadea to go seed collecting. We found acorns, conkers, sycamore and maple helicopters, lime seeds and beech masts. And this little fella! Any thoughts on who he is?

Summer - NFRC Family Grow Your Own Day

Family Day - Grow Your Own at NFRC

 In July, we were asked to hold a family Grow Your Own day at the Newbridge Family Resource Centre. We had a lovely day planting up window boxes with a mix of edible plants, lettuce, scallions, parsley, and herbs. We planted tomato and pumpkin plants with the kids, who painted the pots in gorgeous bright colours first. We dug up potatoes from the vegetable garden and the kids chopped and cooked them into chips, which we feasted on before the day was out. We made dream catchers to finish off and the families went off laden with plants! Lovely day all around.

Projects during the year: Woodland Education Programme

Woodland Education Programme - LA21 Project

GROW in conjunction with Earthforce Education (www.earthforceeducation.com) received funding under Local Agenda 21 this year, and we ran a woodland education programme for secondary schools in Meath and for primary schools in Wicklow. Myself and my friend, Ciara Hinksman, spent 6 days in the woods with the children and TY students, exploring the magic of the woodlands. We explored the woods using a variety of games, with nature themes, using blindfolds to test their senses, sneak and capture games, we did bug hunts and plant ID, and we introduced some survival ideas, such as using your senses, tracking, and how to light a fire in the wild! We had amazing days out with the kids, and they all went home covered in muck, which was for us a mark of a succesful day out in the woods! we're planning on doing this programme again this year, so watch this space...