For advice on all aspects of the organic lifestyle - gardening, cooking, shopping for organic food, back garden poultry and general organic news - from a gardener with 35 years experience of organic living in Ireland
Hello, welcome to my website.
Many people have been asking me to do this for years - so here it finally is! This is where I'm going to share with you lots of advice on growing organic vegetables and ornamental plants, including gardening for wildlife and keeping chickens on a small scale etc., give you some very useful practical tips and all the latest news on shopping for organic food as cheaply as possible and cooking it (with some well tried and tested recipes I've developed over the years) and also share with you some of my original ideas, thoughts and experience of living life as organically as possible in today's world - taking into account that we can't all do the self-sufficiency on 5 acres thing, or maybe even want to! It's what I call my "Organic living without the hairshirt or the expense" philosophy!
I hope you enjoy this website and find some useful information. Please come back again, as I will be telling you what to do each month in the organic garden as well as updating you on the latest organic news etc.
As we go about our busy lives in this hectic world we can sometimes feel let down by cynical and greedy people (particularly at the moment), with climate change and all it's associated natural effects seeming more and more often to be a grim reality which few politicians have the courage to face. It's easy to lose sight of the really important things in life, to feel powerless, and to feel that there's nothing we can personally do to make any difference. There is something we can all do though, no matter if it's in a window box or on an acre. Gardening organically, in tune with nature, is not just a wonderfully creative and satisfying occupation. It brings great solace in times of difficulty, with abundant healthy rewards both mentally and physically, and a positive sense of being a integral part of the broader scheme of things. It makes a real and genuine contribution to preserving biodiversity, to combatting pollution and climate change, no matter how small your plot. Each garden may only be one tiny piece of the jigsaw, but together all those organic gardens all over the world can make a huge difference to the bigger picture. Even if you don't have a garden, simply by buying organically grown produce you'll be helping to make a difference to our beautiful and unique planet as well.
Here's a poem to pause and reflect on in our current troubled times - it says it all for me:
"Give fools their gold,and knaves their power;
Let fortunes bubbles rise and fall;
who sow a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all."
(by J. G. Whittier) - Must have been an organic gardener!
