Green shoots at Nenagh Community Garden

Great involvement by young and old

The Community Garden in Nenagh was a hive of activity on a bright and sunny Saturday morning in mid-May.

We had a busy day ahead of us with the community Grow and Sow project, followed in the afternoon by a biodiversity workshop.

This Saturday morning group has grown into a real mixing of the generations. We have kids just starting off on their life journey and others who are well into retirement but are still learning.

Each person brings their own skills and life experience and I love the way that everyone helps out and shares. Having regular access to a garden is so important for our mental health and with some people coming who don’t have garden space, it is a great opportunity for the younger children to have a great time digging in the soil and getting their hands dirty.

With heat, water and gentle care all of our crops are growing. Beetroots, potatoes, onions, sunflowers, chard and lettuce will all provide healthy food for harvesting over the summer months. We also have a wildflower patch for bees and these will help pollinate our crops.

In the tunnel there are tomatoes, coriander and wild cabbage that the slugs and snails are enjoying. I often see the resident male blackbird in the tunnel and he will help keep the populations of slugs under control. Song thrushes eat snails and they use a stone called an anvil to break open their hard shells. A man recently told me that when they heard the tapping of the song thrush his grandfather would tell him that it was the sound of the fairies making shoes.

There is also a robin in the community garden and he is nesting in a large shrub in the adjacent garden. The robin is very tame and will often hop down from his perch on the wall and pick up a juicy worm.

This Robin needs to be careful as the neighbour’s cat called “Cookie” is a regular visitor and this is really his garden and territory.

After a welcome lunch we were joined by the local community, a representative from the county council and members of the Nenagh Tidy Towns. The Tidy Towns is an active group and are always looking for new people to bring their skills and knowledge to improving the environment in Nenagh town. The biodiversity workshop was sponsored through funding by North Tipperary Leader partnership and we grateful acknowledge their support, in addition to the support from Silver Arch Family Resource Centre in running the project and promoting the workshop.

Insects have always fascinated me but they are very misunderstood and it was great to have an opportunity to reveal how important and amazing they are to this interested group. The community shed provided our first creature as Harry found a giant house spider. This feeds on other spiders and is perfectly harmless to us. Apparently they also feed on moths judging by the amount of half-eaten moths.

We passed in around in a bug container and one brave person even let the spider run along her arm. We need regular and engaging contact with insects that we fear and this applies to human world as well.

We released the spider and she scrambled back under a flower pot. We continued searching for insects and the next stop was the bug hotel. This is a great min habitat for insects and we carefully checked out all the rooms. We also discovered another spider checked into the bug hotel but this one was thankfully a little smaller.

Inside a decaying log we found a whole family of woodlice. These creatures are natures recyclers and they help convert wood back into healthy soil. They like damp places and the bug hotel provided the perfect conditions for them.

There are plenty of pollinator friendly plants growing in the garden. The herbs are some of my favourite and not only do they have a lovely scent and flowers they are a magnet for bees, butterflies and hoverflies.

I got the group to crush some of the herbs in their hands and enjoy the beautiful scents. Herbs can also be used to make healthy teas that can help with a range of common ailments.

Noelle suddenly shouted that she had spotted a small frog. We all rushed over but it had disappeared in the long grass. Luckily Noelle saved the day and we found another frog. This was hiding under plastic that was covering a pile of horse manure.

This manure is being used to keep the fertility of the ground good. The patch we are growing on once held horses and the soil is very good and this is thanks to the manure added daily by the horses.

The frog was inside a large bug container and we got a great view of his webbed feet as he pressed against the side of the jar. I was very conscious of the heat and we did not keep him long. He was released into some tall grass and this is a great habitat for wildlife and another good reason not to be so active with the mower.

Thanks to everyone who attended and supported the Grow and Sow project and the biodiversity workshop.