A Blast from the past, written at the end of 2012.

A (FIRST) YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A GIY-GROUP.

The GIY group in Tuam started on October 4 2011, we are just one year old!
At the first meeting 10 people came together in The Brogue, interested in growing their own food. A very mixed bunch, growing in small gardens, window-boxes or even a polytunnel and some not yet growing at all, looking for courage and ideas. From the polytunnel came a large basket of vegetables and a few people got started organising the next meeting.

We moved our meetings across the road, to Canavan, where we were received with open arms and cups of tea at every meeting. We meet in the back-room every first Tuesday of the month, at 7pm.

Tina De Burca came in November and introduced her Circular Celtic-year Calendar: What To Plant When. She had lots of growing-tips and cuttings to share. 25 people came to this talk and signed up for our mailing list.

Next up was ‘one of our own’ David, who has almost 20 years experience building and growing in Polytunnels. He had a lot of good tips, like: always using hot-spot tape when putting the tunnel up. It adds years to the life of the tunnel. We recommended David to GIY-Claregalway and he has given a talk there also.

Brigitte, another group-member, has a lot of knowledge about ‘growing with the moon’, the biodynamic principles of planting and sowing. She gave us all a very colourful year planner, with a few pages explaining the influence of the signs of the zodiac. She made a very complicated subject sound a lot simpler and easy to put into practice. She also has a great solution for the ‘slug-problem’: keeping ducks!

We had many sessions just talking among ourselves. It is amazing how everybody has something to contribute: a solution for this, a source for that, a question that starts a discussion, a few seeds, a few cuttings and very tasty tomatoes and grapes, that never got to leave the pub!

Pub-goers were surprised one evening when the backroom filled up with different shapes of compost-bins and even a wormery! Sinead and Mark from Galway County Council showed us the ins and outs of composting. There were about 20 of us that evening. Most important advice was to stir the compost regularly: it helps the composting process and makes rodents less comfortable.

Our finest hour may have been when Pat brought several potato-varieties to share which turned into a spontaneous talk about the work of Seed Savers and the different potatoes. Or maybe the garden-visit to David’s polytunnel in August and Mary harvesting potatoes from her grow-bag. Or the article in The Tuam Herald, announcing Dermot Carey’s talk on the Lissadell/Langford potato collection in October.

We now have 35 people on our mailing/phone-list, and 8-12 regularly come to meetings. We have helped each other with topsoil, manure-spreading, potato-harvesting. There’s a great BUZZ at the meetings and always something to take home: tips, ideas or produce. Everybody has an input and we welcome new members. Just show up and see what happens.

Sofar the article. We did not have many talks since the first year, but many garden-visits, seed- and plant-swaps, christmas-parties with home-made goodies and even a market-stall for a day with our own produce. We talked and talked and talked, and learned and grew, several of the group took on a patch in the local allotments. 7 enjoyable years and then we went our separate ways. Keep sowing, keep growing, enjoy and stay safe! Mo.

Juicie Jim from GIY Waterford is coming to Galway Libraries this Tuesday 20th of February.

Juicie Jim is a Living Food, Foraging and Growing Instructor from Waterford who has been involved with GIY since 2011. He got his name from doing popup juice and probiotic bars and workshops at festivals around the country. He will be in Galway on Tuesday 20th of February to give talks at three libraries as part of the Healthy Ireland at your Library initiative. Jim will talk about GIY and how to easily grow some of your own food. Jim has lots of knowledge to share and has been part of the education team at GROW HQ since it opened in October 2016. He will have copies of the new edition of the award winning GROW COOK EAT book by Michael Kelly, ahead of the TV series of the same name which will launch on RTE 1 on March 14th.

Come hear Jim in Galway this Tuesday 20th of February
Ballybane Library, 11.30-12.30
City Centre Library, Augustine Street, 1.30-2.30
Oranmore Library, 3.30-4.30