Conor's Bandon Blog » Gardening

Allotments for Bandon

Conor O'Neill — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:34:01 +0000

I was thrilled to get an email from Tara O’Donoghue to tell me that Bandon allotments are up and running.

The allotment garden is located in Cloughmacsimon – a short distance off the bypass, right behind Coláiste Na Toirbhirte.

Plots are available in 2 sizes 5x7m for €80pa or 5x10m for €100pa. There are plenty of plots available so call 023 8852922 or 087 9567452 or email bandontransition@gmail.com for more information.

Bandon Community Allotments Open Day Sunday 16th May 1.30 pm

Plenty of family entertainment on the day with music, face painting, fun games and competitions like Wellie Throwing, Wheelbarrow Races, Tug O War, Make your own Scarecrow, prizes and more.

All the details over on www.bandoncommunityallotments.com.

They are also at Transition Bandon on Facebook.

Well done to everyone involved in this!

Phew, nearly missed July

Conor O'Neill — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:30:18 +0000

It’s been said by many others too but Twitter is seriously denting my blogging. Why write an entire post when most of the time 140 chars will do?

But what will be remembered and found in years to come? Watching Chris Moyles on “Who Do You Think You Are?” really drove home the importance of historical records. My mother ran into a brick wall with her genealogy research a few years ago once she got into the 19th Century.

It’d be nice if in 100 years there is still something resembling the internet and all of this “stuff” that we are all generating on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc etc can be found and read by our descendants so they can realise what a bunch of weirdos and wackos they share their genes with.

And on a completely different subject, here are some pics of the veg plot. Total effort expended in weeding and planting this year? Approx 8 hours.

Tis Bloomin’

Conor O'Neill — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:09:03 +0000

The Bloom Gardening Event is back and it looks fantastic. On in the Phoenix Park from 28th May to 1st June, it seems to have something for everyone.

Presented by Bord Bia, there are show gardens, craft centre, artisan food market and a family fun and learning zone.

If you are on Facebook, follow em here. On Twitter, they hang out here.

I wish I was in Dublin to check it all out.

New Competition For Amateur Cooks, Growers, Bakers and Smallholder

Conor O'Neill — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:32:45 +0000

This is just a superb idea, well done to everyone involved! Why not enter?

The inaugural Grow Bake Cook Awards Ceremony honours and celebrates the skills of amateur cooks, growers, bakers and preservers – in fact anyone with a talent for creating good food!

Supporting local communities throughout Cork city and county, these awards aim to give our hidden food heroes the opportunity, tools and encouragement to sell their wares through farmer’s markets,country markets, local supermarkets and food fairs.

Award winning and shortlisted produce will be displayed at Cork City’s Midsummer Festival Feasta market on Sunday June 28th , with the Award Ceremony taking place that evening at a city venue tbc.

For further information and entrance criteria contact Dianne Curtin 086067 6249 or Elke O’Mahony 087 3168855or email to grow.bake.cook@gmail.com.Deadline for submission is 23rd June 2009

How not to waste an hour

Conor O'Neill — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 08:50:27 +0000

We’ve just had the third annual waste of time known as Earth Hour where millions of people worldwide pretend to do something useful about global warming and turn off lights for an hour. For 99.999999% of those people, that’ll be it for another 365 days. End result for the Earth, big fat zero. Perhaps if we take all the energy expended by the media covering this story, we may even have a net negative?

Imagine if, instead, those millions of people went outside, dug up a square metre or two of their perfect lawns and planted some vegetable seeds? Or if they lived in an apartment in Ireland, they contacted Irish Allotments about organising patches in their locality?

Then instead of some silly hour-long nonsense they could:

Reduce CO2 throught the action of the plants
Reduce petrol consumption through less shopping
Reduce fuel miles by not buying foreign vegetables
Save money
Get their kids outside
Take part in Seed Saver schemes
Eat healthier
Get fit

We could call it Gardener’s World

Of course taking care of this veg patch takes a wee bit longer than one hour a year and isn’t news-worthy so maybe we should just turn off the lights and keep playing mushroom instead.

Fun Food in Arthurstown

Conor O'Neill — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:49:25 +0000

Dunbrody Cookery School,

Arthurstown,

Co Wexford,

Ireland

A brilliant gift of a cookery course in Dunbrody by my fabulous sister-in-law Paula led to one of the best day’s out I’ve had in ages. Interesting and enjoyable in every way without a dull moment in a gorgeous location.

We did our annual extended family meet-up on the August Bank Holiday weekend in Rosslare recently. On Friday morning I borrowed my mother’s car and drove the 45 minute journey to Arthurstown near the ferry in Ballyhack.

For some silly reason I thought Dunbrody was just a cookery school and restaurant but soon discovered it is a hotel and spa too. I arrived on the dot of 9.30 to find just two other people there; a B&B owner and a GP, both of whom were very friendly. A moment later, Edward, our teacher, swooped in to start our day of “Light Lunches”. I have to say that the guy was just wonderful for the whole session. Tons of energy, knowledge and anecdotes. He’s just finished a cookery book which will be launched soon. Keep an eye out for it: “Entertaining with Edward”. I wish I had been that accomplished at the age of 26!

My only tiny disappointment on the day was realising that it was all demos with no hands on. This is inevitable given the size and layout of the room but I do love to get stuck in. My concern that I might get bored just watching proved totally unfounded. Edward’s manner and approach made sure we didn’t even suffer the mid-afternoon lull.

The list of things he made was extensive and there wasn’t a clunker among them. I would just love to be able to multi-task the way that he did. He did the following:

Traditional Brown Soda Bread: This was lovely and nutty. Not as good as my mothers but still great.

Fresh Basil Pesto: For some reason I have never made pesto. This was one of the best I’ve had.

Crab Croquettes with Sweet Chilli Jam: Whilst I’ll definitely be making the croquettes again, the jam just made me feel stupid. I cannot believe how easy it is to make and how much better it was than any bought jar. This is going to be one of my regular creations from now on.

Smoked Haddock and Rocket Tart: One of the absolute highlights of the day. If you love fish pie, this makes a quicker and lighter alternative

Cheese and Bacon Quesadillas: Simple and tasty as hell. Will be trying this on the kids. Total winner.

Fish en paupilotte: This genuinely shocked me. I love smoked salmon, I detest cooked fresh salmon, it makes me gag. Yet somehow, this tasted beautiful and I scoffed the lot. Another ultra-easy meal which will be a future regular.

Mild Cajun Chicken: Lovely and juicy in a yoghurt coating
Classic Italian Meatballs: Excellent but not a patch on my own The mince mix would make fantastic burgers or meatloaf.
Vegetarian Roulade with Spinach: The least favourite for the three of us but still good. Some of the intended ingredients were not delivered on the day which is a pity as I can imagine how much better it would have been.

Mediterranean Pasta Salad: Using roasted veg and some of the pesto, this is perfect BBQ food.
Meringue Roulade with Summer Berries and Toasted Almonds: Should be illegal. We had it for our elevenses and it was light as a feather and totally delish.

Edward also gave us two tours of the kitchen gardens which were a joy to see. Jammed with every sort of veg, fruit and herb. If only I had the acerage and the time!

I was chuffed to get a branded apron and Kevin Dundon’s latest book as I left. This course won’t teach you amazing new techniques if you are already a solid home chef but it will give you tons of ideas for tasty interesting family meals. It’s also a perfect day of relaxation and fun.

Full set of photos from the day including geo-tagged ones on Flickr.

Rated 5/5 on Aug 11 2008

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Recipe and Gardening advice by SMS and Web

Conor O'Neill — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:23:16 +0000

We’re just playing around with a few ideas on a site called Jaiku this morning (they were bought by Google a few months back). The idea is that you can have discussion channels on particular topics like technology, politics, Bandon GAA, whatever. What makes it (and other great sites like Twitter) so powerful is that you can interact with it entirely through SMS on your phone.

So this morning I created two non-techie ones that I thought might appeal to my more foodie readers. The first is #recipes and the second is #gardening. In both cases the idea was that they could be used for requesting advice (in addition to general chitchat).

The #recipes one was suggested by Michael Kiely and he thought it would be great if you were out shopping and spotted an ingredient and wanted suggestions for mini-recipes so you’d know what else to buy whilst you were there. A quick SMS, a bit more shopping and you might get some suggestions back by SMS.

I thought of the #gardening one and it could also be used in a similar way to #recipes when in a Garden Centre and wondering e.g. is X worth buying, it Y over-priced etc.

Of course you can use both channels on the web too (and obviously type a lot more than 140 characters!).

There are two flies in the ointment. The first is that it’ll need more people on these channels to make them work and the second is that joining Jaiku is officially closed at the minute. Both can be solved in one fell swoop by heading over to Jaiku Invites, setup by Ciarán Rooney and requesting an invite to join.

Give it a go. It’s just a bit of fun and I’ve already had two suggestions on how to cook the fennel bulbs I bought on a whim in Lidl during the week. Any problems using it, just pop a comment here.

Elevenses

Conor O'Neill — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:56:08 +0000

From the garden.

Yummmm.

Our Peach Harvest

Conor O'Neill — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:04:11 +0000

Here it is:

Thrilled that it actually tasted ok, sadly not very juicy and a bit tart but given the summer we’re having, not a bad effort.

Next year we hope to get it up to two.

Worst growing season EVAH!

Conor O'Neill — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:11:14 +0000

My “stick it in the ground and it’ll grow” school of gardening thought has failed miserably this year. The only things that have grown are non-essential herbs, apples, strawberries, sorrel and radishes. And I don’t even particularly like the latter two. Actually, I nearly forgot the one rhubarb plant which provided seven metric tonnes of sticks. Lots of yummy tarts for me (as the bishop….).

So I got thick the other day and ripped up almost everything. All the bleedin mint and oregano, all the sorrel, the stupid radishes, the weeds, the 3 rocket plants (from two packets!). I’ve laid them flat on the bed to rot down but it made me think, surely that is a net zero as far as nutrients are concerned?

So gardening gurus, top tips please. I think I should dump a ton of home made compost in, maybe chicken manure or bonemeal, cover the lot over with newspaper and try again next March. Thoughts?