Growing your own food is a joyful experience – the smiles on these children's faces show it

THE WINNERS OF this year’s innocent and GIY Sow & Grow schools campaign (Miss Quinn’s 2nd Class from Our Lady of Good Counsel BNS Drimnagh) came to Bloom last Thursday to get their prize and celebrate their win with us. Given that they saw off competition from over 20,000 children in 650 schools nationwide to become 2015 Sow & Grow champions, they deserved and received the full VIP treatment at Bloom – the highlight of which was getting to meet Uachtarán na hÉireann Michael D Higgins (“Hiya Michael D”, I overheard one of them say to him).

Thursday morning is always my favourite part of Bloom, precisely because we get to meet the Sow & Grow kids and get immersed in their enthusiasm for all things GIY. This year’s Sow & Grow finale seemed particularly special for two reasons. First of all, the winning school was from Dublin which knocks on the head the notion that school food-growing is for rural schools only. Secondly, as dad to an eight-year-old who is obsessed with Match Attax and borrowing my iPad, I think it’s magic that the winning class in a nationwide school food-growing competition was from an all-boys school.

In his book Surprised by Joy, CS Lewis writes that the modern boy “travels a hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from traveling ten”. It’s a quote that often pops in to my head when dealing with our own ‘modern boy’ at home – it does seem that the sense of awe and wonder in the ‘modern boy’ is under threat at an earlier age than it used to be. How wonderful, then, to see a class of boys getting back to basics with such gusto – sticking their hands in the soil, growing their cress, squash and pumpkin seeds, and marveling at the wonders of nature.

They even composed their own song about growing – a GIY version of Lou Bega’s Mambo No.5 (‘…a little bit of pumpkin in my life…’). Watching them perform it with such delight and utter lack of self-consciousness was the highlight of this year’s Bloom for me.

So, as we wrap another Sow & Grow campaign, we want to say a huge thanks to all the children and teachers who took part – we hope this is just the start of your GIY adventures! Big thanks to our friends at innocent for making it all possible, campaign patron Lilly Higgins for amazing support and encouragement (and that frighteningly good courgetti spaghetti!) and Ella McSweeney for being awesome host for our prizegiving. I leave the last word to one of the Good Counsel pupils who said to his teacher on the bus on the way home: “This was the best day ever, even better than getting McDonald’s for dinner”. And so say all of us.

Watch the boys from Our Lady of Good Counsel BNS Drimnagh sing their Sow & Grow tune:

Uploaded by Zoe Quinn

Things to do this Month: June

To do

Watering and weeding duties step up a notch – the tunnel/greenhouse in particular will require a good deal of water from now on. Watch the weather and water outside as required. Continue to earth-up potato plants to prevent the spuds becoming green. Mulch and water tomato plants and continue to remove side shoots that appear in the leaf axils. Stake everything that grows tall – raspberries, peas, beans, tomatoes etc. Net soft fruit against birds – it’s worth the effort.

Sow

Sow courgettes, pumpkins, summer and winter squash, fennel, chicory. Succession sow: beans (French and Runner), kale, pea, spinach, spinach beet, summer broccoli, carrot, swede, leek, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, beetroot, chicory, endive, turnip, kohlrabi, fennel. Plant out leeks, Brussels Sprouts, cabbage, autumn cauliflower, calabrese, sprouting broccoli, celery, celeriac, cucumbers, pumpkin, marrows, runner beans, aubergine.

Harvest

We are now really starting to see some payback from our GIYing – the first broad beans and peas as well as new potatoes, new carrots, soft fruit like gooseberries, cherries and strawberries. Herbs are in full flow. Also harvest kohlrabi, cabbage, cauliflower (month end), spinach, spring onion, shallots, salad leaves, elderflower, rhubarb, salad leaves, onions, carrots, beetroot, garlic, sea-kale

Recipe of the Week – Roasted Baby Beetroots

If you sowed beetroot seeds for the polytunnel or greenhouse back in early spring, you might well be tucking in to your first new season beetroot around now. These little beetroot (no larger than golf balls) are perfect for baking and will take just 20 minutes or so in a hot oven. Cooking them like this retains more of their amazing health benefits than boiling.

Ingredients:

800g baby beetroot with tops
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp sea salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 220C. Remove and wash the beetroot tops (twist them off rather than cutting which will make them ‘bleed’). Blanch them in boiling water for a minute and then drain, and set aside. Put the beetroot in a baking tray and toss with half the oil and a little salt. Roast for 20 minutes, until cooked through. When cooled slightly, rub the skins off (or if you can’t wait, rub the skins off while holding the roots under a cold tap). Whisk the remaining oil, vinegar, mustard and sea salt, then toss with the beetroot tops and roots. Serve cold.

Tip of the Week – Plant out Courgette, Squash and Pumpkin Seed

We’re at the stage now where it’s nearly time to plant out courgette, squash and pumpkin plants. The key when planting them out is to dig a decent sized hole (about 12 inches wide and deep – i.e. a spades depth) and fill it with a mix of good quality, well-rotted compost/manure and soil. Fill it so that there is a mound on the surface of the soil. Sow the plant in the mound and then water in well. Slug control is crucial until the plant gets established. Also very important to keep the soil around the plants moist – water copiously around the plants, not over them. Once it starts to fruit, feed every two weeks with tomato feed or comfrey tea.

GIY’s vision is for a healthier, more connected and more sustainable world where people grow some of their own food. Each year we inspire and support over 65,000 people and 1,500 community food-growing groups and projects around Ireland, and run food-growing campaigns, events and publications. www.giyireland.com

Michael Kelly is a freelance journalist, author of ‘GROW COOK EAT’ and founder of GIY.

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