Award-winning Santry Community Garden in North Dublin, Ireland, has been in existence since 2010, when the Victorian walled garden was renovated, after nearly falling victim to property development. Some of the fruit trees were planted as far back as 2006. The Apricot and Fig trees are doing wonderfully outside, along with a banana tree and kiwis in the polytunnel, with an efficient and eco-sensitive watering system! There is a fruit tree sponsorship project in homage to loved ones, who get a plaque with an inspiring inscription and their name. This has been so successful that there is no more physical space for sponsored trees in the orchard (although the great minds at the garden are working on a solution)! The garden is something of a hidden gem, and always looking for new members, so volunteers are welcome to contact the committee. Pictured here are Niall Staunton and Tom Mullins in late April 2022. Committee member Vincent Kavanagh was hard at work out front directing operations to clear weeds from the base of the fruit trees and to plant gloriously colourful South African bedding (sustainably raised from seed on site and not imported as plug plants!) for the next season. You’ll find site details for the Santry garden at the end of the blog page.

A stalwart of Santry Community Garden is Jim from North Galway, who has umpteen years of growing experience and is a mine of useful information about how to conserve resources and grow things the best way. At the time of the visit from Localgrowplanet, Jim gave everyone really useful common-sense tips about saving the plastic bags from manure/ compost etc and reusing them to grow tomatoes. Jim’s top tip is to snip off the tops of the bags carefully in a straight line along the shortest length when opening (don't waste them by slashing them down the middle!) to save as much of the plastic as possible. Then use them to form a container inside a tall and wide bucket (fold them down a bit), or with a flat piece of wood inside to make a base. Et voilà, a zero-cost waste-reducing tomato growing container!

Here is the link for the wonderful Santry Community Garden in North Dublin, Ireland