This will be a busy weekend for GIY Dundrum. We have our usual monthly meeting on Saturday 13th at 10.30 in Airfield House (2nd Saturday of the month) where we will discuss our successes and failures and swop seeds and seedlings. We are then visiting the community garden Fernhill (https://www.dlrcoco.ie/en/parks/fernhill-park-and-gardens) on Sunday 14th at 10.30 and will have a guided tour. Looking forward to seeing you at one or both of the events.

The next meeting of GIY Dundrum is on Saturday next, April 15th in Airfield at 10.30. We are delighted to welcome John Kelleher from Santry Community Garden (https://santrycommunitygarden.ie/ ) who will give us an overview of the garden: how it came into being; how it is funded; its organisation, structure and model; as well as what is grown (and how this is decided), what facilities and features it has, etc. John has been actively involved in the garden since 2012. Please also bring along any spare seeds, seedlings or plants that you would like to share/swop.

Hello everyone. The next meeting of GIY Dundrum will be on Saturday March 11th at 10.30. We are delighted to welcome John and Shanti from the Grow Shop in Navan (https://www.growshop.ie/) who will talk to us about the fundamentals of hydroponic growing. They will show us different types of systems suitable for hobby gardeners.

John and Shanti will be bringing a water testing kit with them so if you bring a sample of your home tap water they will be able to tell you whether your water is hard/soft etc. and the implications for hydroponic growing.

Hydroponic growing allows for faster growth and higher yields than traditional soil-based growing systems. To grow hydroponically, you need plants, a container, water, a way to anchor the plants, nutrients and a light source. It is possible to grow vegetables hydroponically both outdoors and indoors.(https://extension.umn.edu/ )

Looking forward to seeing you all on the 11th.

Hi everyone you may be interested in an event in Airfield on March 4th. It is all about organic food (eating rather than growing I think) but there are interviews with organic farmers, dish tasting and opportunities to meet producers. It seems to be an EU project with Teagasc involved. You can book (free) on airfield.ie/events.

Only one of the events in this programme is listed on the Airfield website but given the timing I assume that if you book for the one named event you get to attend the whole thing!

Put March 11th in your diary for the next GIY meeting - more information will be posted closer to the date.

The next meeting of GIY Dundrum will be on Saturday next (February 11th) at 10.30. We look forward to seeing you all in Airfield. We don't have a speaker this month but the weather forecast is looking quite good so we might go for a walk around the garden to enjoy the signs of spring, after we have had a chat. As usual, spare seeds are most welcome for swopping.

Thanks to Julia for organising speakers for our meetings in March and April - more information about these on Saturday.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

GIY Dundrum will meet in Airfield House on Saturday morning at 10.30. If you ask at the ticket desk you will be directed to our meeting room (we don't have our usual room this month). As this is the season when many people are still harvesting fruit and vegetables from their gardens we will focus on cooking, preserving, and storing. Patsy will talk about making sourdough bread, and Eilis will talk about making apple jelly (and will bring along some for you to try). We would be delighted if anyone else has recipes or tips to share with the group.

The next GIY Dundrum meeting is on Saturday October 8th when we will visit the Goatstown allotments, we visited several years ago and it was a really great experience.

We will meet in the car park of the Goat Grill at 10.30 and walk from there to the allotments (just a short stroll away) and once we have had a tour of the allotments we can have coffee together in the pub. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us and we look forward to seeing you then.

You can email [email protected] if you have any questions.

Eilis, Rosa, Violet and Patsy

GIY Dundrum will be meeting in Airfield House at 10.30 on Saturday September 10th. We are delighted that our own committee member Patsy Grogan will be giving a talk on bee keeping. Patsy is a very experienced bee keeper and has a wealth of knowledge on the topic, so this talk is well worth attending, even if you don't plan to get your own hive!

We will meet at the main entrance just before 10.30 - if you arrive late please just ask at the ticket desk for the venue.

We are also looking for new members for the organising committee so please let us know if you would be interested in joining us. The time commitment is small as we only meet once a month and it would be great to get some fresh ideas from new committee members.