Hi, everyone.. Have been panicking a wee bit lately as Spring is just around the corner, and am keen to get this garden up and running. Here´s what I´ve been doing!!!

Spoke with Mayo PPN officer Ailish Irvine yesterday and got so much info. What I took from our chat was that ultimately, it will be vital to get a lot of volunteers on board as well as inviting ALL members of the community to participate (irrespective of age, creed, gender, ethnicity or colour).

Ailish spoke about the award winning community garden in Ballina, which has surpassed all expectations under a diverse team of managers and volunteers. The idea of the garden was embraced by groups such as Mayo Traveller Support Group, Active Retirement Groups as well as Foróige. Ailish stressed that garden in Ballina has a strong education component. It has developed to such a degree that FETAC course are now a ´sideshoot´of the community garden and cookery classes, focused on healthy eating are now offered to community garden members. I think this is fantastic and reckon that if they can do it in Ballina.... well...... we can do it in Charlestown.

My dream is that our garden will welcome all members of the Charlestown and Bellaghy community. I want to get to know people from my hometown... reconnect with old friends, meet new people, share ideas, give and get support from other team members. I´m a long time gone from CTown.... even though I live 10 mins away, and so I´m looking to all of you to promote the idea from within. You will all have the ear of the locals and if you sing it... they will listen!!!!

I think a change is needed in our town. I think if we don´t change attitudes towards each other, towards the future ....and towards our dream of what and who we can be!!! then I think Charlestown will die!!! The truth is... I think it´s dying already. We have so many closed businesses, so many rundown houses, so much depression, so much suicide, so many people who are living in isolation, so many of us living lives of quiet desperation... and the thing is we´re not connecting with each other. When there´s no connection... how can we thrive as a community??

Since I started thinking about this garden, I´ve time and time again thought about the birth of the town. Sr Aiden (God Bless her!!!) told us the history of CTown. She told us that it was a town, borne of spite, borne from a fight between an English landlord and Charles Strickland... Charles won! and so Charlestown was borne. I´ve thought about our Mayo ancestors who on Market Day had to trek through bog to get to Bellaghy... and it took the poor bastards so long that by the time they got to Bellaghy, the veg had spoiled and they got poor prices for their produce. ... This we were told was why there was a fight between Charles Strickland and his boss. How plausible it is?!, I don´t know.... What I like to focus on is that CTown is built on a bog and as a gardener that means, we have seriously FINE soil. I wan´t to bury our ´fighting´past in the fine acid bog soil of Charlestown and from it grow good veg and fruit, not only to feed us, but to unite us as a community. Let´s come together as a community... let´s forget about the Mayo - Sligo divide, the social divide between the have´s and the have nots.... It´s all bullshit anyway. Let´s extend the hand of friendship... the helping hand... Let´s grow!!!!

Many thanks to friend and colleague Mr Cassidy who has promised us a trailer load of horse manure and straw (laced with sheep manure). Our aim is to grow vegetables in ´no dig´beds, using straw and well-rotted horse manure.