School garden guru, Paddy Madden, telling teachers at Lucan GIY about plant spacing.
Paddy Madden, author of ‘Go Wild at School’ and SESE lecturer in Marino Institute of Education, was the brilliant speaker at Lucan GIY monthly meeting on Mon 15 April last. Even though I thought I knew a good bit about school gardens and getting kids interested in the natural world, I was blown away by the practical array of trials, projects and experiments which Paddy demonstrated using old containers and other make-shift equipment which would be common in most households.
For instance, the audience got involved in making paper plant pots, eating tendrils of peas growing in a large plant pot and leaves of onions also growing in a pot. The peas were sown marrowfat peas from a regular supermarket food shelf and the onions were a densely planted handful of onion sets. The leaves can be eaten as well as the onions themselves. Using plastic bottles, cardboard and tinfoil etc, soil was analysed, earthworms were studied and seeds were sown.
If you are a teacher or are friendly with teachers, please urge them to sign up for
Paddy Maddens course on ‘Living Classrooms – Using School Grounds’ from 1 – 5 July this summer at Marino Institute of Education, Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9. Teachers should email Moya at inservice@mie.ie or phone 01 – 8057775 or Paddy 01 – 8057757. Only Marino seems to take the importance of food growing in schools seriously among the Colleges of Education which is great to see as far as it goes. However, why the blind spot in all the other of larger Colleges of Education? I wish we had more Paddy Madden type lecturers. Ireland’s future would be a healthier place if that was the case!
Trevor is co-founder and was, until his appointment to Government, a board member of Sonairte, the Irish National Ecology Centre, near Julianstown, County Meath which is an Agricultural Training and Visitor centre with a 2.2 acre walled organic garden. He is also a member of Amnesty International, the Dublin Food Co-op, the Irish Organic Farmers’ and Growers’ Association, Organic Trust and a former member of Macra na Feirme. A former teacher and fluent Irish speaker, he relaxes by reading, walking and playing music. His favourite form of relaxation is tending to his prolific organic garden at home in Balbriggan, North County Dublin, an area known by many as Fingal.
