In A Walled Garden In Meath
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What is the significance of walled gardens in Ireland?
We begin this bank holiday edition of Mooney Goes Wild with a stroll through a very special walled garden in County Meath. Walled gardens have a long history in Ireland and Britain. Originally built on grand estates centuries ago to shelter fruit and vegetables from wind, frost and prying eyes and to create highly productive self-contained growing spaces this one is in Stamullen in County Meath and reporter Terry Flanagan has been visiting the garden with Ciarán de Butler Ciarán grows his food in close partnership with Wildlife and Nature and has written a book Nature's Acre to encourage others to do the same
So the walled garden, Simone, has been here a long time, but it's not my garden. And the people who own the garden have generously allowed me to grow vegetables and food here. And also we grow in conjunction with nature and wildlife rather than against them. We're all together in this.
How does Ciarán de Buitléar grow food in partnership with nature?
all together who's we we being myself and marie and dominica who helped me here in the garden and truth be known they do all the work yeah and they're local they live in simoleon yeah we being nature and wildlife and the insects and the birds and we all look after the land together so where we are here now we're just inside the wall we're right up here at the top of the garden which you've dedicated to growing food So this is where we grow our food organically and we have raised beds here because they work very well around here and also a large part of the garden we've left largely to nature because we find that helps nature and it helps us to grow our food because the balance of nature means we don't get pests and bugs or we don't get very many of them and the food still grows.
looking at some of the food here you've got cabbages typical vegetables that people will grow but these are all organic as you say they're all organic it's not certified but we follow organic principles we don't use sprays we don't use chemicals we don't use artificial fertilizers we're not zealous about it but we do things in probably a natural way and that's the food we want to eat yeah yeah so that's why we grow it that way
Let's move over here a bit because if we move away from where you're growing food for eating, you have it left to wildlife here. I'm looking over here. You have what appears to be a little pond. Is that right?
So we put in a wildlife pond. We got it on a free cycle. One of these websites, a man was just getting rid of it. And we put it in there and we left it. And we said, well, the frogs might find it. And they have. I can see the tadpoles in there.
I can see the tadpoles. There are literally, well, there must be a hundred tadpoles in there. is and hopefully some of them make it to be mature frogs and they come along and they'll eat some of those pesky slugs and you have another one here I think you're about to get it up and get it running it's an old bathtub
Sure, yeah. One of the neighbours got their bathroom done up and they said, Ciarán, do you want an old bath? So I said, yes. And well, Dominique dug it out. Right. She dug that out and we put the bath in. We have a grill over it to stop any dogs or kids from falling in. And that will be filled with water naturally. The rain will fill it up and hopefully more wildlife will come in and use that. The frogs, the insects, all those.
Now, the wall is covered in ivy. You've allowed that?
Allowed the ivy, yes. Against much advice, because people seem to not like ivy, but I think ivy is great. It covers the wall. So what I think is we can just trim it back if it gets too big. And we have fruit on the same wall, and they cohabit the wall quite well.
And the birdsong. I'm just looking at this lovely, beautiful robin just over our head there. Of course, I see lots of gulls as well because you're quite close to the sea.
We are. We're about a mile from the sea, so it's a very temperate climate here. It's a fabulous place to grow plants and it's a fabulous place for wildlife. But even when you come into the garden, I think it has its own weather because the walls enclose the space and they hold the heat in and keep the wind away.
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