Muintir na Tire School Garden Competition

  Potatoes Where would the GIYer be without the humble spud? Spuds can be grown pretty much anywhere, produce a high yield from a relatively small space and store well. No wonder they have been a staple diet for Irish families for centuries. Digging for your first new potatoes will be like Christmas morning – we promise! SOWING Potatoes thrive in a good fertile soil to grow well. For best results add compost and a general fertiliser a week or two before planting. Potato leaves are frost sensitive, so if you intend to grow an early crop we suggest buying some fleece to protect your plants. Potatoes are grown from last year’s potatoes, known as seed potatoes. These can be potatoes you save yourself or purchased certified seed potatoes. Buying certified seed potatoes guarantees the potatoes are virus free – these can be found in garden centres and hardware shops from January-April. There are two types of potato variety: earlies and maincrop. Earlies are for harvesting in the summer an...

  Leeks Leeks are quite easy to grow and will withstand even the harshest winter. For many GIYers they are the only crop left in the soil during the winter months. They are another of the classic ‘stockpot’ vegetables. We eat the white part or stem of leeks – it is more accurately a rolled leaf rather than a stem (if you want to be pedantic about it). SOWING Leeks are heavy feeders so it’s best to grow them in fertile soil that has been enriched with plenty of farmyard manure or compost. Spread a general purpose organic fertiliser before planting out. Leeks can be grown in modules before being transplanted, but are probably easiest to grow in a seedbed outside. For early leeks, sow in March. For maincrop leeks, sow April. If sowing outside, sow thinly, 1cm deep in rows 15cm apart. If sowing in modules, sow one or two seeds per module, 1cm deep. GROWING Leeks will be ready to plant out about two months after sowing when they are about 1cm thick and 20cm long. To transplant, mak...

 Cork County Muintir na Tíre is recruiting a Part ‑ Time Community Development Worker / Office Administrator. If you’re passionate about community work, have strong organisational and bookkeeping skills, and enjoy supporting local groups across Cork City & County — we’d love to hear from you. 📍  Based in Cork City 🚗  Travel across Cork City & County required 📅  Closing Date: March 25th, 2026 📨  Apply by sending your Cover Letter & CV to: deniskelly@muintircork.com Help us strengthen and support communities across Cork! For full details of vacancy please click here  ActiveLink

  Paired with bacon or shredded for a slaw, cabbage is a supremely useful, healthy vegetable that grows well in our relatively cool climate. It’s also easy to grow. While cabbage plants take up a lot of space you can be sure it is worth it – with a little planning it’s possible to have a supply of cabbage all year round, even through the coldest of winters. Sowing Dig in some well-rotted manure or apply a general fertiliser a week before sowing. Do not grow cabbage anywhere that you have grown any member of the cabbage family the previous year (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, collards and kale). The best way to manage all these veg is to create a crop rotation scheme prior to growing. Sow one or two seeds in module trays 1.5cm deep. Thin out the weaker seedling once the plant starts to germinate. Cabbage can be harvested throughout the year if the right varieties are sown. The different types of cabbage need to be sown at different times of the year as f...

  A bitter leaved, tangy salad plant, chicory adds a nice texture to winter salads.  There are three types: red chicory, often known as radicchio or Italian chicory; forcing chicory, which is ‘forced’ by depriving the plants of light to produce tender, sweet white growths called chicons (which are a lot like tender cos lettuce); and sugarloaf chicory, which is like lettuce. Chicory can be grown in a raised bed or open ground, or even in a pot – so it’s ideal for the balcony grower. You can grow them as baby leaves or let them grow on to produce a compact head. Forcing chicory can often be the only way of having tender young salad leaves in a very cold climate, as you are forcing them indoors in pots – and the little chicons are a delicacy. Sowing Chicory can be sown direct or in module trays for transplanting. Sow indoors from March to July and outside from April to July. Sow a single seed in each module and lightly cover with compost. Sow outdoors thinly at 1cm deep in rows 2...

  Celery is incredibly good for you and is a staple ‘stockpot’ veg. It tastes great raw and also freezes well. There are essentially two types of celery: the traditional trenching celery and self-blanching celery. Most GIYers grow self-blanching (green) celery, which doesn’t require the labour-intensive process of ‘earthing up’ or trenching. Self-blanching celery is the easiest and most commonly grown type and the instructions given below are for the self-blanching celery. Sowing Celery needs a fertile soil, so add a general fertiliser a week or two before transplanting out to soil. Celery and celeriac are the only two crops that need to be sown in an open tray and pricked out – this is because the seed is very small and slow to germinate. Sow the seed from March to May inside in a warm place. Scatter seeds thinly on an open seed tray – the seeds should only be lightly covered with soil, as some light is required for germination. When the seedlings are about 2cm high they need ‘pri...