St Brigid’s boasts a fabulous School Garden Club with a mini polytunnel, mini orchard, mini pasture, woodland, frog pond, chicken coop, beehive, and potting shed, all in less than a hundred square metres.
Tucked behind St Brigid’s National School and the Parish Hall and Church, St Brigid’s Community Garden has been a tiny hive of activity since 2008. Students of St Brigid’s who participate in the after school Garden Club are given a short lesson and a choice of jobs in the garden. The children work away willingly and are very talented and respectful gardeners. They are very kind to the adults who volunteer with the programme, which brings together gardeners of all ages. When it’s time to go home, there’s a cup of soup for the workers, served with love in compostable cups. The composting section is another wonderful teaching area. Chicken coop ‘fertiliser’ is added in the first stage of composting to make the finished compost a superior growing medium. Participants learn about ‘food miles’, seasonal produce, ethical ingredients, animal husbandry, wildlife habitat and more.
The garden has been featured on RTE and GIY’s ‘Grow Cook Eat’. Awards, grants, thanks and newspaper articles are posted up in the potting shed, along with artworks by members. Well tended chickens and animals-on-lend are always a hit at the May Fair, a great tradition in the Parish. St Brigid’s Community Garden is piloting the first primary school beekeeping programme in Ireland. There’s always something happening!