March 2025 - look at the growth!

...and there will be weeds and slugs...

Mar 28, 2025

March seems to have been a busy month - and it’s not over yet! I’m sending this out early(ish) as there are some upcoming workshops that I’d like you to know about before they get booked out. It may be a short newsletter as I seem to be extremely busy!

I was successful in my application for Creative Westmeath funding, and so The Crafty Yellowship sets sail. This means that I will be collaborating with Bertille de Lestrade and Martina Coyle to bring you workshops that mix sustainability education with hands on crafting. Not to mention tea, cake and chat. Speaking of cake, here’s one I made for a Moate event. Expect to see more at my upcoming workshops

There’s just one workshop listed so far for the Crafty Yellowship project, but more will be coming soon - maybe even by the time you read this!

Seasonal Activities

The equinox on March 20th is my trigger for removing the old stems and detritus from the winter, so that was very satisfying , and the new growth is looking shiny and healthy and beautiful.

Lots of weeding to do. However, I have left the dandelions, which is tough even for me, when my brain is in clean up mode.

With perennial beds, the couch grass can take over so it’s no harm to dig everything out occasionally and clean up. So with a little help I did that for one small bed. Satisfying, but I’m sure that it won’t last.

Lots of seeds going in and germinating, but I need to be sure that I have places for them to go!

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Coole Meadow

It has been very dry, so the ground is easy to work with. There’s a bit of building work going on, so we had to move the perennial flowers from the upper lawn to the (very young) orchard. This necessitated the removal of a lot of couch (or scutch) grass (that will probably come right back). The digging was not too bad because the ground was very dry. However, many of the plants were struggling after transplanting because of the lack of rain. So I’m enjoying the showers and sunshine at the minute.

I may have bought too many potatoes to plant. After the first and second earlies were planted, and used up most of the space that we had prepared, I found another 4kg of second earlies that I had bought. And then there’s the 4 kg of main crop. Anyhow, luckily we have access to unlimited supplies of cardboard and donkey manure, so we will keep making beds, and look forward to loads of potatoes to eat from July on.

Potato beds with sacking paths. And hard working men making more beds in the background. Happy days.

Trees are budding up - both the established ones, and the newly planted Miyawaki planting. I’ll share some more pictures once they are in full leaf. I have also completed pruning and staking the espalier apple trees, and they look to have lots of flower buds on the verge of opening. So that bodes well for a good crop. The fence that they are tied to needs work, luckily we have a fencing expert in our work crew.

Under the old apple tree is spectacular. Over the years we have underplanted with our spent bulb pots, so now there are load of spring bulbs in the perfect place for spring colour. Right now it’t the turn of the daffodils, and narcissus, but you can see tulips coming on in the background. Last year we had tulip fire- if you were cultivating tulips you’d dig everything out and dispose of it. That would have been difficult with the mix we have here. And I wanted to see what would happen if I did nothing. So, the numbers of tulips is reduced, but the remaining ones seem healthy and are producing blooms, so that was interesting.

Workshops

We had an engaging Saturday morning in Moate for the flower power workshop - if you saw that but couldn’t make it, (or want more of the Plaster of Paris craftiness) then we are running that workshop again under the Crafty Yellowship banner - here’s the link. Some participants wanted to learn about flower growing on the day, so we made sure to give a few tips on that.

We finished that project with an exhibition in Moate Library on March 6th - that was well attended and provided a lovely social occasion for participants and their friends and family. The exhibition is still on display in Moate Library of you’d like to check it out.

I was asked to lead a panel at this ProSilva conference which I enjoyed immensely. I never moderated a panel before, but I’d be delighted to do it again!

Flower Farming

So, lots of clean up and seeing what has survived the winter. The butterfly ranunculus is just starting to bloom, so farm I’m not that impressed with them, colours are a bit subtle for me, but its early days. I have been growing them in pots so I moved a few outside - they really did not like the dry winds. But I have watered them and put them somewhere sheltered. It will be good to stagger the blooms.

Lots of seeds going in, and some of the winter sown annuals will be getting planted out.

Flower Farmers of Ireland were accepted to Bloom, so a bit of preparation and admin work going on there, I’m on the committee that is organising it, with Karen from Heather and Harebells leading and designing a beautiful show garden. a I expect that we will get busier on that soon.

Learning

We had a seed saving webinar, organised for the flower farmers - delivered by Richie - we are lucky to have access to this community of practice. I think that we all learned a lot from the event, and we have 2 further seed saving events to look forward to later in the year.

I’m still plugging away at my ceramics class - we have some set projects - here’s a teapot that I’m making. I would not have chosen to make a teapot but I’m delighted that I did, and I have used the same geometric template to make a vase. I make a lot of vases, but I have plenty of use for them once the flowers start growing, and they are a lovely gift for any of my flower growing friends.

Upcoming events

2nd April, Bloom Where You’re Planted at the Refill Mill - only a few spaces left.

There will be more like this over the next few months as part of The Crafty Yellowship project- We have 5 different themes/craft practices, taking place in Mullingar, Castlepollard and maybe Athlone.

I’m teaching a 4 week gardening course with Water St Association, on Saturday mornings, starting April 12. It will cover theory but there is also a strong practical element where we will work in the Water Street community garden, so lots of hands on experience. We will replenish the no dig beds, build a composting system and start lots of flower and vegetables. And build community! This is an incredible deal at only €50 for the 4 weeks, to book your place text 087 6130165.

I’m headed to Cavan for a foraging workshop where we will make wild garlic pesto, but that seems to be sold out.

You can learn to make Kombucha - that’s 27th April - as a collaboration with Mullingar Gathers. It’s a Sunday afternoon event, and we will taste a few different flavours of booch, and eat some crackers and cheese and chat in addition to the learning. I’m so delighted to be working with Mullingar Gathers - if you haven’t been to one of their events you’re missing out! Next up is games night and I’m still reverberating from the lovely pot luck community supper last Saturday.

Westmeath Libraries asked me to teach some gardening courses in all four libraries, I’ll be focussed on no-dig and growing from seed. You’ll find links here to book in to Mullingar, Athlone, Moate or Castlepollard events.

I’ll be teaching Soapmaking in November in Coolamber Gardens - quite the posh venue and a wonderful day out if you wanted to treat yourself or a friend.

Big Sky Flowers Newsletter