Irish poultry and pork farming, River Cottage it ain't

Good to see Brendan Smith our Minister for Agriculture is to introduce new grants to improve the standards in sow housing and poultry farms. Out of all the livestock we produce in Ireland, sows and poultry get by far the worse end of the deal. For these animals, being raised for our plate is rarely how you see it on prettified food programmes. I've filmed in pig houses, a lot of what goes on tape couldn't go on air.

Cattle and sheep in Ireland are reared in an “extensive” system, which means they are outdoors in low stocking ratios with access to grass and only housed in the winter months. On the whole, this is ideal from a welfare standard and we can all sleep easily at night knowing that while that lamb shank at dinner tasted fantastic, the lamb that provided it had a fair shot at a decent outdoor life.

Pigs and poultry are a different matter. Both are as near to intensive farming as you can get in Ireland, and having been in poultry houses and seen how densely packed the birds are, I am compelled, despite the price difference to only buy free range chicken that has some kind of access to outdoor grazing and foraging.

Pigs have the worst situation of them all. Pig farming in Ireland is indoor, intensive and free range pork is still a tiny minority of the marketplace. Pigs are kept indoors in tiny pens their entire life and cannot live in a group, forage and do the intelligent pig stuff they like to do. Sows farrow (give birth) in metal stalls the length of their body with no room to move whatsoever, the piglets are kept away from the sow by a rail to stop her lying on them. If the sow was in a larger area she wouldn’t lie on them in the first place. If we kept our dogs this way there’d be a national uproar.

However under new EU animal welfare directives which will come into force at the end of 2011, both sows and hens will benefit from more animal friendly accommodation. Battery farming of hens in the EU will be entirely banned by 2012, so the infamous metal cage the size of an A4 sheet of paper will exist no more. Interestingly, in February of this year Poland campaigned to remove this ban or have it exempted for another five years but they were overturned.

Farmers in Ireland are at least going to get some help to comply with the new regulations in the form of 40% grants towards investments in new animal housing. To be fair, Irish farmers are regularly under pressure to comply with EU legislation that constantly alters and inforces new regimes such as the Nitrates Directive. However, when Ireland took on board the Nitrates Directive and complied with its purpose of keeping our waterways clean of agricultural run-off the plan worked.

Change can be costly but if it’s change that benefits the welfare of the animals we choose to raise for food, the environment and those who we share this planet with, we all benefit.

From starving on the side of the road to Ring 1 of the RDS. The journey of a rescue pony

HORSE SHOW SEASON: When Lulu the pony was found by the Irish Horse Welfare Trust on a housing estate, she was rake thin and lice infested. Next week, though, she will take her place in the distinguished surroundings of the RDS for the Dublin Horse Show. SUZANNE CAMPBELL on the work of the trust

NEXT WEEK LULU the pony will find herself groomed to perfection as she enters the ring at the Royal Dublin Society’s Horse Show. But it was on the edge of a housing estate in Finglas where the pony first came to attention, not by a judge wearing a bowler hat, but a volunteer from the Irish Horse Welfare Trust (IHWT).

Lulu’s early misfortune is typical of an increasing crisis in horse welfare across the country that has seen levels of abandoned animals soar. She was spotted by a member of the public, who reported seeing a pony at the side of the road who was tiny, starved and covered in lice. The IHWT took her in, rehabilitated her and found her a loving owner. In a pristine stable yard in Co Tipperary, Lulu now looks like a different pony.

“She was probably only a year old at that stage but had already been put into harness; she still has some marks from it,” says Katie Tobin, who has had horses all her life and became the pony’s guardian after she rang the IHWT and offered to rehome a horse.
“I had enough grazing to keep another animal so I told them I’d take one off their hands – whatever they wanted to give me. When the horsebox arrived, I thought there was no horse in it she was that small.”

In her stable, Lulu is quiet but self-possessed, eyeing us in quick glances as she munches through her breakfast, anxious to appraise her visitors without missing a scrap of her food. It was clear from the beginning that the pony wasn’t the usual offspring from the black and white horses kept around Dublin’s housing estates.

“She has a lot of quality blood in her, and with her pretty head she could be part Welsh pony,” says Tobin. She thinks the pony was probably stolen as a foal and fell into the wrong hands. “I’m just so glad she was picked up by the IHWT and then came to me.”

For the past 10 years, the IHWT has been taking in welfare cases and retraining horses coming from the racing industry, giving them a second chance as riding horses. Currently, it is inundated with rescue cases as economic woes have put many horse owners under pressure; starving and abandoned animals are being reported to it daily. In a new campaign, Welfare Aware, it hopes to raise more money from equestrian-related industries, as it relies hugely on public donations.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the work they do on so little money,” says Tobin. “Without the IHWT, the simple fact is that this pony and many others that they’ve rescued would be dead.”
Tobin saw Lulu’s potential early on and began showing her in hand (without a rider) when the mare was two. “Outside the show ring she was fine, but once inside she would be really badly behaved – rearing, sitting down, everything. I used to be so embarrassed I’d want to leave.”

Then she found a local girl, Shannon Sheridan, who could really ride her and handle her personality. “I’ve no children of my own. I had seen Shannon ride ponies on the circuit and I basically pestered her mother Michelle to death to try Shannon on Lulu. Once she sat up on her, the pair just clicked. She’s a fantastic rider, for a 12-year-old girl she can read a showing class better than many adults.”

Shannon Sheridan clearly knows every inch of the pony and slides off Lulu’s rug for us to have a closer look: “She can get a bit fat so we have to watch her food.” While Lulu has plenty of quality, she is also brimming over with personality. “She landed me in the hospital once when she took a fright at some white tape coming through the field gate,” laughs Tobin.

And what are their chances in Dublin? Tobin is confident. “If Lulu behaves and doesn’t get tense, she will do well.” The pony will take an hour to be plaited up and get her coat shining for the ring, but as Tobin points out, the real work is sorting out her boundless energy before she goes in front of judges. “We work her in sometimes for a couple of hours before her class, she has bottomless energy levels.”

Does Shannon Sheridan think the pony might be a challenging ride in the big surroundings of the RDS? She gives a nervous laugh: “Yeah.”

For Tobin, the hard work and expense in showing the pony and bringing her to the top level of competition has more than paid off. “I have another pony in Dublin the same week, but you know it’s Lulu that I’m really excited about. It was my dream that she would get there, and it’s a real success story for the IHWT. It proves all animals deserve a second chance.”


A nose for bags
LOUISE O’LEARY, the designer behind Louloubelle bags, was so taken with the work done by the Irish Horse Welfare Trust that she is launching a bag in aid of the charity. “I always had rescue cats and dogs from the pound and then I took in a rescue mare. She was found by the side of the road in north Co Dublin. The vet said she mightn’t last 48 hours.” O’Leary named the mare Hazel and watched her slowly improve in health. “For the first few weeks she had her head buried in the grass just eating, then one day she came trotting over to the fence to greet me.”

Since then, O’Leary has found her “an absolute joy. It’s amazing an animal that was mistreated and left to starve can be so grateful for what she has. So I thought, what can I do to help – I can’t take in more horses but I can design, so I decided to launch a bag named Hazel [pictured below] to raise money for the trust.” One of Louise’s aims at Louloubelle bags is to make handcrafted products from ethically sourced leather. A third of the world’s leather comes from China, where animal-welfare practices have received a lot of criticism, and cats and dogs are killed for their fur. For O’Leary, this was an important issue. “I think there is a lack of awareness about where leather comes from; if people knew more about it they might make different decisions.”

When she began her business, sourcing leather that is a by-product of the food industry was a difficult task. “I searched for a long time in Italy for a factory that would produce to high ethical standards. Even Carlo who runs the factory says he doesn’t want to make money off the back of animal abuse. I get offered leather all the time that is cheaper than the stuff I buy, but I suspect it’s coming from China.” For O’Leary, the bag is a way of giving back for the pleasure she has had from giving an unwanted horse a second chance. “The work the IHWT does is unbelievable, they badly need donations and people to adopt their animals if you have a suitable home for one.” The bag is available from ihwt.ie for a special price of €250 (normal RRP is €500). All proceeds will go to charity and the bag will be on view at the IHWT’s stand during the Dublin Horse Show.

Lulu and Shannon Sheridan will be in the Show Hunter Pony class at 9am in Ring One on Sunday, August 8th, during Horse Show Week at the RDS Dublin Horse Show

Walt Disney apples mightn't be Walt Disney for your insides

Just back from a lovely trip to Tipp - one of those long hot days in the car where you arrive home, slam the car door and think - phew, great to be back, but I'm so glad I went down to see those people; they really opened my eyes. There's something special about travelling to meet people in their own homes or place of work, you really get a sense of the issues they are facing and the hard work they are putting in keeping small businesses going in difficult times.

I was interviewing Con for a piece on RTE's Countrywide and we ended up spending several hours walking around his orchards and talking about apples and soft fruit. His farm as is one of the longest standing fruit growing businesses in the country. His parents came from Holland in the 1950s and they have farmed at that location since. Not only have they apples growing commercially but also strawberries, rasberries and other soft fruits, they make their own fruit juices, run a farm camping business and a successful farm shop.

He showed me some of the old Irish varieties of apples which are getting rarer and rarer in Ireland. They are beautiful apples - some a rich red in colour, some pale green, he had over 60 Irish varieties alone. Sadly, many Irish apples bruise, aren't the right colour, don't hold an even texture or have some other kind of small flaw that has made them obsolete in a commercial sense. This is the reality of growing apples on a big scale. Personally I'm sick of "Pink Ladies" from China and tasteless "Granny Smiths" from Chile, the fact that Irish apples aren't available in supermarkets constantly amazes me. Could they not even stock them in small quantities? We have apples at home and just now I'm looking at the tree and looking forward to their unique sweet, but discreetly tart taste. It's a shame that we've let Irish varieties vanish from our shelves. But just because an apples looks like something out of Walt Disney, it may not neccessarily be that good for you.

Con told me how apple growers are leaving the sector in Ireland because of cheap imports, they cannot compete with a Chinese apple which costs next to nothing to produce. You might say this is great for consumers, but what do we know the production standards for Chinese apples - what pesticides and herbicides are used? This is tightly controlled in the EU, not so outside of it. And what are the workers paid who harvest the apples - it's not even worth thinking about.

Fruit growing in Ireland will cease to exist within one generation unless we as consumers look to buy Irish product. It may be a few cents more expensive but what you're getting is quality product produced under safe food standards and where workers are paid a healthy wage. If we ignore Irish fruit and go for the cheapest option, we won't be able find it in the shops in several years time, and ultimately, we will do ourselves out of the option to buy fruit produced in Ireland.

More pictures of Con's farm on my facebook page

Please collect my recycling Superquinn

So you do the right thing and buy a Bord Bia approved Irish grown broccoli in an Irish owned supermarket - Superquinn. Douze points. But what the hell - it's shrink wrapped in plastic. Can someone tell the supermarkets to ditch the shed loads of packaging? As for Tesco and M&S - there are villages across the globe that could be re-built with the packaging on a single M&S ready meal. One supermarket shop in our house (rare but hey, they do happen) fills our recylcing bins to the top. I actually spend more time taking packaging from groceries and sorting it out into it's various homes than putting away the groceries. Funnily enough, I am still waiting for a supermarket to call by and collect our Wheelie bins on a Monday.

More on this in Saturday's Indo where I might just go completely mad and name everything about supermarkets that's against the interests of consumers. Let alone farmers.

Pretend it's the East End 1945, Street Feast this Sunday

Street Feast is a day of local parties across Ireland this Sunday 18th of July, hosted by you and your neighbours. It's free; just bring along some food and a positive attitude. They can be anywhere — on your street, in a local park or in your front garden. It's really just an excuse to eat great food, celebrate local community and meet new people who live near you. There were two really successful ones in Dublin last year - The Sitric Picnic in Stonybatter and Block Party Ranelagh - simply about people wanting to get to know those who we live beside.

In my area - North Wicklow there are two currently organised in Greystones, one in Newcastle, one in Newtownmountkennedy and one planned for Delgany. None I know of in Enniskerry or Bray as yet, I'm off to a barbeque up the mountains that day which probably doesn't count. The idea of bunting and tables of garden veg, charcuterie, wine and olives on our little lane is having me hankering after a street feast of our own. It's a fantastic scheme as it's such a simple idea. It would be great to see it get popular support, after all it's just a giant excuse to party. Find info of street feasts in your local area on their website, download their simple plan for organising a street feast and there's also a forum for who in your area is currently setting them up. www.streetfeast.ie

Hey, she's wearing the same gardening outfit as me

Michelle Obama's food garden at the White House will stay with me as one of the most lasting images from her husband's presidency. Most political careers end badly, but her passion for doing something to address America's food wasteland and obesity crisis shows a force for positivity and real passion that go hand in hand with her husband's vision. No matter what happens the presidency, Michelle Obama is a force for change and has brought a whole new level of expectation to the role of the president's wife.


Today, Michelle launches her Let's Move website to bring attention to eating, cooking and food sourcing in the US. I've seen her talking about this and she really is inspirational, particularly because she doesn't try to be something she's not, just a mother who found herself on the wrong side of America's food debacle -





"Before coming to the White House we lived like a normal family. With two parents working we were too busy and trying to maintain some balance. Picking up kids from school, trying to get things done at work... I didn't have enough time to cook a meal for my kids, I was trying to make up for things in a way, so we went out for fast food a lot and ordered pizza. After a point I began to see the effects on my kids - our paediatrician said - you might want to start making some changes. So I did, short easy changes that led to this initiative "Lets Move".



Her goal is to provide more information for parents, to improve the quality of food in schools, to have less "food desert" areas of America which are nutritional wastelands; where the choices of what you eat are severely limited. And finally to encourage families to exercise more. Today she is hosting her first-ever live web chat on AOL Health. Her site at http://www.letsmove.gov/ has great videos and a soft, postive approach to the huge problem that America is facing with the health of its inhabitants. If the graph continues on its present trajectory, those who are children today in America will be the first generation to die younger than their parents. America is at an advanced stage of what is already happening in Europe, it will be interesting to see what a mother, albeit in the White House, can achieve against the might of the multinationals she's up against. I'm following you closely Michelle x

Leave farming to the farmers

Growing food, like shopping for it, certainly has it's ups and downs. I had a bout of severe envy the other day when my neighbour told me her potato plants were up to her waist and her peas were rising to the heavens like something out of jack and the beanstalk.

I made a face and pointed at a bare patch of mud where not one pea came out of the ground this summer, despite three successive plantings. Last year, even with the Noah's Ark type climate we actually had better growth in our veg garden. This summer our tomato plants are still small, and some are only beginning to flower now, which means we will have tomatoes right on cue for Christmas dinner.

Other disasters have been a whole lettuce crop eaten by slugs the first day it peeped through the ground, and healthy courgette plants that mysteriously keeled over one night and never recovered. We've also had a few visits from either rabbits or rats. The field surrounding our house is Watership Down central, and despite there being seven dogs along our lane, the rabbits bound around the place twitching their ears and looking cute in a provocative manner. The dogs yawn, roll over in the grass and snore.

What's been a success this summer is the foreign varieties of lettuce, radishes which are giant sized and a healthy strawberry crop. What I learned yet again is the lesson of planting either too much or too little at the one time. It's a really common mistake - a friend of ours gave us a giant bag of rocket - he had a crop that was way beyond his needs and it would be rotting in the soil by the end of the summer. This time we planted too much lettuce at the one time instead of staggering it - so I have forty lettuces all at the same stage and none coming up to replace them.

I've been naughty and relied on slug pellets to protect them, and have fed the tomatoes with tomato food but as discussed here before, the soil in our garden wasn't up to much. Early in the summer we added in some top soil from a road being dug up at the end of our lane. It was from a field that produces a tillage crop every year, either barley or oats. The patch where we put this soil literally killed everything. I think it was either too pesticide ridden or had no nutrients left as it had been so intensively farmed. Yet another lesson learned. Unless you have several tonnes of NPK most tillage farmed soil produces nothing.

In terms of time management sometimes we moan about the watering which takes about 20 minutes a day at the moment in the dry weather. I also have too many plants in pots which dry out quickly and need a lot of water. We weed the plot occasionally and to be fair it doesn't produce a huge amount of food, but what's more important is the enjoyment we get out of watching its progress, and pottering around with the baby and picking her strawberries straight from the plants. Growing food teaches you patience, and more respect for the people who do it as a full time job. As Philip remarked the other day, if we ever decided to grow food or keep livestock commercially we'd be flat broke. Leave farming to the farmers.

More pictures of the vegetables on my facebook page

Hey ho, the supermarkets are at it again

Last week we heard how Ireland has the second highest food and drink prices in the EU. This week it's becoming clearer why. If farmers are barely scraping a living and we're paying way over the odds for our groceries, who exactly is getting the fat in the middle? Eurostat's figures showed that what we pay for food is 29% higher than the EU average. Ireland recorded the highest prices in Europe for dairy produce such as milk and cheese, and despite being the biggest meat exporter in the northern hemisphere - we are still paying the fifth highest meat prices of the 27 countries surveyed.

In an investigation just published, it turns out that the high prices we are paying are the result of multi-national chains abusing their dominant position, poor information on special offers beyond local markets in the EU and the slow growth of e-commerce. The EU commissioner Michel Barnier has just revealed the results of a new study along with the promise to introduce new rules on food retailing in the autumn. Half of all retail in Europe is grocery and is dominated by the big multi-nationals such as Tesco and Carrefour. The report found that prices can vary hugely for products, even for the same product in different outlets that belong to the same supermarket. Barnier's report also found that Ireland is still wrapping its food in huge amounts of expensive packaging, up to six times as much as the lowest member state.

It's always been the case that there has been a disconnect between what food is worth to food producers and what we consumers pay for it. In some cases the contrast is actually offensive to farmers; rendering a unit of production (a beef heifer etc) just not worth rearing by the time you've paid your costs. Many farmers can barely break even, such is the power of the mulitples. Time and time again during the writing of our book and continually still, I am being contacted by farmers who are having terrible treatment at the hands of the multiples, few will give their names as they are terrified of being blacklisted. Especially as summer time is fruit season, it unfortunately coincides with many sad tales from fruit growers. One farmer told me last week how a retailer refused his strawberries even though he had matched the price of their imported product from Chile. Then the supermarket insisted that the farmer collects any unsold product and waste and pays for its disposal. They refused to sell it at a discounted rate, he said they simply couldn't be bothered.

Roll on some proper supermarket ombudsman legislation, transparency of their profit margins, and codes of practise which must insist on fair treatment of producers. I spoke to an Oireactas Committee about this last May, the legislation is in consultation phase, I just hope they get it out into the marketplace to protect both farmers and consumers as quickly as possible.

More at -

The Examiner
http://irishexaminer.ie/ireland/politics/goods-wrapped-in-up-to-six-times-more-packaging-124307.html

Patience Wheatcroft in the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704535004575348944028858252.html

The Government vote last night finished stag hunting in Ireland

It's all gone Pete Tong for the Ward Union. I imagine they are in shock this morning. Four months ago I requested to record their last drag hunt for RTE, they turned it down. I don't want to quote Pretty Woman here "Big mistake. Huge...", but you guys needed all the help you could have got. It's all the more regrettable because as a horse person and from a farming family many of my sympathies lie with the countryside view. (My mum's family alone have killed more game in Ulster than is produced yearly.) But last Spring, the Ward Union were standing fast.

It's a real pity it didn't happen and I feel genuinely sorry for them this morning. All the hunt staff, kennel men and the countless employees in the area that look after livery horses, ancillary businesses and the deer farm will be out of work fairly soon. An end to deer hunting was inevitably going to come in Ireland, it's just a pity that both sides became so entrenched.


I'm still kind of flabbergasted that they thought they could get this through and they would be back hunting this September. Yes the vote was close but this is finely worked out stuff; and whatever the amazing countryside forces RISE galvanised, it was never going to be good enough for party politics.

What I know so far of what happened last night -
Christy O'Sullivan who abstained in the first vote, voted for the Government in the second, and in the walk-through. Mary Wallace, the Fianna Fáil TD for Meath East, voted with the Government to support the bill. Why make such a steam about it when you vote for it anyway Mary? Yet again, rebel FF TD's hot air could barely get a domestic kettle to even think about boiling.

Mary's statement said "I decided, in the national interest not to be instrumental in the fall of this Government. Despite my strong objections to this Bill, I believe a General Election would be wrong for the country and indeed for my community'

Oh God, Community. Mary if your vote is in the national interest, most of your Meath constituency will be buying a Ryanair ticket to Bydgoszcz this morning. For Gormley and the Programme for Government, starting out with a bill on hunting was asking for trouble. He should have learned from the UK that hunting creates massive political wobbles, and the coalition has just suffered its first as a result. And why the strategy to introduce the bill on hunting first, and then follow it up in the same week with the Dog Breeding Establishments Bill? Good thinking there folks, the dog bill is actually causing more ructions than the stag hunting if that's possible. This week is likely to be a lively one. I bet Gormley is regretting he didn't start out with his promised legislation on the Dublin Mayor. Gosh how easy that looks now in comparison.

Poor Gormley, he should have listened to Albert Reynolds - "it's the small stuff that can bring Governments down"

Emotion is the order of the day with any discussion on hunting. A few years ago I produced a television programme about a hunting row in East Galway. I ended up banned from entering East Galway by the Hunt (interesting to see how they were going to enforce this) while one of the anti's I interviewed chained himself to the security gate outside RTE in protest. What I thought was a very balance programme had managed to drive both sides to distraction.



What poor Gormley didn' t know when entering this fray is that you're always on the wrong side of a hunting issue. In an interview on the news at one today he just said "jobs and the economy" three times - he's desperate to get the focus away from his little bill and back onto something not involving furry animals. As Gormley mutters along to sporadic boos in the Dail, his bill to ban the Ward Union Hunt is gathering a flood of name calling and anger around the country. The RISE campaign (Rural Ireland Says Enough) is well organised, well funded and has the support of all the field sports bodies in Ireland ranging from fishing to beagling plus the force of the European field sports organisations. They have an office in central Dublin staffed by volunteers, press release daily and have many influential connections. It's not surprising there is a RISE protest happening at the moment about once a week around the country, particularly if there's a sniff of a Green party conference or event in the area. But RISE's threats are mainly aimed at Fianna Fail - "if you let this Gormley gombeen close down hunting you will pay for it at the next election", being the general gist.


Emotion is ruling the day again. The same happened in the UK when what on the surface should be a small issue brought about huge rural/urban divide and bought Labour the general distrust of the countryside. And its happening all over again here; hyperbole, distrust and on the Greens part, a real lack of how hunting works and it's economic and social impact on those living in the countryside.


Gormley is now saying daily that his bill is to shut down the Ward Union Hunt only, other hunts won't be touched. RISE are saying - Liars. You're just starting the ball rolling to introduce successive bans on fox hunting, harrier packs, beagling and fishing, the Ward Union is just the start.

The bill in essence will indeed ban the Wards from carrying out a "carted deer" hunt. The animals are not wild but owned by the Wards and transported to the location of the meet by trailer on the morning of the hunt. It's the only hunt still doing this in Ireland, stag hunting was banned quite a while ago in the UK. It does not emcompass any other packs or field sports.



Fox hunting itself is a long way off being banned. Fianna Fail or any party with eyes in it's head will have been sufficiently rattled at the well organised opposition to the current bill to not chance bringing something on fox hunting into the frame for a long time.


The other matter of Gormley's puppy farming legislation (Dog Breeding Bill up for discussion this Thursday) has also driven the hunts demented. The fact is that Irish hunt clubs are likely to get an exemption to keep more than 6 breeding bitches and continue producing hounds at the rate they do. So happy days for them. But they don't want their premises to be inspected by vets to see that the animals are kept to a satisfactory welfare level. If you're happy about the health of your hounds, why wouldn't you want a vet to look at them? You can't have your cake and eat it folks.

The dog breeding bill is generally well thought of among those from the veterinary and animal welfare side. I've seen the results of puppy farming, and it's not happening out there in neverland. There have been pet shops in Dublin found to be selling sickly, badly bred "glamour dogs" which had been puppy farmed. And please be very careful buying a dog from the web, they're very likely to have come from a puppy farm. They way to know this is ask the owner can you see the bitch and the sire. You'll most likely be told a big fat no.

Poor Gormley. Albert Reynolds did say it's the small issues that bring Governments down. Debating hunting will always bring you a heap of pain. He should stick to water charges.

Who's looking after the inevitable casualties from Irelands boom in horse ownership

Today on Derek Mooney's show I was in to talk about the Irish Horse Welfare Trust and the brilliant work they are doing down in Woodenbridge. After visiting their yard and rescue centre, we did an item on how the boom in horse ownership over the past decade has created a welfare nightmare. Poor listeners! After a hilarious early part of the programme which centred on France's woes in the world cup and pizza eating competitions, I dropped the tone several notches in detailing the appalling equine cruelty going on in Ireland. At least I pointed out that thankfully, the Irish Horse Welfare Trust seems to be the only organisation doing anything about cleaning up the inevitable mess due to the overproduction of horses in Ireland.


Pictured above is Debbie who works with the Trust and "Captain" who was left for dead in a field with 40 other horses who were found abandoned and starving on a farm in Kilkenny. Earlier this year the owner of this herd recieved a 23 month sentence for his work, a good sign that the attitudes to cruelty which used to be confined to dogs and cats is finally being recognised in larger animals. Those who abandon or leave animals without food, including cattle and sheep are at last beginning to pay dearly for the consequences.

It was great to give the IHWT some airtime as they have been doing brilliant work taking in equine rescue cases since 1999 and need all the help and support they can get. Sharon Newsome showed me round the yard where they had everything from thoroughbreds to cob foals, all in desperate need of attention. The problem is that the yard needs 300,000 euro a year just to keep going, and the IHWT really needs public donations to keep things afloat. This Thursday they launch their new "Welfare Aware" logo which means organisations and horse related businesses can use the "Welfare Aware" brand to show they support the welfare of horses.

After all, Ireland is the 3rd biggest producer of thoroughbreds is the world, but what are we doing about the inevitable casulties which are left over from racing and breeding? We all gush about Irish horses in equestrianism and run into Ladbrokes to put a fiver on the likes of Istabraq at Cheltenham, but who is there to pick up the pieces from the thousands of horses who don't make it?

Unfortunately, dealing with equine rescue cases is neither done by local authorites or any other organisation. They get a bit of support from HRI and the Department of Agriculture but they're on their own after that. I wish them every success in their new campaign, their equine ambassador, champion steeplechaser Moscow Flyer will be at the Mansion House at 1pm with all the team to launch "Welfare Aware". I saw him down at their yard and thank god for once recognised a top quality horse in the flesh; when we approached the paddock of thoroughbreds there were two at the gate and I remarked to Sharon Newsome what nice looking animals they were, especially the bay. She looked at me and laughed "That's Moscow Flyer". God it's nice when you don't make a complete fool of yourself for once.

More info on Irish Horse Welfare Trust at www.ihwt.ie, and the Mooney show item can be heard on their archive page -
http://www.rte.ie/radio/mooneygoeswild/archive/index.html

If the chicken on my plate comes from Thailand I don't want to eat it

Great to see this week that the EU Parliament has finally proposed country of origin labelling for meat, poultry, dairy products, fresh fruit and vegetables. This means that as we roam around the supermarket we will know if the food we're buying is coming from countries where production standards are far lower than the EU, let alone where scary animal welfare issues and large scale factory farming is the order of the day. I've been on these farms, and they're not pretty. The experience turned me into someone who is cross eyed from reading tiny print on the back of packaging and endlessly despairing of poor quality food being passed of as local or Irish. Within my food choices, I feel that having knowledge of how animals are farmed and killed also brings responsibility.

The most important thing about this proposal is that it encompasses meat, poultry and fish when used as an ingredient in processed food. This is great news and obviously going to be a major headache for the makers of pizzas, chicken nuggets and the like. To say the least, they are not in favour of country of origin labelling - it has obvious cost issues but more importantly, their chicken kievs made in China might become suddenly less attractive than chicken kievs made in Monaghon. My cynical husband pointed out that while it's hard for the giant food processors to lobby every single member of the EU parliament, the Council of Ministers is another matter, and this proposal has to go to them before it's adopted. Let the lobbying begin. If the EU wants to preserve a culture where people live on the land and producing food they need to vote it through.
Lets hope good sense prevails, watch this space.

Economic crises bring strange turnarounds

Farming is changing – but so, too, are the people who are at the forefront of the industry. SUZANNE CAMPBELL meets some dynamic young people who have chosen to work on the land in challenging times



A LONG WINTER AND low prices for produce have left many farmers feeling that they are in a sector under siege. But third-level colleges still have large numbers of students choosing to study and pursue careers in agriculture. This new generation of young people is bringing innovation, academic excellence and fresh blood back to family farms around the country. Here, four of them discuss keeping a positive attitude; what it’s like to work with your parents, and their love of a lifestyle that keeps drawing them back to the countryside.



Lorraine Davis , from Tipperary, is 22 years old and in her fourth year studying agricultural science in UCD, specialising in animal and crop production. She has won a scholarship every year for her end-of-year results. “Since I was young I knew I wanted to do something in farming and an agriculture degree was the obvious choice. In UCD I spend a good bit of time studying, but really it’s the practical side that interests me.” Davis’s favourite class was when they examined the stomach system of a cow. “We looked inside an animal at its rumen and digestive system. That’s when I really began to understand bovine nutrition and how the theory relates to reality.”
Davis’s family has a dry-stock farm. They buy in calves and sell them at their finished weight, about 18 months later, to factories. “I like working with cattle, for me it’s the closest thing to what farming is about. The only thing physically difficult can be handling the older animals; you have to be cuter with them to get them to do what you want.”


Davis finds that many people still expect farmers to be male. “Sometimes when I’m on the farm in my outdoor clothes people come up to me thinking I’m a man and are surprised to see a girl. But it’s no problem, they soon see that I know what I’m doing.” Away from UCD and their home farm, Davis works part-time on a goats’ milk farm in Portumna. “It’s interesting as goats are very different to cattle and sheep; they’re highly intelligent. Goats’ milk is very good for asthma sufferers. It’s something I might get into in the future as alternative enterprises like that are what many farms are moving towards nowadays.” At the same time, for Davis it’s not all about business. “Farming can’t always be about money; I like animals, nature and being out in the open air. That’s the big attraction.”




‘Farming is a great life for families’
Caroline O’Neill (26), farms the family’s dairy farm in Ballinadee, Co Cork. This year she won Feirm Factor , TG4’s televised competition for farmers. She has a four-year-old daughter, Katelyn. “Farming is a great life for families. I love that Katelyn can be with me while I’m at work. She helps feed the calves and loves the outdoors; it’s how I grew up.”
Most of O’Neill’s family are involved in farming. “It’s in our blood. We’re the type of people that don’t do well working under somebody else. I couldn’t see myself in an office job, I’d be claustrophobic.” Feirm Factor gave her a chance to show off her different abilities. The programme tested farming knowledge and also practical skills, such as driving a tractor around an obstacle course. “I think I won because I’m a good all-rounder.”


O’Neill says having a passion for what you do is essential. “Farming has to be part of your life in more ways than just being the day job. Many of my friends farm, so when we go out on a Saturday night we talk about farming and swap stories, so you’re constantly learning as well.”
Despite low milk prices in recent years, O’Neill is optimistic about the future. “I believe that if you farm well, you can still make money. I’m very good with cows. I make sure to know every detail. I look at the stats for each animal for how much milk they are producing and what quality it is. “If you like being around animals and understand them it makes a big difference. At the end of the day I want my little girl to have the life I had when I was growing up, so there’s no other job for me.”




‘The world needs food’
Alastair Doherty (28), from Letterkenny in Donegal, farms a 51-hectare livestock farm with his father, who is also a farm contractor. “Farming is a job I love, I wouldn’t do anything else. Beef prices are low but I am still managing to make an income from the farm; it’s just not like years ago when you had a farmer with a wife full-time at home and the farm put the kids through college. Now a farm is one income – myself and my dad are lucky that our farm supports the two of us.” Alastair studied a two-year part-time course with Teagasc and won the student of the year award. “I think I won because I had a positive attitude and sort of led the group. I was working on the farm while doing the course and I began to farm more by calendar, and to allow leeway for the weather.”


He also learned from the bad weather conditions of the past year that planning for the best-case scenario can be costly. “If you expect good weather or good prices for your commodities you’re heading for a fall, so plan for the worst and then you can’t get caught out.” Making plans and seeing them through has helped keep his farm on track. “I’ve learned to make goals for myself; if you get six out of 10 goals achieved you’re going well. It’s important to try new things, but you have to have patience working with a parent. A lot of young fellas get fed up with that and leave farming, and when you’re in your early 20s, the world is your oyster. “I did my travelling and it was so important – you’re never left wondering should I have done this or that. But then I came back home to work on the farm with my father and it’s going well. I chair a discussion group of young farmers and we are positive about the future – the world needs food after all and we are well placed to provide it.”


‘Getting customers abroad is key to survival’
William Keane (28), is a beef and dairy farmer from Waterford. Last September, he won FBD’s young farmer of the year award. Keane studied food science and technology in UCC before working for Dawn Meats and then Bord Bia in London. “Bord Bia was a fantastic experience. I learned a lot about what consumers want in our export markets. I was dealing with small Irish food producers, connecting them with suppliers in the UK. I did everything, including driving to Heathrow to collect a few kilos of artisan-produced butter for an English buyer to taste.”
Keane found a high regard for Irish food abroad, but feels that Irish businesses often fall down on bringing their produce to the customer. “There are people making great food products in Ireland, with good research, marketing, and production, but there’s often a weakness in their route to market. We’re an island nation so getting customers abroad for our exports is key to survival.” Keane’s experience in the export trade gave him expertise that pays off on his own farm. “It gave me more business acumen, and made me more watchful of costs and accounting. It also gave me a unique insight and pride in what I’m doing in terms of producing quality food.” Keane works with his father and finds that good communication is key to how they run the farm.
“I’m lucky in that my father is open to new ideas.”


He believes that farming is going to change in the coming years. “There will be less reliance on supports, but farming can still be central to what we do in Ireland. The markets are there for high quality food. We just need to make use of our natural resources and build on that advantage.”

Ditch the diet gurus, just read "Food Rules"

The 64 healthy eating tips that will change your diet forever
By Suzanne Campbell, The Irish Independent, Thursday Jun 17, 2010
Summer time spells anxiety for many of us, and the prospect of stripping off by the pool can push us towards a quick weight-loss plan. In Hollywood, a new diet trend is to eat only raw food or even baby food -- yet another weight-loss plan supposedly practised by celebs such as Jennifer Aniston. But as these trends come and go, how many of us ask: "South Beach", "Atkins", "The Zone", did any of them work in the long term?
With a diet industry that's worth over €200bn worldwide, it's not hard to see how peddling the latest solution for weight loss is a financial winner. New diet products and "experts" exist to sell us new ways to do the same old thing: lose weight and become healthier.
American author Michael Pollan has an alternative approach. In his new book Food Rules: An Eater's manual, he offers 64 simple tips on how to eat healthily. They read like advice your granny would have given you, and provide a refreshing antidote to the constant stream of nutritional "trends".
Ditching diet gurus and getting real about food is the only approach that works, according to Pollan. Writing about diets is a new departure for Pollan, whose laser-beam attention is normally focused on supermarkets and food manufacturing. His landmark book In Defense of Food made him one of the world's most trusted writers on the subject.
A professor of science journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, Pollan turns the focus on to us in Food Rules, advising us to ignore "The Nutritional Industrial Complex".
He uses old-fashioned sense to simplify what we put into our mouths and see how it's affecting our weight and health.
Pollan was nudged towards writing about weight loss by doctors who approached him looking for a pamphlet with some simple rules for eating. One physician told him about the insides of patients which were wrecked by eating "food products" rather than food. In the past, Pollan has detailed the huge health cost of processed foods and points out that the way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000.

"The modern supermarket has on average 47,000 products. The industry does not want you to know the truth about what you're eating because if you knew, you might not want to eat it."
Obesity costs Ireland €4bn a year. And as we eat more of the so-called Western diet -- processed foods, meat, added sugar, fats and refined grains -- we're also experiencing more of the diseases associated with this diet: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Yet people who consume more traditional foods experience these diseases at a much lower rate.
After years analysing the problem, Pollan's answer is shockingly simple: "Eat real food, not too much of it, and eat more plants than meat." Expanding on this central theme, Pollan took the doctors up on their challenge: collecting and formulating straightforward, everyday rules for eating for a book that could be understood by everyone. For advice he turned to chefs, scientists, doctors and the readers of his books. Then he boiled down the knowledge into 64 essential rules about eating with a paragraph explaining each.

For such a heavy hitter such as Pollan, it's refreshing to read a collection of positive tips on eating that is as relevant at the holiday buffet counter as in the aisle of the supermarket. Here's a selection of his food rules:
- Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself
Pollan suggests there's nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried food or pastries now and then. The problem is that food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we're eating them every day. Once the food industry took over the task of washing, peeling, cutting, frying potatoes and cleaning up the mess, it makes things like French fries much more attractive.
"If you made all the French fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they're so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, and ice-cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you're willing to prepare them -- chances are good it won't be every day."
- Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored
Pollan says that many of us eat when we are not hungry.
"We eat out of boredom, for entertainment, to comfort or reward ourselves. Try to be aware of why you're eating, and ask yourself if you're really hungry -- before you eat and then again along the way. (If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you're not hungry.) Food is a costly antidepressant."
- Avoid foods you see advertised on television
Food marketers are ingenious at turning criticisms of their products into newer, reformulated versions of the same foods. They re-advertise the product as being low in fat or low in salt and then boast about their implied health properties.
Pollan's tip: "The best way to escape these marketing ploys is to tune out the marketing itself, by refusing to buy heavily promoted foods. More than two-thirds of food advertising is spent promoting processed foods (and alcohol), so if you avoid products with big ad budgets, you'll automatically be avoiding edible food-like substances."
- Do all your eating at a table
And no folks, "a desk is not a table". Pollan points out that if we eat while we work, watch TV or drive, "we eat mindlessly -- and as a result eat a lot more than we would if we were eating at a table, paying attention to what we're doing".
Testing this, he offers an interesting solution to the problem of fussy children. "Place a child in front of a television set and place a bowl of vegetables in front of him or her. They will eat everything in the bowl, often even vegetables that he or she doesn't ordinarily touch, without noticing what's going on. Which suggests an exception to the rule: When eating somewhere other than at a table, stick to fruits and vegetables."
- Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the milk
"This should go without saying. Such cereals are highly processed and full of refined carbohydrates as well as chemical additives."
- Cook
"Cooking for yourself," he writes, "is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and food processors." And by cooking at home he doesn't mean something complicated or arduous. It's throwing leftovers from the fridge together for an omelette, opening a tin of tuna with some salad, or even beans on toast.
Pollan's rules distil much of what we know about food into easy, memorable nuggets of information. The book's strength lies in that it's uncomplicated, jargon-free and points out with a large dollop of humour the madness of some of our eating habits. After all, "it's not food if it arrives in the window of your car" isn't that hard to argue with. Food Rules set out to be the antidote to diet books, but it could just change the way you eat for a very long time.
Suzanne Campbell
Irish Independent Read more: http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/health-fitness/the-64-healthyeating-tips-that-will-change-your-diet-forever-2223296.html#ixzz0r6kagJBR

Lots of Chanel bags, not enough value for money.

Taste of Dublin yesterday enjoyed sunny weather and there’s no doubt that the event is in a lovely setting, yet the whole thing still manages to score on the low side. While it’s always an enjoyable outing for socialising, I ask myself every year if it really works as a food event. Because of its nature as a standy-up, browse around with a paper plate in one hand affair, it’s limitations lie in precisely that – it has a hurried feel and the best of Dublin’s restaurants simply can’t be serving the dishes they do well at those kind of volumes from tiny kitchens at the rear of trade stands.

The Friday lunchtime session was predictably enough, very busy with lots of carefully styled outfits and ladies in towering stilettos sinking into the grass. After a wander around, Francesca and I headed to Town Bar and Grill where I had their beef cannelloni with beef, sun dried tomatoes, pesto and rocket. I’m very fond of Town Bar and Grill but I found this dish a little on the plain side and the pasta slightly toughened. Francesca’s king prawn with saffron orzo pasta was a little more successful but at 8 florins (the currency used at the event which is basically 8 euros) this is fairly expensive for a tiny plate of food.

From the Dylan hotel we had three oysters for 7 florins, or 7 euro, which is also quite steep. They were neither plump or flavoursome but served with a little shot of bloody mary which was really nicely mixed. We watched Gino d'Acampo do his thing in the demonstration tent for a bit – lots of slick patter about Italian men and Irish ladies and there’s no doubt he’s a good showman, and kind of cute in a bizarre way. It must have been the bloody mary.

If you’re very interested in new food producers and artisan products, this is not the place to be. What producers are there do a good job, but there is very little of that produce available to buy. We came away with some cheese, beautiful chocolate from the girls at Pandora Bell and pudding from Kelly’s in Cork. I would love to see more artisan food on sale and more of a focus on small producers - many of the larger display tents are taken by big brands such as Knorr, Tropicana and Dubliner cheese. If I really fancied a free shot of Tropicana I could go to my nearest Tesco and talk to the nice lady with the promotions stall at the end of aisle 21.

Iveagh gardens is a lovely park and I think the setting is the strongest thing about the event. By all accounts “Taste of Dublin” must be working for many people as it continues to thrive here (there are “Taste of ...” festivals now in 13 countries all over the world) but for me it always leaves me thinking they could do so much more with it. Entrance tickets are €25 and you have to ask yourself what real value for money is there when the restaurants are selling fairly average dishes at far from average prices. The fact that you have to spend florins hides the fact that some of the dishes are really overpriced because you're not handing over euro. Without the florin tokens, perhaps people would be reluctant to spend so much at the event. It'll continue to be a social occasion and people will probably continue to go, just remember to leave your ambitions for good food or value for money to one side.

Racing loves Eating

Racing is a game of two halves in Ireland - you're either in a corporate box being fed caviar from a silver platter or down in the enclosure trying to manage a steak sandwich that tries to slither away from you and gallop up the track. It's a sad fact that racecourses are not known for their spectacular food. As Philip says, racing is about backing horses, pints of Guinness and a Crunchie on the way out the back gates from the women with the prams of chocolate.

So I'm happy to report a very clever tie in between two things we manage to produce really well in Ireland - racehorses and food. It's something that should have been done years ago, particularly as racing draws many people who are not just there for the horses, but want other experiences and diversions at the racecourse throughout the day. With this in mind, it's great to see that this year's Irish Derby will have a food village from Good Food Ireland with artisan foods produced by their members available at the racecourse on Derby weekend - June 25th to 27th. It'll provide some real quality, Irish sourced food to ordinary punters at the racecourse and allow some food browsing in the down time between races. Last night the event was launched at the K Club with a selection of the food producers doing their thing, who will also be serving food at the Curragh.

Wowsers, the food was incredible. As press launches go, this is the kind of one you actually want to be at - surf and turf from Millstreet Venison, mini burgers with sweet caramelized onions from Country Choice, Sandra Higgin's delicious roasted free range chicken from down the road in Carbury, Cooleeney's goats cheese, Rossmore farmhouse icecream which had a real creaminess and sultle flavour and Tom O'Connell's sherry trifle in a glass pot which looked and tasted beautiful. There were more food producers there then I could get round to tasting, the full selection is on Good Food Ireland's website. Margaret Jeffares did a fabulous job putting the event together and I hope the Good Food Ireland village will become a fixture at the Derby, or even other Curragh meetings as it can only make the festival even better. Well done to all and looking forward to some good racing, and eating.

More photos of the night available on my facebook page

So impressed with this cider, big shout out to David

I love cider but find most of what's on the market so sweet it's like drinking flat 7-up. Not that there isn't a place for flat 7-up; if you're seven years old, or severely hung over.


In hot weather (let's hope it's not over) it's one of those drinks I really tend to fancy - perfect beer garden stuff, only to after one mouthful experience the inevitable "Bejaysus this is horrible" and ditch it after half a glass.

So I'm delighted to discover a decent Irish cider - happened upon by accident in the crafts beer tent at Bloom - which is a great addition - after all why not feature the small producers instead of the usual multinationals' sad warm pints of colourless stuff. Double L is made by David Llewellyn in Lusk - it's a great story; he started out working for another apple grower but began growing apples for himself and now has a range of juices, cider vinegar and even Irish wine. And he's only been in the business nine years.

He has so much demand for his produce that he buys in other apples from around the country. The Double L cider we picked up from him is really fabulous; it has that cloudy colouring and slightly tart taste that is so resonant of the rural ciders in Northern France which people make in their own back gardens and pass around to each other in milk bottles with cloth stuffed in the top. It also has none of that horrible sweetness of most commercial ciders, and it's fermented without the sugars, water and artificial colourings and flavours typical in mass produced cider.

He's a really nice fella as well and I really wish him the best with this. He told us his juices and vinegars are available in Superquinn and the cider is available in Stonybatter and at his farm in Lusk. Other new food hits for me at Bloom were Coolea cheese from Cork and Bad Boy Sauces from the fabulous Caribbean ladies, they are a taste knockout. Bring on the summer weather, and more cider x

Sun, food and envy

This is why you should never go to see proper gardens; they make you cringe at how absolutely rubbish your own is in comparison. Philip and I just spent some very enjoyable, but painful hours at Bloom today in the walled garden saying things like - "Okay, we're doing something badly wrong. Why are these chives so big? Look at the size of that cabbage!" and finally "I think it's time to leave this area now".

I'd love to meet the person in charge of that garden; it's a miracle of huge healthy vegetables, pure unfettered growth, zero weeds and not a slug pellet in sight.

Traumatic as it was, the walled garden was one of my highlights as it shows the possibilities of creating a food garden that is really beautiful. Okay their's is scarily immaculate, but it's strength lay in how the arrangement of all the vegetables made it so pretty, with sweet pea canes and herbs dividing the sections of large veg, pleached trees in a row down the centre and all bordered by lavender and box hedging; really beautiful. It was a hot sunny day so it was lovely to chill out sitting on the grass, picnicing on a duck confit and salmon quiche from the artisan food exhibition and wandering around the stands in no particular hurry.

I liked the show gardens and again there was a big focus on growing your own; hens in a urban context, bee hives etc. We went into the Federation of Irish Beekeepers tent and spent a long time looking at a section of a working hive surrounded in glass with the drones slaving away just beneath your fingertips. It's kind of mesmerising to watch, Philip even started to talk about bee hives again. Umm. I'm kind of saying nothing. Half of me is utterly thrilled with the idea, half of me is terrified in a 1970s B movie kind of way. On the positive side, my grandfather was a great bee keeper and I remember the delicious honey dripped onto to soda bread at his house, but steady on... we are still having the keeping pigs debate, with no particular result. I worked on a film once with Tamworth pigs as part of the cast. What started off being cute turned into a gang of red-haired unmanageable terrors. Still, they taste great.

Bloom is definitely recommended this year, the indoor plants exhibition has something for everyone, lots of retail stands, a good selection of stuff for kids; we particularly liked the playground made of straw and natural materials and the baby fell in love with the goat on the Agri-Aware stand and had to be dragged away kicking and screaming. Bord Bia have done a very strong job on the organisation side; lots of stewards for the carparking, everything very well signposted, scheduled etc. For parents it's an easy event to visit; plenty of room for buggies and lots of places to sit down in a quiet spot. I caught one of the talks on flower arranging but missed Donal Skehan in the afternoon as the cookery tent was out the door - a good sign though. Two more days left, go go go x

Saying you use chemicals in your garden is like admitting you fancy Simon Cowell

I'm off to Bloom in the Phoenix Park over the next few days, am greatly looking forward to the "Nude Gardener" Shawna Lee Coronado (what a great angle) telling us how to live a greener life...... or maybe I'm not, as I just put napalm strength slug pellets around my vegetable patch. Yes, it's as bad as admitting you fancy Simon Cowell but hey my name is Suzanne Campbell and I use chemicals in my veg garden. And if that's not enough, my dad who is plantsman extraordinaire came around here yesterday, looked at our appallingly sad crop of veg and barked at me "that soil is rubbish, throw a load of nitrogen on it!".

Thinking of using NPK (nitrogen potassium, potash) which is the makeup of most fertilisers, makes me shiver as NPK is the main culprit for wreaking soil's ability to reform itself and is the trouble with intensive farming of any kind - you use enough of it and the soil just dies. However, weigh this up against having no veg at all this year and I relented. So with a withering heart I poured out a cap full of Miraclegrow into each watering can and gave everything a good dose of it. I reckon my plans for a little stall of organic veg at the end of the lane have hit the wall. Damn it anyway, the plants do look better today though, particularly the two surviving courgettes plants which looked like dead snails, are now standing upright and looking for more.

The tomato plants are still tiny for this time of year so I've subcontracted about twenty of the tomato plants still in small pots to my neighbour who has put them in a sunny spot and promises to water them. Delighted. Since coming back from France the one good thing to ease the depression is the good weather, and hopefully watching some of my food crop actually come on a bit- roll on more sunshine. Really looking forward to seeing the edible garden at Bloom as it's always nice to see new ideas and it gives you the confidence to try growing new stuff. Looking at some of the garden drawings on their website is really whetting my appetite, the two photos above are from last years event. I'm really interested to see the garden titled "Victus Ortus.... "..employing basic bio diversity and permaculture techniques this garden strives to achieve a balance between our desire for ‘outdoor living’ and our necessary attempts at being in touch with natural systems and traditional gardening methods". Oh god, maybe not. Can you be expelled from Bloom for using chemicals?

Besides the gardens they have all sorts of plant exhibits, food stalls, talks, cookery demonstrations with experts like Darina Allen and the fabulous Peter Ward. It runs until Bank Holiday Monday evening and kids go free so it's definitely worth taking a look at if you're around Dublin.

So selfish of the ash cloud to disappear just when you need it

Tomorrow morning we've an hours drive to Nice, then a flight home. I can't moan about it though; we've had two weeks of non-stop sun, delicious lunches in hilltop villages and I've got finally got the baby eating tomatoes. Which is just as well, as we have about 70 plants started at home and if they all come to fruition our place will be like The Day of the Triffids.

Last year our tomato plants were in shock with the crap weather and they only grew fruit very late in the summer. Things were looking bad; miserable green fruit that was beginning to rot on the branches. After pulling long faces and pointing out the approaching catastrophe, Philip stepped in and saved the day; making a fantastic chutney from the green tomatoes which we still have preserved in jars. It has a lovely bitter sweetness that is fabulous with a cheese board or splattered on top of toast.

Eating local dishes here has pushed plenty of ideas my way which I'll try out at home; artichokes with aioli (aioli - egg yolks, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt), roasted peppers with capers (all on a big tray in the oven until they soften together), plenty of caprese salad and a delicious casserole fruits de mer which I ate at a lovely place the other day - essentially a fish pie but with a lightness and freshness that is typical of the fish from Marseille.

When we had friends to stay we bought some faux filet (sirloin) at the village butchers, threw it on the barbeque with some rosemary and thyme from the garden, accompanied by a big salad and plenty of local rosé. It's easy to do really simple dishes because the quality of food here is so high. I could cry at leaving but it's okay - next week I'm winning the Wednesday night lotto and will be back here permanently.