athenry organics

Hi greenhousers! A short WWOOFing update: I moved from Sherkin Island to a town called Athenry last Monday. Well, okay, not exactly to the town, but a farm nearby. This farm, run by a family of three (plus a couple donkeys), is 5 acres and 6 polytunnels of an array of fruits and veggies-- rhubarb, strawberries, black currants, raspberries, basil, parsley, spinach, cabbage, iceberg lettuce, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, celery, pumpkins, brocolli, beets, and probably more that I am leaving out. Right now, the rhubarb and cabbage are almost finished, and we are harvesting lots of spinach, basil, carrots, and lettuce. We also picked the first ripe black currants on Friday. Most of the produce sells in weekly markets in local towns a few miles away. So far, my jobs have consisted of weeding the polytunnels and harvesting veggies for the markets. In their polytunnels they use a black plastic material called mypex to cover the ground and protect against weeds, with circular holes cut in the surface for the vegetables. If you want to know more, you can visit the farm's website is here:

http://athenryorganics.blogspot.com/

Also exciting--I just began reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsglover, in which she writes about her family's year-long attempt to grow all of their own food or buy it from people they know locally. So far, it's excellent--insightful, informative, and entertaining, as well. I warmly recommend it if you've any interest in growing vegetables or want an entertaining account of the life of an interesting family in the Virginia mountains. The book includes occasional essays by Steven L. Hopp, her husband, who writes about the current state of U.S. food production and outlines some of our major agricultural problems. (I'll be bringing this book to Sewanee in the fall if you want to borrow it!)