Tucked away behind urban Portlaoise housing estates, an oasis of greenery is producing organic food and flowers, forging friendships and sharing wisdom about eco friendly gardening.
The O’Moore Place Allotment garden in Laois is eight years old and filled with lush plants from fruit trees and bushes to all sorts of vegetables and flowers.
Sited in a securely fenced field between O’Moore Place creche and Triogue Manor, it has 28 generous plots for free rental, a polytunnel, compost toilet, meeting shed and piped water supply.
The Leinster Express / Laois Live visited it recently and met some of its enthusiastic members.
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O’Moore Place Allotment gardeners Sheila Clear, Claire Williams of the Our Shared Plate project, Betty Conroy, Eileen Buggy and Sabrina Bowden.
Grower Eileen Buggy says she joined two years ago.
“I just love growing food. I’m trying to teach my kids to live more sustainably. I grow medical plants like calendula and salvia to make tinctures, as well as fruit and vegetables. We had no room in our own place,” she said.
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Sabrina Bowden with her homegrown raspberries.
Sheila Clear is a member of Portlaoise Women’s Shed who joined the allotment and built more plots funded by the Our Shared Plate project.
“I enjoy gardening, I live on my own so having somewhere to come and chat, drink tea and do gardening is lovely,” Sheila said.
The Our Shared Plate’s facilitator is RTÉ television gardener and Vicarstown native Kitty Scully.
“I learnt a lot from Kitty, I grow a bit of everything. I love eating my own organic veg. Even my grandchildren are eating my lettuce and scallions.
“I grew up beside the Rock of Dunamase, we had two big gardens and never bought a thing, right down to the chickens,” Sheila recalls.
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Betty Conroy’s grandchildren AJ and Erica with their harvest.
Grower Sabrina Bowden believes it has helped her two sons with disabilities.
“They are very fussy eaters so my main focus was growing potatoes, my son Eoin planted and dug a crate of spuds. That’s one of the things I love about it.
“I’m in the Mná le Chéile women’s shed and we share ideas and food. It’s like you’re not in a big town here, it’s like you’re in the country, it’s so peaceful,” Sabrina said.
Betty Conroy began in the allotments as a volunteer in a disability group, later taking a plot jointly with a pal.
“My grandkids came along and dug it, I think it was their first time to see a potato come out of the ground. I have my own strawberries and cabbages too.” Betty said.
Their new exciting project is to build an outdoor cob oven, guided by artist Eilish Langton, and funded by the Neighbourhood Network charity.
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Artist Eilish Langton, Neighbourhood Network, with a sketch and model of the new cob oven to be built at O’Moore Place Allotments under her expert leadership.
Eilish has enlisted companies to donate stone and materials, as part of their corporate responsibilities, including Clonaslee Stone given by Manor Stone.
“It’s ready to go, we have sourced all the materials, and we chose the design all together. It’s about community ownership and building networks, all the tenants will be building it and cooking in it,” she said.
It is a largely female led allotment centre, down to the caretaker Lisa O’Shea. Of the 28 plots, 22 are held by women.
“We just seem to come to things more, to mix more,” Sheila noted.
A dozen tenants are from a disability integration group, with assistance given freely when needed by the other gardeners.
Portlaoise family Mark, Síomha and Moll Carroll were collecting the key to their new allotment on the day that Laois Live visited.
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Mark, Síomha and Moll Carroll from Portlaoise who are taking up a plot at O’Moore Place Allotments.
“I have a greenhouse but I was running out of space. It gets me out of the house into the community as well. I never knew about this place until two weeks ago, we got the keys today so hopefully next year we’ll have everything growing,” Mark said.
Organic gardener Kitty Scully who stars in RTÉ’s Home Grown series, is the facilitator of Our Shared Plate at the Laois allotment, getting it up and running for its first six months.
“The project was an incredibly rewarding and inspiring experience. The workshops began in September, an ideal time to plan for the following year’s growing season.
“From the outset, the diversity of the women involved, in both age and background, brought a real richness to the group. They envisioned what they wanted from their own plots and took those ideas forward with real energy and enthusiasm.
“The ongoing support on the ground from Michelle, Claire and Karen was vital to the success of the project
“On the final day of the workshops, I felt immensely proud looking at where we had come in the past 6 months.
“The joy and pride on the women’s faces; seeing the garden set to flourish and everyone leaving with a bag of salad leaves they had grown themselves, along with a shared sense of hope and excitement for the season ahead, was truly special. It was a real honour to be involved,” Kitty Scully said.
Kitty Scully teaching gardeners to install natural plant supports.
The O’Moore Place Allotments are getting festival ready, as they will take a spot in the Global Green area at Electric Picnic.
The allotments were founded and funded by Laois Sports Partnershipo in 2017, on Laois County Council land, with SICAP funding training courses.
Read also: Heritage Week gets off to flying start in Emo Court
Our Shared Plate is funded through the Climate Action Programme, a project of the Neighbourhood Network charity, and is in partnership with Laois County Council.
New mini sized polydomes were funded by Healthy Ireland, and built by Men’s Shed Mountrath.
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