Guys, here’s an amazing opportunity to get involved in this initiative! If you are part of a group, from a hospital, to a creche, or any community group, it’s a brilliant idea to apply for this fund, and start growing organic food in your local area! If only every company in Ireland would promote growing your own vegetables, pesticides and other chemicals wouldn’t be present in our vegetables!

Today, I am partnering with GIY and Energia to promote the fund they are offering to give away to any group around the country who would like to grow their own vegetables.

So if you are part of any community group like a crèche, a hospital, a charity or you would like to get a group together to set up a community garden to provide organic vegetable to your village, town or kids In a school, then you should definitely apply for this fund!

You have from today until the 20th of January 2017 to apply! So get yourself together and apply for this opportunity that I actually would like to get a few people together and apply myself for it!

As you know, if you follow me for a while, I am now a vegetarian and a big promoter of organic vegetables.

Since we moved to the house where I am living now I haven’t get around to grow as much as I was growing in my previous house mainly due to some trees that are in the way, I can’t wait to chop them off because the roots are too long that they would actually break the stones in the concrete on the patio area.

But anyway, I have managed to do a herb box with parsley, coriander, Rosemary, thyme and mint.

I have a huge amount of lettuce and cabbage variations, which we enjoy around the spring. Last year we also collected some carrots, parsnips and garlic.

The Energia Get Ireland Growing Fund will be split across three categories, ‘Sow’, ‘Grow’ and ‘Harvest’ with awards ranging from €500 to €2,000. Together GIY and Energia will support at least 85 community food growing groups from all across the country.

Amazingly GIY’s ‘Get Ireland Growing’ initiative has supported over 400 community food growing projects to date, positively impacting over 100,000 people.

Some of these flagship projects include:
– A food growing initiative in a young persons probation centre in Cork
– The installation of food gardens at Focus Ireland and Galway Simon
– An edible quayside project in Co Wexford, which has seen tomatoes flourishing on the railings at the New Ross quayside
– A vegetable garden for asylum seekers in Clonakilty, Co Cork
– A horticultural project for unemployed men in Waterford that supplies salads to restaurants
– A community garden to reduce isolation on Inishbofin island to name but a few.
Applications are being accepted on this link: www.giyinternational.org/energia-get-ireland-growing.html

You can find out more about this year’s projects by following @EnergiaGIG on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Building a garden, it’s a real labour of love, it’s a great way to scape your daily problems and get rid of anxiety. It is a great satisfaction to see your veggies growing.

Learning about herbs, their various uses and benefits is very interesting, also growing vegetables you could take home to cook with is great satisfaction.

You can get together with your gardening group and speak about nutrition, using the fruits and veggies from the garden to educate yourselves about healthy eating.

From growing and tending the garden, and feeling great pride in showing it off to anyone who visit your garden should be enough reasons to apply for this fund!

Here is a bit of information to learn more about the program:

About GIY 
Michael Kelly founded the social enterprise GIY in 2008. This year GIY will support over 150,000 people and 6,000 community food-growing groups and projects in Ireland and the UK. Our big idea is that when people grow food on any level they gain an understanding for food called ‘food empathy’, which has a significant impact on their wellbeing and the health of the planet. The GIY movement brings people together in homes, work places, schools, communities and online to inspire and support each other to grow food.

Who can apply
Any community group, school, NGO or Not for Profit, community garden or allotment group, GIY group, hospital, crèche, direct provision centre, men’s shed or any group who grows their own food, or wants to grow food and wants to promote growing food. As long as the group already exists, are applying for a project that they intend to undertake (not retrospective work) and have a community aspect to them they are welcome to apply

Timeline 
We are accepting applications straight away. Successful applicants will be awarded the funds in March. We will follow up with as many projects as possible to see how they’re using the funds, how they get on and chart their progress on social media.

I really hope this helps a few community groups out there to set up their own veggie gardens, if you have any questions please let me know!