The Farm

By Elodie and Noah, Young Urban Farmers in Dublin!

The first thing we ever grew were raspberries and mint plants. They grew really well. Then two years ago we put onion seeds in pots in an old post beside the shed. They grew very tall in a short amount of time. That same year we got two gooseberry plants but they did not grow at all. We also got two apple trees and we waited. In the autumn they had leaves and no apples. Under the apple trees we put broccoli plants, but small green caterpillars ate all the leaves. It was very discouraging.

Then, when the first lockdown came, we had time so we started a little bit of gardening again. This time, we took it to a whole other level. Our granny gave us seeds for wild flowers, chard and garlic. They did well.

Then we went to a plant shop called Enable Ireland and we bought terracotta pots and cucumber seeds and some strawberry plants. We also bought soil.

One weekend, we watched Gardener’s World on BBC and we thought we could do the same in Dublin so we set up a Youtube channel called The Farm. That same week we saw a sign for Eat The Streets on a bus stop and thought we would join that.

It has been a lot of fun. What has worked: potatoes, onions, chard and strawberries. There are already small berries on the strawberry plants. The potatoes that we sprouted inside in egg cartons have huge green leaves outside.

What has not worked: The pink dahlias - the topic of our first video- have not sprouted! We forgot to water the cucumber seedlings in April for a few very hot days and they died. That was sad. We are going to grow some more cucumbers from seed and try again. And we will post a video about this.

There have been many miracles too. We had actually given up on some giant lemon seeds and stopped watering them altogether. Then one day when we woke up, we saw some green shoots. Believe it or not even the old gooseberry plants started to grow again and last week we saw the first berry in years.