Sustainability

Wild Acre Farm

Tallamh

Claire Templar has been living at Wild Acre Farm, near Ballyhaunis since 2015.

Originally from the UK she moved to Ireland in order to live closer to the land and explore self sufficiency and living more lightly on the earth, with food production and vegetable growing always a core part of this. Production has increased year on year as her skills and experience of growing in this challenging climate increased.

Wild Acre Farm has a one acre garden, designed using Permaculture Principles, including orchard and perennial systems with a 1/3 acre no dig vegetable garden and 2 polytunnels which house tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, courgettes, aubergines and herbs in the summer, and are used for salad growing through the winter.

Claire has always gardened here using ‘more than organic’ no-dig methods and has a keen interest in Permaculture design and regenerative agriculture to rebuild soil and grow nutrient and mineral dense, healthy, abundant fresh vegetables, fruits and salads.

She has also been teaching Permaculture, gardening and practical skills here since 2017.

Before moving to Ireland, Claire was a systems designer, project manager, business process engineer, computer programmer, IT trainer, chef, horse riding instructor, kindergarten teacher, clothes designer and multiple business owner. Not all at the same time obviously… but she doesn’t really like to sit still…

SeaSquared

Uisce

We’re Cillian and Colm, the SeaSquared duo. Born in the same year, in the same hospital, on the same day, this friendship goes way back. March 2020 put a halt to our busy lives in London and Dublin. Remote working brought us back home to West Cork. Here, our eyes were opened, we saw West Cork in a way we had never seen before. The rugged landscape, the intricate coastline, bays, inlets, harbours. The roar of the surf and the beauty, how had it taken us so long to appreciate the surroundings in which we grew up? And an even bigger question that got us talking, how are we going to play our part to protect this beauty, this planet? ​

A combination of passion for design & a love for clothing led us on this exciting adventure. 

Our vision is not only to build a sustainable clothing brand but to build a community focused around sustainable living. From areas such as cleaning the ocean plastic, to reducing packaging waste, we want to play our part in improving the world we live in and have fun whilst doing it.

Join us today to make a change, one square at a time!

Our products are made in small batches from 100%  organic, vegan materials and embroidered here in West Cork. You can rest assured that we take full responsibility for your product and aim to be fully transparent in our design and production processes.

The Irish Gardener

Tallamh

Peter Dowdall

All my life I have been interested in and worked in gardens, gardening, landscaping and garden design in Ireland and the UK. 

I present on RTE and TV3 television and on radio in Ireland and I am also the Garden Design and Gardening columnist for the Irish Examiner newspaper along with being a regular Features writer for The Irish Garden magazine.

I am passionate about gardens, gardening, landscaping and plants and I have hopefully managed to share my enthusiasm with many others and helped a few budding gardeners along the way.

I fervently believe that the garden offers us the solutions to nearly all of our modern day problems:

  • Our mental health benefits from just being outside in the Great Outdoors.
  • Our physical health is improved by the aerobic workout which a day gardening will provide and also by eating the fresh organic produce from the garden.
  • And the garden has  critical roles to play in counteracting the effects of climate change and slowing the rate of species extinction

I often recommend environmentally sound, sustainable and organic gardening products and plants in the media and am then faced with a slew of questions regarding where can people get them and this is what prompted me to set up this store.

Here, I can offer for sale plants and products which I like to use in my own garden and in gardens of clients for whom I am working. These are what you’ll find in my garden shed so to speak.

I don’t have a garden centre or retail business as such, and this is a new departure for me so please bear with me if we run into any teething problems.

In the real world I work as a garden designer and consultant: 

Any garden project needs to start with a good garden design, and for that design to be properly implemented, the correct landscaper needs to be identified and the entire project managed so that the garden design becomes the landscape creation which is envisioned.

With my designs I aim to create aesthetically beautiful, usable, practical outdoor spaces. Each client and each home or business will always have a style of their own and I like to design gardens which compliment that style be that a contemporary garden design or something more traditional in style.

Maintaining and enhancing biodiversity is one of the challenges facing everyone at the moment and I feel responsible for creating gardens which will do just that.

Moy Hill Farm

Tallamh

HELLO!

moy hill is a farm: we grow worthy food, build soil, regenerate systems, plant flowers and trees and work to leave what is in our care healthier than we found it.

moy hill is also a community: we grow culture, honesty, accountability, reverence and joy. 

MOY HILL is a YES to:

– more good food growing 
– more woodland planted
– more sovereignty over our food, water and education

We want more

Good food growing and reaching bellies in the most delicious, nourishing way possible. We care about things like: soil, wildlife, the ocean, renewable energy, animal welfare, the most vulnerable in society, and food good enough for our children.

This year we will grow to provide 75 weekly veg boxes for local families.  

WOODLAND PLANTED

14,000 native trees like oak, rowan, hazel and birch have been planted on our farm. This land is protected and will become a natural woodland ecosystem over the coming years – something we see as vital for supporting animal and plant welfare. 

We have created a 300 tree apple, pear and plum orchard. You’re welcome to visit!

SOVEREIGNTY Over our food, water and education:

We see and feel a foundation of vibrant food, clean water, and right education as a step towards lifelong happiness, health and purpose. We cannot expect those (often decent and caring) people in ‘government’ to match and create our desires, or to perceive the subtle rhythms of our land – it is up to us. Yes, we can do it. But as old men and women, may we gather and know that we did our absolute, bravest, boldest best to leave a better world for our children.

We frequently receive visits from educational institutions (Irish and UK universities, Steiner and conventional schools etc); resourcing more of this is a key function of the farm.

SPACE

For people to contribute their time and resources in benefit of all:

More subtle work is happening here, work which outlasts any box of lettuce or sugar snap peas. That is the work of healing.

Each week dozens of people pass through the farm – activists, supporters, tourists, surfers, musicians, craftsmen, neighbours and those known as ‘shovel-brothers’. Some come to give their energy or technical knowledge, some bring their children to play, others share good times and food. Yet there are also those for whom the farm is a place to ‘take a breath’ – to stop, relax and come back to self-care. This has become known as social farming.