Food community abundance

We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.
-Adelle Davis

The farther along we go with Carraig Dulra, community gardens, Powerdown, permaculture, beekeeping and OOOOBY, the more we realise that we are engaged in community food development, reconnecting ourselves with the abundant resources in nature and in our community.

Growers & producers welcome!

OOOOBY is gradually building up, as more people find out about this community food store where people can gather together, shop wisely, share food and growing tips and enjoy the atmosphere.  We're very interested in extending the number and type of local growers and producers who sell in the store.  If you produce your own food or craft, please get in touch or call in!  Don't worry if you don't have a full stall's worth of goods, you can rent a basket to sell from and it's very inexpensive to do so.

Currently we have Renee and Rowly (Ballinabarney) in every Saturday from 1:30-3:30, with their vegetables, salad bags, chutnies and jams. We also have sprouts from Darragh (Newcastle), duck eggs from Wendy (Ashford), hen eggs from Gary (Glenealy) and still have a few more grapes from John in Ashford.  We are hoping to have some home made cakes this weekend, and very soon we will have locally designed and produced scarves and blankets from the Shuttle Knit community enterprise in Wicklow Town.

We recently featured home-made muffins from Federica, and would especially like to find someone who makes their own bread to be here on Saturdays!

Changes at the OOOOBY Store

Full range of food growing supplies now available

Part of the food "circle" is growing your own food, so we are happy to announce that we have just been appointed as agents for Fruit Hill Farm, who are well-known in ecological and organic circles.  We now supply all tools, plant pots, compost, seaweed etc from their catalogue, which you can look through at the OOOOBY store. We will be adding the most popular Fruit Hill Farm items to our own website over the coming months, but in the meantime, just ask if you're looking for something and we will order it in for you.

New Website feature: "Shopping List"

When ordering products online, you can now tell the website to remember items that you may want to order again in future, to make it easier for you to re-order without going back through the records of your past orders.  All you do is add any items you want to save to your "Shopping List".  This list will then be available to you at any time by clicking My shopping list in the menu, and from there, you can add any of the items to your Shopping Cart to order them.

Shipping & Delivery

Although we strongly recommend that people buy locally wherever possible, we have had enquiries from around the country (and abroad!), from people who cannot get items in their local area.  So we will now ship or deliver most items within Ireland, with a few exceptions (very large or bulky items).  To get an order delivered, place your order online, and then contact us for a shipping quote.  If it turns out that the cost of shipping is too much we'll cancel the order for you.

Flying a new flag

With lots of people asking the locals just where the OOOOBY store is, we decided it was time to make it easier to find us, so look out for our new flag at the entrance.  A very large thank you to graphic designer David Kerridge for contributing his time on this.  

Upcoming events

The next Beginner's Organic Food Growing course is Sat 17 October, and the last two session of the more in depth Garden Complete will be on 21 Oct and 18 Nov. 

Powerdown is underway but if you are interested you should get in touch with the organisers (see below).

GIY Glenealy Wicklow Southeast is launching very soon! (see below)

Powerdown course

The Skilling up for Powerdown course continues tonight at 7:30pm at The Happy Pear.  The first night explained the "Powerdown" concept. The remainder of the course lasts 7 weeks, with a weekly meeting every Thursday from now on, at The Happy Pear.

The aim of the course is to explore practical solutions in areas such as energy, transport, and food that individuals and the community can actually achieve.  At a time of such economic and energy uncertainty, it is empowering to know that positive action is being taken within our own community. Recently established, the Wicklow Transition Network is one of several country-wide initiatives being set up by individuals concerned about the over-reliance of communities on rapidly shrinking energy and food supplies in the face of global economic crisis.

In response, the local group comprising of community gardners, permaculture experts and trainers, educators on sustainability and the economy, as well as generally concerned citizens, have teamed up and trained to provide practical solutions in the form of this new 8 week Skilling up for Powerdown Course. 

For more information contact Matt at the Happy Pear 087 9978137, a graduate of last year’s Powerdown in Wicklow Town, or Kathryn Speedie, one of the trainer/facilitators at the email address kathrynspeedie@yahoo.co.uk.

The course is funded by County Wicklow Partnership.

GIY Glenealy Wicklow Southeast Launch at OOOOBY Store

The first meeting of the GIY (Grow It Yourself) Glenealy, Wicklow South East group will be on Saturday, 17th October at 4.30pm at the OOOOBY store, located in the Glenealy Landscape Centre.  Michael Kelly, the Irish Time journalist and founder of the national GIY network, will be present for the lanch of our local group.

Hundreds of people are involved in existing GIY groups around Ireland and activities include talks on specific food-growing topics, garden visits, seed swaps, produce bartering, mentor panels and the return of the meitheal (where growers get together in one another’s gardens to carry out some growing related task).  

For more information please call Suzie on 086 8069289 or email info@dulra.org.  

Heritage weekend

Over 120 people attended the Heritage Skills weeekend at Carraig Dúlra organic farm, which celebrated skills and showcased traditional crafts from the Traveller and Settled communities.  Displays and demos included copper-smithing, herb lore, weaving, drystone walling and fishing skills.  This very successful weekend, the busiest event ever at the farm, was funded by Co Wicklow Partnership.

Hoping to see you at OOOOBY, the GIY launch or in the garden sometime soon!  

Mike & Suzie Cahn
www.dulra.org
info@dulra.org

OOOOBY Community Food Store hours:

Tue Wed Thu 10-5
Sat 11:30 - 3:30  ("meet the producers" from 1:30)