No Food Waste, All Grown in the Garden

Martin Monahan 21^st July 2017 Deerpark Social Services Centre, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

No food waste, all food grown in the garden

Interviewer: Clare Doyle (CD)

Interviewee: Martin Monahan (MM)

CD: And do you think do we eat food now or do we use food differently now, like we probably throw away a lot of food now, like long ago people used to be very careful

MM: That’s right, a, lot of food now is being thrown away

CD: And did you have a garden when you were small?

MM: We did

CD: And what kind of stuff used you grow in the garden?

MM: We used to grow potatoes and cabbage and onions, onion set.

CD: Yeah

MM: We used to have, my father used to make ridges and sow the cabbage like with a shelve, a spade

CD: Right

MM: You put the… there’s a drill along make the drill maybe and put manure along the drill before you put down the plants

CD: Right

MM: Put down the plants then and cover again then

CD: And that’d be cows’ manure, just is it?

MM: That’s right

CD: To cover it up

MM: That’s right, cover it up with clap then, make, do another few ridges, because if you only make one you’d be going in near the cabbage

CD: Right, and you’d do the same thing for the potatoes, would you?

MM: You’d make a ridge for the onions as well

CD: Right, so you’d have the cabbage and the onions and the potatoes

MM: That’s right

CD: Carrots and parsnips maybe?

MM: We used to sow rhubarb… rhubarb, rhubarb

CD: Oh, very nice, so you could make rhubarb tart and things?

MM: We could and we used to have apple trees as well, two apple trees; a sour one and an eating apple

CD: Sure, you didn’t really have to do much shopping then for vegetables, you had everything in the garden?

MM: We did, because we used to have our own meat too as well