LIKE MINDED PPL IN NORTH CORK?

Sapsorrow

Hiya all, my partner and I are in the process of moving to a lovely little cottage outside the village of Drumahane outside mallow town. We're moving out of the city thank god to pursue our love for a more rural lifestyle! We've got an acre of land with our house and a big yard and garden so am going to be ploughing on ahead with a huge new veggie garden and building somewhere safe for keeping chickens. We love gardening, cooking (vegetarian), animals (we have 4 bold and beautiful cats), farmers markets, walking in beautiful conutryside and other simple old fashioned things. Anyone else around north cork who's appreciates these sorts of things and wants to get to know more like minded people get in touch and come for a home cooked dinner at our place sometime!

towel401

ah yes i really digg the whole culchie thing myself. much better than the web based urbanite lifestyle of paying people to fix every little inconvenience for you. used to have chickens over here at one point but we got rid of em

ideally i'd want to live in a real remote place like the backarse of iceland with a generator and a satellite phone.. and all that good stuff but with the current economic doom and gloom it looks like that's never going to happen

Sapsorrow

Now's exactly the time to do this sorta thing! It kinda makes the whole crisis redundant if you can do it properly! All you need is enough space to meet most of your foods requirements and an accessable good sized town (although your right maybe not iceland) my plans for sweden or norway eventually.

Fud Duddy

Hi Khrystyna, you are going to be as happy as a pig in ****e, there's nothing like eating your own veg and eggs. I wouldn't bother building a chicken run though unless you are going to electrify it, and even then it's better to have one that is mobile as they need to be moved for fresh grass. May I suggest, and it costs the same or less in the long run, the battery fench, you need to replace the battery every six months or so, but it's better than replacing your hens all the time. North Cork is awash with foxes, we replaced 5 or 6 lots of hens before investing in the battery fench, we haven't had a fox kill in 5 yrs now.
There is the North Cork Organic's, they have a farmers market every second Sat. morning at the Nano Nagle Centre (on the N72, heading to Castletownroche). There are lots of decent, interesting and helpful people in the N Cork area, and the Blackwater is the jewel in the crown. If I can be of any help with information or maybe you might like to get together for a coffee sometime with some seasoned north corkers.
Regarding going much further north, I'd imaging Iceland is the cheaper option at the moment, and I recently heard they are growing spuds in Greenland for the first time in forever, due to the great melt I suppose.
Anyway welcome to North Cork. Fud.

towel401

Fud Duddy wrote: »

Hi Khrystyna, you are going to be as happy as a pig in ****e, there's nothing like eating your own veg and eggs. I wouldn't bother building a chicken run though unless you are going to electrify it, and even then it's better to have one that is mobile as they need to be moved for fresh grass. May I suggest, and it costs the same or less in the long run, the battery fench, you need to replace the battery every six months or so, but it's better than replacing your hens all the time. North Cork is awash with foxes, we replaced 5 or 6 lots of hens before investing in the battery fench, we haven't had a fox kill in 5 yrs now.
There is the North Cork Organic's, they have a farmers market every second Sat. morning at the Nano Nagle Centre (on the N72, heading to Castletownroche). There are lots of decent, interesting and helpful people in the N Cork area, and the Blackwater is the jewel in the crown. If I can be of any help with information or maybe you might like to get together for a coffee sometime with some seasoned north corkers.
Regarding going much further north, I'd imaging Iceland is the cheaper option at the moment, and I recently heard they are growing spuds in Greenland for the first time in forever, due to the great melt I suppose.
Anyway welcome to North Cork. Fud.

if you dig the wire fence at least 1ft into the ground most foxes will give up. but an electric one isn't a bad idea. get one that runs off the mains though. replacing the battery is a pain in the arse

Fud Duddy

Hi Towel, I buried the chicken wire down at least a foot if not a foot and a half, but 'cute as a fox' would have it, the cute whores didn't dig under the wire but persisted in making an entry hole in it over ground. Standard grade chicken wire doesn't make for secure chickens me thinks. The battery/electric is the job, and the advantage of the battery is that it's easy, no need for a power supply. They come with solar panels now too, I guess they're more expensive again , but cheaper if you're in for the long haul.

Sapsorrow

WOw thanks for all the good advice there I'll def check out the battery fence, some peoplw we know out at our allotments recently had all there chickens wiped out over night, it was really sad and they were devastated by it, so don't think I need any such trauma myself! When we're at the house we're gonna let them roam round the farmyard anyway, give the cats something to think about.
Ya I'm really looking forward to moving now, I love going to farmers markets so happy to hear bout the one in the nano nagle centre, we're hoping to sell our excess veg and eggs next summer in the markets de odd time as well as selling them from the house! Have you checked out this cafe Urru in mallow? It sounds great so maybe meet up there somtime they supposidy have fantastic coffee and sandwhiches, gonna go check out the market on saturday week too if it's on.
We'll have plenty of free veggies again soon so if you like let me know and I can bring you in a bag to the market sometime!

towel401

khrystyna100 wrote: »

WOw thanks for all the good advice there I'll def check out the battery fence, some peoplw we know out at our allotments recently had all there chickens wiped out over night, it was really sad and they were devastated by it, so don't think I need any such trauma myself! When we're at the house we're gonna let them roam round the farmyard anyway, give the cats something to think about.
Ya I'm really looking forward to moving now, I love going to farmers markets so happy to hear bout the one in the nano nagle centre, we're hoping to sell our excess veg and eggs next summer in the markets de odd time as well as selling them from the house! Have you checked out this cafe Urru in mallow? It sounds great so maybe meet up there somtime they supposidy have fantastic coffee and sandwhiches, gonna go check out the market on saturday week too if it's on.
We'll have plenty of free veggies again soon so if you like let me know and I can bring you in a bag to the market sometime!

the people running that farmers market are kind of fussy. I think only one person is allowed to sell one product there [so if someone is selling eggs there you can't come along and also sell eggs] or at least thats how it was years ago

they also accused me of leaving their cattle out of the gate and breaking their tractor. of course i did neither of those two things but they are a lil paranoid. for the longest time they had a "no practice driving" sign up. but if ya want to sell stuff there you should still have a chat with em

Sapsorrow

god that does sound a bit fussy alright! Funny similar thing happened to us at the allotment but then they figured out the electric fence had shorted out. Maybe we'll give the kanturk one a go first, I know some of the other one's are very laid back esp the corn market one in the city. Doesn't seem to be a very good spirit to it all though aren't market about promoting diversity in food choices, seems like market fixing to me
I'm really looking forward to selling stuff from the house though, we used to buy our veg from a place in galway that way and it was so lovely to go around and pick stuff striaght out of the ground there and then esp when you don't have the opportunity to partake in any other part of the growing process. My friend suggested that we may end up geting robbed though not sure if that is likely in our area though seems very peacefull and neighbourly in general

Sapsorrow

INcidentaly do you happen to watch southpark? there's a great character on it called towelie ( he's a handtowel that just gets stoned all the time and is considered the worst character ever) and calling someone a towel is often used now as an insult comeback by ppl who watch it!

towel401

khrystyna100 wrote: »

god that does sound a bit fussy alright! Funny similar thing happened to us at the allotment but then they figured out the electric fence had shorted out. Maybe we'll give the kanturk one a go first, I know some of the other one's are very laid back esp the corn market one in the city. Doesn't seem to be a very good spirit to it all though aren't market about promoting diversity in food choices, seems like market fixing to me
I'm really looking forward to selling stuff from the house though, we used to buy our veg from a place in galway that way and it was so lovely to go around and pick stuff striaght out of the ground there and then esp when you don't have the opportunity to partake in any other part of the growing process. My friend suggested that we may end up geting robbed though not sure if that is likely in our area though seems very peacefull and neighbourly in general

try to get a shotgun / rifle. should help keep out robbers. and the foxes of course. I think it's a bit cliquey down here but you should come check it out anyway

Caros

Hi khrystyna. far as I know the same goes for the kanturk farmer's market, one product - one seller but then I have seen a couple of people there with homemade made bread, cakes etc.
I've been in urru, gorgeous grub!

Fud Duddy

Hey Khrystyna, sure would like to meet up in Urru's sometime, not been there yet. I haven't been to the nano nagle market for ages but they have a big one around christmas usually. It's not the most pretensious of organic markets by any means, some of the bull surrounding some of these new yuppie markets would sicken you, not to mention the prices. It's time for a little competition maybe.

Sapsorrow

hiya fudduddy, yup definately meet up for coffee soon, maybe on the weekend if I'm not having a load of ppl over for dinner (i'll be too busy then )Pm me if your around the town sometime we can talk about chickens!

Sapsorrow

has anyone gone to the friday market outside urru in mallow? wonder if it's worth checking into it before i go to college!? Ya went to urru the last day, bought a load of cheese and bread, olives etc as we aere having people over for lunch, it was hurrendously expensive even compared to the english market, but the food in the cafe was grand.

towel401

i don`t go there. did ya go to nano nagle yet?

Sapsorrow

no, my family were up last weekend so was busy at hmoe, is it on this saturday? will check it out this weekend if it's on, how do i get there?

Fud Duddy

The Blackwater Valley Farmers Market is on this Sat. Nov 8th. Khrystyna, I think the best way to get there for yourself is, from Mallow take the N72 towards Fermoy. The Nano Nagle Centre is somewhere on the river side of the road before Castletownroche. It should be sign posted. I can't make it there myself this weekend. Enjoy it if you go, you might make a couple of decent contacts. A good network is a great thing. Fair trade and all that.

babychuckles

The cork independent, dated 6th november 2008, has a brief piece on page 6 which says that "a farmers market will take place in the grounds of 4home, park road, mallow every friday from 10am to 2pm. A range of food is available from fruit and veg, fish, free range eggs........breads, ...cakes ....including ...allergy and gluten free breads".

towel401

babychuckles wrote: »

The cork independent, dated 6th november 2008, has a brief piece on page 6 which says that "a farmers market will take place in the grounds of 4home, park road, mallow every friday from 10am to 2pm. A range of food is available from fruit and veg, fish, free range eggs........breads, ...cakes ....including ...allergy and gluten free breads".

might check that out actually..

Sapsorrow

nice one for that, unfortunately I didn't manage to make it onto a computer this weekend so went off looking for the killavullen one, went out the carrigeway to the city because I'd spotted a turning for killavullen there before, got really lost and ended up coming into the city from near blackpool! Not a good situation to be in when you've lost your road map whilst recently moving house! Thanks though will try it next weeken if it's on!?

busman

Hi Khrystyna100,

The wife and myself are not too far away from you near Glantane.
We are also looking at getting our garden started.
Did some planing out this year and have marked out the veg area.
As our place is rather wet we are going with raised beds.
Didn't get much of a chance to much more this year but have
the area under plastic ready for a quick start next year!

Sapsorrow

good for you busman getting a nicer early start, we're going for raised beds too, not becuase its particularly wet but I just think they're a good system to use, trying to get a few no dig beds set up too so they compost down over the winter ahead and be ready for the spring settings of carrots and parsnips!
Does anyone have any advice about renting a hand held plough if there is such a thing? We have to cultivate a 3/4 acre field between two of us and we've no tractor so not sure how to go about it!

Sapsorrow

actually meant to mention for any one into gardenign we found a fantastic garden centre between kanturk and newmarket the last day called the secret garden. The crowd who run the place are brilliant really know their stuff and they've a great selection of unusual plants there, definately reccomend it to any newbies to the area looking for a new favourite garden centre!

Cork Local

Good luck khrystyna100, sounds like great plans.

I moved from the UK for the same reasons. Living (renting) in Mallow at the moment but looking for the same ideals but ultimately probably not in Mallow (not sure where yet though).

Best of luck to you.

easylistener

Cheers for the nice comment about our garden centre trying to work out who u are now ......In terms of polytunnels just down the road from us is Allens of Allensbridge they supply and erect them but there cost to do this is quite high. We reskinned ours last year with the help of a few people and was not excessive. Interested in your vegetable boxes we have been doing our markets and fairs for the last year and are always looking for new traders so bear us in mind. Did you find the Killavullen farmers market well worth a look, we made a good link with them last month the farm manager is a realy nice woman.....

Sapsorrow

easylistener wrote: »

Cheers for the nice comment about our garden centre trying to work out who u are now ......In terms of polytunnels just down the road from us is Allens of Allensbridge they supply and erect them but there cost to do this is quite high. We reskinned ours last year with the help of a few people and was not excessive. Interested in your vegetable boxes we have been doing our markets and fairs for the last year and are always looking for new traders so bear us in mind. Did you find the Killavullen farmers market well worth a look, we made a good link with them last month the farm manager is a realy nice woman.....

Hiya I'm the girl who gave you a jar of chutney in return for the extra bag of garlic bulbs alan gave me the first time I called out to you! we would love to get invovled with your market, I was gutted to miss the christmas one only checked the email from you that day and already had to stay in college all evening by that stage! My partner's going to be popping out to you guys in the spring to do some work experience anyway so will get a chance to chat about it then!

Sapsorrow

oh allens of allensbrisge are lovely actually we bought enough to make a cloche last year from them it was four foot wide and ten metres long for forty euro

Cork Local

easylistener wrote: »

Cheers for the nice comment about our garden centre trying to work out who u are now ......In terms of polytunnels just down the road from us is Allens of Allensbridge they supply and erect them but there cost to do this is quite high. We reskinned ours last year with the help of a few people and was not excessive. Interested in your vegetable boxes we have been doing our markets and fairs for the last year and are always looking for new traders so bear us in mind. Did you find the Killavullen farmers market well worth a look, we made a good link with them last month the farm manager is a realy nice woman.....

Hi Easylistener,

Is the Killavullen farmers market a regular event? I promote local (free) events on my site so happy to add the details if you know them.

Thanks,

Paul

easylistener

Hi khrystyna100, spoke to sarah and she told me who told me who you are and thanked you for the nice comments......... I will get to meet u both one day......

Paul the Killavullen Nano Nagle market is on every second saturday from 10.30-1pm you can check out their website on www.nanonaglebirthplace.ie

Sapsorrow

easylistener wrote: »

Hi khrystyna100, spoke to sarah and she told me who told me who you are and thanked you for the nice comments......... I will get to meet u both one day......

Paul the Killavullen Nano Nagle market is on every second saturday from 10.30-1pm you can check out their website on www.nanonaglebirthplace.ie

Ya definately we must pop out to you guys one of the days! I still haven't gotten to meet the ducks yet!