Adventures in Public Speaking

We have a guest writer this week. Mary Reilly from Greenhill farm near Malin stepped into the spotlight recently at a gardening club meeting and found things to be very different that she imagined.

Adventures in public speaking

My name is Mary and I'm an organic farmer...
That's about as far as I've ever got in front of any group of people before my knees take on a life of their own and try to bring me down to floor level.
But when, on a stormy day in January 2010 I got a phone call from the secretary of Inishowen Gardening Club asking if I would be guest speaker at their January meeting 2011, I thought “ah, sure we’ll work something out by then. It's a whole year away.”

Fast forward one year...

The day before I'm due to give this talk that I've had a whole year to prepare for, what am I doing? Yep, frantically scrabbling through old notes and textbooks, even trawling the net to see if I can find some kind of straightforward presentation that I can offer to the group!

And it's written right there, on their annual flyer: Topic – growing organic vegetables. Guest speaker – Mary and John Reilly. I Know John has no intention of helping. No, it's up to me to do the public speaking – he'll chat all night when I've finished the nerve-racking part...

So, armed with a certain amount of trepidation, and a gin and tonic from Mickey McClure's bar, I head for the meeting in the Wesley Hall. I am fully expecting (from past experiences) to be met with a barrage of hippy related questions and comments, so I hasten to inform the surprisingly large group that the pioneers of organic principles were in fact, peers of the British Realm. Lady Eve Balfour and Lord Northbourne both wrote books highlighting the merits of natural farming methods and raising concerns over what was then (1940's) cutting edge technology, that is, poisons that killed everything in their path, and fertilisers based on wartime technology intended to create weapons of airborne destruction. These books provided the basis for the organic standards we have today.

This was a far cry from the peace loving, bearded hippy, dressed in faded denims and loose fitting t-shirts...then I realise that I've just described the man on my left, John! That broke the ice. We (I) press on.

Why be organic?
Lots of hands go up, people mutter about pesticides and chemicals. No sarcasm, no snide remarks about overpriced food. Goodness, these people are on my side! And they all seem to know lots already about organic growing. I'm waiting for the usual challenges: “what harm will a drop of baby bio do on my roses – sure I'm not going to eat them” and “I wouldn't want to eat a lettuce that had a slug in it” I waffle on waiting for the hammer to fall, but then I realise it won't, because most of the people here actually want to know more about gardening without chemicals. They're interested!

Settling in

So I get more comfortable, taking questions and having a laugh. And all along, one elderly lady in the front row is studying everything I do and say, and occasionally asks her friend to ask a question for her. Of course, as things become more relaxed, John joins in and soon I discover I can't get a word in edgeways. There's tea and a draw for plants, and I even won a small conifer.

Eventually I get to meet the elderly lady. She's introduced to me by her friend who tells me she's 90 plus and grew all her own veg last year in pots outside the back door! She promised to visit our place later in the year when things are growing well. I realise that I'll need to be up early that day, with answers as well as evidence!

Relaxing in McClure's with another GandT, I ponder the evening's events. I expected to be standing in front of a group of rose and lawn specialists defending organic growing and trying to convince people that their roses would be better off without the baby bio or the greenfly spray, and I could not have been more wrong. To be fair, if I'd been there 5 years ago things might have been different, but over the past few years, there has been a huge change in attitude among the public. Organic gardeners are admired rather than laughed at, and many people who wouldn't have dreamed of doing anything in the garden now have a couple of hens and are growing a few spuds for the dinner.

The Carndonagh Gardening Club are a forward looking bunch, eager to know more about new methods of growing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Tools and seeds

When Mary isn’t entertaining the crowds you will find her and her husband John very busy in their organic farm in Fawn, Malin tending to their seedlings, plugs and vegetables that will be for sale in the coming weeks and months as well as preparing for training courses coming in the summer. They have a large range of tools on stock at the moment to get you started in the garden and look out for their organic vegetable seeds. John makes small packets of seeds to suit your own garden. CHECK OUT THEIR WEBSITE