Green Thumb

Illustration of Ballymaloe School Gardens from
'Creative Vegetable Gardening' Joy Larkcom (Michell Beazley)

Joy Larkcom is one of our heroes. Her gardening books are beautiful, practical and sage-like, and what we really admire is the fact that she once spent a year travelling around Europe in a caravan, studying plants and collecting seeds. The woman is a natural nomad, not to mention a great grower.

Well, you can mainline some of Joyce's wisdom when she teaches 2 courses at the Ballymaloe School on 25th and 26th of June. On the 25th it's 'The Art of the Potager'. And on the following day it's one of her specialities: 'A Wokful of Vegetables', for Ms Larkcom has long been a leading advocate of oriental vegetables. Don't miss this great grower. Details from info@cookingisfun.ie, www.cookingisfun.ie

Other profitable courses for food lovers can be found at Michelle Power's interesting Cottage Garden Herbs courses, at Ballyconnell Lodge, in Tullow, County Carlow. Ms Power runs a small herb garden here, and this year has expanded into various cookery and crafts classes. The legendary Danette O'Connell, whose Danette's Feast restaurant is much missed by us all, has already give some of her courses, but the many fans of Danette will want to know that there are more planned: on July 21st Danette introduces "Sensual Vegetarian Dishes", a week later she has a course on cooking with organic and biodynamically grown vegetables, and on August 18th she gives an insight into her great culinary expertise, the cooking of Mexico. Other planned courses have Lynn Venables on organic gardening, flower arranging with Brenda Fitzharris, all the way to Xmas decorations with natural materials towards the end of September.

Courses start at 10am and run until 4pm with a lazy lunch in the middle. Sounds like fun. Full details and prices from Michelle Power on (0503)-56312