The go-to gardening guru in Dunlavin
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF FOUND GARDENER PATRICK HUNT AT THE END OF A COUNTRY LANE WHERE THE MAN WITH THE GREEN FINGERS SHARED HIS PLANS TO BRING THE LOVE OF PLANTS TO SCHOOLCHILDREN AND ADULTS ALIKE.
‘ILOVE a project,’ Patrick Hunt says with obvious relish. And it is just as well that the well-known gardener genuinely loves a project because he has taken on plenty of challenges.
He only has to stir out of bed each morning in Dunlavin to find himself face to face with project number one. But the taming of a patch of what was recently meadow to make a garden is something that he goes about with gusto.
Then he has set himself the mission of persuading primary school children across six counties share his excitement about growing things –that’s number two. And with whatever spare time he has left over, he is likely to be found also turning adults on to gardening – number three.
Yes, gardening, growing, planting, pruning, propagating fill his days, with an emphasis on vegetables rather than flowers. And the man is a fountain of knowledge about his chosen subject so, when he is not doing, he is talking about his passion.
Visitors to the house, up a dead-end lane in draughty open countryside, know immediately that they are in the right place. The little bungalow he shares with wife Laura and their not quite a toddler son Oliver – plus an adorable spaniel called Archie – is surrounded by pots. Each pot is one little mini-project, an experiment in producing the ideal strain of broccoli or onions or some other such.
Given he is borderline obsessive, relentlessly enthusiastic, infinitely infectious devotion to his chosen topic, it comes as a surprise to learn that his primary qualification is not in horticulture. The Limerick native is something of an accidental gardener – the accident being the collapse of the Celtic Tiger. He appeared destined to be an architect but emerged from UCD with his degree at just the wrong moment.
It was 2009 and the profession went through a barren spell when ‘architect’ almost inevitably meant ‘unemployed’. Idleness is not something he understands, so he turned to gardening. He took on an allotment. He transformed the wasteland at the rear of a rented house in Dundrum. When not outdoors, he immersed himself in his ever expanding collection of gardening books.
Having been ‘institutionalised’ (his word) during his college years in the discipline of study to be an architect, the freedom of the garden was his liberation. He persuaded the organisers of the Heritage in Schools scheme that he was a person suitable to talk to children. Then he went from school to school trying to persuade principals to book him as an inspirational speaker.
The first to take a chance and accept his offer was at a three-teacher primary school in Chapelizod which had its own little patch of land. He remembers being very nervous before facing the pupils and taking them through the procedure for sowing broad beans. It turned out that there was nothing to be nervous about. It was fun and he continues communicating the fun to the young scholars.
In the years since, Patrick has become a regular at primary schools, with a full schedule of calls across half a dozen counties – making 140 school visits in 2019. County Wicklow ports of call have included Hollywood, Dunlavin, Ballymore Eustace, Blessington, Valleymount, Rathcoyle, Kilcoole and Baltinglass
As well as spreading his love of plants, he broadens his mission embracing nature to bird watching and to insect hunting and to biodiversity. He has devised schemes which avoid crops coming to fruition during the summer holidays, when no one is around to harvest them. And he
hints subversively that teachers are sometimes the biggest obstacle to getting really stuck in at the vegetable bed.
The adults, apparently, are the ones who worry about having dirt under fingernails and Patrick wants to see no such daintiness in their young charges. He has found that many nine and ten year olds, especially those living in urban areas, have no connection with the soil, at least until he turns up on campus.
‘That is one of the things which school gardening – which is not formally on the curriculum – can change,’ he declares. ‘The kids need to be allowed to get their hands dirty.’ On the home front, of course, the gardener who loves a project does not simply throw down a few seeds and hope for the best. He sets about taming his plot in rural Dunlavin within a framework of practical and philosophical principles. This makes the exercise intellectually stimulating as well as practically productive.
Feeding the family is the first requirement. Using the minimum of artificial inputs is the second. Keeping digging to a minimum is third. And he also wants to reduce the need to plant and then re-plant each year. There is a name for such an approach – it is called permaculture. Permaculture?
When he sees your reporter’s face turn blank at the mention of permaculture, he settles for translating the term as ‘beyond organic’ without making it sound like a threat. Mercifully, years of working with children have attuned him to pitching his message at a level that his listeners will understand.
And any gardener will readily understand his desire to cut down on time spent weeding – so we discuss mulches. He uses straw or wood chippings or plant stalks as mulches to cover ground and deprive the weeds of light.
Any gardener will be drawn to his proposal that it is not necessary to dig and repeatedly re-dig land under cultivation prior to planting many crops. Patrick tells how he prefers to use a dibber - the end of a broom handle – to make little holes into which he drops seedlings and tubers.
Any gardener will also quickly grasp the concept of wanting to have perennial vegetables. The idea is that, instead of sowing a fresh batch each year, it may be possible to grow plants which produce a crop year after year. This is a concept which does not work with tomatoes, for instance. But it is possible with artichokes, onions and kales.
An hour spent in this revolutionary’s company is enough to set any traditional gardener’s brain in a spin. He does not pretend to have reached the ultimate goal of permaculture, which is a ‘closed loop’ – complete horticultural independence.
The Holy Grail will only be achieved when he has no need to venture outside the gate for seed or manure or plants or mulches.
The fun – and he really does make it sound like fun – is in trying to reach this elusive goal. So the garden does not feed the family, not yet. They still need to shop at the greengrocers or supermarket. They still import manure from neighbouring cattle farmers. And Patrick still orders in seeds as he continues to seek the ideal combination.
It is nigh impossible for someone with a limited acreage to grow enough carbohydrates to achieve self-sufficiency. He has potatoes, the traditional Irish way of putting calories on the menu, but he also devotes some ground to a couple of other hugely productive crops. Jerusalem artichokes – no relation of the spiky globe artichokes loved by the French – you may have heard of. But oca – which looks for all the world like a radish – has been almost completely overlooked in this part of the world, though capable of massive yields. He sums up his approach by saying: ‘What you are doing is working with nature, with the minimum amount of effort so it isn’t going to stress you out.’
Patrick Hunt’s name is familiar not only among schoolchildren around much of Leinster. He has also become the go-to guru for householders wishing to improve their gardening skills in the area around his home.
He was the guiding light a few years ago in a GIY (Grow It Yourself ) group which met in Ballymore Eustace. As there was clearly a demand for guidance, he decided to put up a notice in January of 2019 inviting would-be growers to the hall in Hollywood. The monthly sessions have become a regular attraction there and he has started a similar group in Naas, not so far away across the Kildare border.
The format is a demonstration by the master, followed by a question-and-answer session. The participants tend to be either young parents aiming to tame the bit of land which comes with their new homes or else middle-aged folk keen to take gardening more seriously in retirement.
Their mentor reckons that, as he faces many of the same problems on his own patch that they experience in theirs, he can deal with most of the queries they throw at him: ‘I am doing what I am teaching.’ But there is always the prospect of an occasional surprise and sometimes he admits he has to say ‘leave it with me’ in response to a question.
Patrick’s refreshing and energetic approach is now being shared worldwide by the way on his new website at www.patrickhuntgardening. com/ – well worth a look.
WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS WORKING WITH NATURE, WITH THE MINIMUM AMOUNT OF EFFORT SO IT ISN’T GOING TO STRESS YOU OUT