cultivate.ie

Postponed to November Date TBC | 7pm | The Greenhouse, St Andrew St, D2 (map) | €6.50; €4 for students/unwaged; €free for members | Talk followed by discussion

Flavour, odour and taste play an important role in the life of humans and animals and we know they have a direct link with chemical releases in our brains that trigger different emotions. We have an inbuilt system to sniff out what is nutritious to eat and what is not. So what happens when chemical companies develop new ingredients and additives to imitate natural aromas that override our innate sense of what's good for us? And how do we avoid them?

ASPO, Cultivate and FEASTA present... 

Monday 27th September 2010 | 19.30 - 22.00 | €10 / €5 for members (ASPO, Cultivate, FEASTA) | The Greenhouse, St Andrew St, D2 (map) | 01 674 5773 | Vinay will also be giving public lectures in Cork on Sept 26th and in Kilkenny on Sept 28th. Contact info at aspo-ireland dot org for more details

The recent visit of Stoneleigh (aka Nicole Foss) to Ireland disturbed anyone who heard her speak about the imminent collapse of our global financial system. However, while delivering a compelling argument as to how we've gotten to this point and the inevitability of collapse, in her talk she gave little consideration to what will happen during or after such a collapse.  While an unpleasant scenario to consider, we have an obligation to investigate it further.  Does it mean the end of civilisation as we know it?  What steps will governments take to avoid such a catastrophe and might they work, and at what cost?

...make the next viral YouTube hit...

Thursdays from 23rd September 2010 for six evenings | 7 pm | The Greenhouse, St Andrew Street, Dublin 2 (map) | €35 per class, €180 for full course, €150 for members / unwaged | Call 01-674-5773 to book a place - limited to eight only

Cultivate are hosting a series of evening classes in video production, for beginners and budding Bergmans who want to move beyond the shot-in-the-bedroom look to professional quality footage.

Eoin Campbell leads a six week course on video production, using footage from Cultivate's festivals and events shot over several years, and using both Apple Macintosh and Open Source software. Eoin is a trained Final Cut Pro Editor Level 2, and has been teaching multimedia applications and workshops for over eight years.

the powering up of community, creativity and culture

"Bursting with insightful analysis and creative solutions to the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil, The Powerdown Show is an inspirational pointer to life beyond fossil fuels. Essential viewing – a flash of light in the darkness."
- Rob Hopkins, Founder of the Transition Movement

DVD Video | €15 (Buy online) | Widescreen 16:9 | Running time 10 x 20 minutes | View the 8th Episode

the powerdown show is a 10-part TV series that takes a fresh and engaging look at the community responses to the converging challenges of climate change and peak oil.   We have a golden opportunity to create a far better, more sustainable way of life. Millions around the world – many in your own community – are already making the transition to local resilience.  Your vision is needed too.

the network for communities building local resilience

transitiontownsireland.ning.com

A new social networking website was launched to facilitate the communication and sharing of experience between the Transition initiatives in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

If you are not on it already and you are active or interested in the Transition Process get yourself along to transitiontownsireland.ning.com
Please let anyone you think should be on this networking site know it exists.

The Anne Behan Community Sustainability Award for Transition Initiatives will be presented every year by Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, to the community in Ireland which, in the opinion of a panel of judges, has done most to build local resilience, economic self-reliance, to strengthen itself socially and culturally and to protect and enhance its natural environment.

For more information and application form see www.feasta.org/community.htm

The challenge now is to design and build low impact, low energy buildings

Tuesdays 21st Sept – 7th Dec 2010 | 7pm | 12-week course (or choose individual seminars) | The Greenhouse, St Andrew St, D2 (map) | 12 seminars €210 | 9 seminars €180 | 6 seminars €120 | 3 seminars €65 | 1 seminar  €25

This course brings together a fantastic range of speakers to explore the essential aspects of green building from passive house design to renewable energy options. To appreciate how these factors work in a system, the course also includes case studies, presented by the designer, of award-winning and ground-breaking ecological buildings in Ireland. This course is designed for architects and is open to all who are interested. You can do the full 12-week course or choose individual seminars of interest.

Details of individual seminars to follow.

From mid-October 2010 until mid-May 2011 | All Green Works Hubs: Cork, Dublin, Sligo and Tipperary | FETAC lectures average 2 days per week, with tutorials, group and individual work, and special presentations on the remaining days | Please enquire for further detail: 01 674 5773 or contact us by email

This course provides participants with an understanding of sustainability and how it relates to design and project management in the built environment.   Areas covered in the course include Green Building, Building Physics, as well as Building Energy Rating and Project Management.  A work placement forms an integral part of the course.  The course is likely to be particularly suitable to those who wish to work in the new design and construction industry, as exacting requirements and new standards will require new skills and understanding of green building technologies. The course provides credits and progression to FETAC Level 6 in Architectural Technology.

From mid-October 2010 until mid-May 2011 | All Green Works Hubs: Cork, Dublin, Sligo and Tipperary | FETAC lectures average 2 days per week, with tutorials, group and individual work, and special presentations on the remaining days | Please enquire for further detail: 01 674 5773 or contact us by email

This course introduces the concepts associated with sustainable tourism and provides specific training on the actions and approaches necessary to put it into practice.  Areas covered in the course include Ecotourism Awareness, Green Communications and Green Marketing.  A work placement forms an integral part of the course.  The course is aimed at those wishing to work or develop a business in the green tourism sector.  The course leads to FETAC Level 5 in Tourism.

From mid-October 2010 until mid-May 2011 | All Green Works Hubs: Cork, Dublin, Sligo and Tipperary | FETAC lectures average 2 days per week, with tutorials, group and individual work, and special presentations on the remaining days | Please enquire for further detail: 01 674 5773 or contact us by email

This course is aimed as those who are interested in starting their own green business or taking a leadership role in an existing business in any sector.  The course specifically focuses on the development of businesses that supply green services and products and those that wish to run their companies more sustainably (regardless of the product or service).  Practical concepts associated with sustainable business are explored and specific training provided on the actions and approaches necessary to put it into practice.  Areas covered in the course include Start Your Own Business (sustainability focus), Green Marketing, and Sustainable Development in Business.  A work placement forms an integral part of the course. The course leads to FETAC Level 6 in Business Management.

From mid-October 2010 until mid-May 2011 | All Green Works Hubs: Cork, Dublin, Sligo and Tipperary | FETAC lectures average 2 days per week, with tutorials, group and individual work, and special presentations on the remaining days | Please enquire for further detail: 01 674 5773 or contact us by email

This course provides participants with an understanding of the natural environment, the pressures on it, and ways of predicting and mitigating impacts associated with the built environment.  Areas covered in the course include Biodiversity, Ecological Field Methods and Ireland’s Environment.  A work placement forms an integral part of the course. The course is particularly suitable to those who wish to work in the land use planning or construction sectors and who wish to gain a better understanding of the expanding field of environmental protection.  The course leads to FETAC Level 5 in Applied Ecology.

Wednesday 29th September 2010 | 7.00 pm | The Greenhouse, 17 St Andrew Street, Dublin 2 (map)  |  €6.50 / €5 Cultivate members and unwaged  | Bookings on 01 674 5773 

Over the past few years, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has ravaged bee hives throughout Europe and the United States. Honey bees are among nature's most effective pollinators; high and unsustainable losses of hives in Ireland will not only have immediate and costly effects on agriculture in the short term, but also unless checked will lead to enormous, potentially catastrophic effects on the biosphere in the long term. We should all be concerned about the fate of the bees, because so much life depends on them.

While nobody has yet been able to identify the precise cause of CCD, there is a strong argument being voiced that a hive succumbs because a combination of factors weaken the bees' natural defences. One way to help maintain a colony's strength is to encourage the bees to eat a varied diet, so planting and cultivating a mixture of bee-friendly flowers and fruits is something everyone with a garden can do.

Kathleen Clarke, a bee-keeper and a gardener, will deliver a talk on how to select and look after plants that thrive in our climate, are attractive to humans and are equally appreciated by honey bees.

The Reference Work for the Irish Climate

Cultivate are delighted to be able to offer for sale Klaus Laitenberger's Vegetables For the Irish Garden.

€14.95 (Buy online)

| Paperback: 296 pages | Publisher: Milkwood Publishing (March 2010) | ISBN-10: 0956506305 | ISBN-13: 978-0956506306 | Weight:  .725kg

Klaus Laitenberger has been growing organic vegetables for over twenty years in the UK and Ireland.  He was running a four-acre organic market garden in England before moving to Ireland in 1999 where he was the Head Gardener at the Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co. Leitrim for seven years.  He then took on the challenge to start the garden restoration in Lissadell House in Co. Sligo.

For the last few years he works as a self-employed trainer, mentor and consultant in organic horticulture.  Last year he completed his PgDip in Organic Farming (SAC Aberdeen and University of Glasgow).  His first book, Vegetables For the Irish Garden, is now available.  The book will be of interest for anybody just starting to grow a few vegetables for the first time as well as for the more advanced gardeners.

Read a review by Jane Powers in the Irish Times, published Saturday, July 17, 2010.

Month-by-month fruit gardening tips from Kathleen!

December / January Fruit Garden

Things to do:

1. Complete picking very late-maturing apples, before the hard frosts come

2. Inspect your stored fruits, and remove any rotten ones.

Scroll down to discover tips for the entire year!

December / January Herb Schedule

Things to do:

Protect planters, especially terracotta planters with bubble-wrap or hessian or even old jumpers. The cold temperatures and frost can easily penetrate containers, freezing the soil and plant roots and killing all but the most robust plants.

Month-by-month vegetable gardening tips from Kathleen!

Scroll down to discover tips for the entire year!

December / January Vegetable Garden

Things to do:

1. Get organised for the spring and start collecting plastic bottles for cloches.

2. Build a compost bin at the bottom of your garden.

Review by Erik van Lennep

2006 Timber Press

Every few years I read a book which turns my perspective on the world inside out and upside down, something which makes me look at the world with a new appreciation and wonder. I picked up Teaming with Microbes expecting to learn a bit more about soil ecology and composting, and I did. But I was taken into a world as seen by the authors, of the unseen and largely unconsidered world populated by microbes, fungi, invertabrates and others that is responsible for all fertility, and thus for all of our food, much of our oxygen and most of our waste disposal.

See excerpts of this book online.

Review by Erik van Lennep

©2006 Timber Press

It is very encouraging that such a thorough reference is now on the market, and I hope this is an indication of the expanding market for green roofs in general. Green roofs are far more acepted in Europe than in the USA, so the fact that this reference is borne out of the experience of one of the foremost US nurseries to specailise in green roof plants is notable. Containing more than 300 colour photographs with cultural details on more than 200 species and cultivars, this is an essential resource for home gardeners, landscape architects, and designers looking for environmentally friendly choices.

Growing conditions on a rooftop are more challenging and exacting than those at ground level, and the plants have been selected and trialed from a variety of habitats where they must endure wide variations in moisture availability, shallow soil depths, higher levels of U.V. radiation and windy conditions....

Review by Erik van Lennep

©2007 Timber Press

Coming from the East Coast of North America, a region still largely forested and given a chance, quick to revert to trees, I have a long and happy association with woodland habitats and shade gardens. Woodland plants are among my favourites, and books on woodland plants outnumber the rest in my own library. I am always interested to see how the woodland garden is interpreted in the European context, and Karan Junker's encyclopedic treatment of the subject did not disappoint me. I found it a little disconcerting to navigate her purely alphabetic listings as she dispensed with the customary divisions by tree, shrub, perennial, etc. But this was only a minor annoyance for me, and others might not be inconvenienced by this at all.

By Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden

Review by Erik van Lennep

“...technically a rain garden has come to mean something very specific, namely a planted depression that is designed to take all, or as much as possible, of the excess rain- water run-off from a house or other building and its associated landscape. However, we feel that the term is such an evocative one that we use a much more wide-ranging de?nition, which covers all the possible elements that can be used to capture, channel, divert and make the most of the natural rain and snow that falls on a property. The whole garden becomes a rain garden, and all of the individual elements that we deal with in detail are either components of it, or are small-scale rain gardens in themselves. Rain gardens are therefore about water in all its forms, still and moving, above and below ground, and the rich planting and experiential opportunities that exploiting that water can give rise to”.