Mayo town celebrates Biodiversity Week

Biodiversity Week recently ran nationwide from October 13 to October 19. This week was dedicated to helping and encouraging people to do something for the environment. A group from the Westport Community Garden decided to join up with pupils from Westport schools for a series of activities, including planting acorns. Acorns are readily available at this time of year, but this year there has been a bumper crop. Simon Brown, Tríona Hensey, Mary Langan, Michael Roache and Helen Shanley collected acorns from Brackloon, Cloona, Knockranny and Newport.

All are from the sessile oak (Quercus petraeacap) – native Irish oak species. Perhaps on another occasion we can get the pupils to gather them. We decided as a group to do something with the primary school pupils because they are our future and they are generally enthusiastic about nature. How were schools chosen? Rather randomly in a sense but the teachers were known to us and have shown an interest in biodiversity over the years. Other schools could come on board if they contact us at the Westport Community Garden.

We are not interested in trying to coerce schools or placing extra responsibility on teachers. We want enthusiastic teachers who are committed and who believe in the concept of biodiversity and we will help them get involved. Five school and teachers in the Westport area who were involved were the Gaelscoil, Nicola and Máire Knockroosky NS, Jess, Joe, Kate and Niamh; Lankill NS, Jen; The Quay NS, Vanessa and Scoil Phádraig, Sean L and Sean M and one in Castlebar, Gaelscoil Raifteirí, Michelle – so in total just over 200 pupils participated.

We were fortunate with the weather as it could have been difficult to have conducted the events out in the rain. We sent clear instructions to all the schools as to want we needed, this in turn was sent to parents but unfortunately it was a rather hit and miss system. Acorns when they grow need an opportunity to grow long roots but what was produced on the day was dismal in some cases! We would like to thank all the parents who read the instructions and bought the correct size milk carton. Michael Roache gave a short talk on acorns explaining how they should be planted, lying on their sides, type of soil necessary, not too rich as that wouldn’t necessarily mimic conditions in a forest.

Another idea was to check if your acorn is viable to place them in a bowl of water as those that float to the top are probably dead. Long term we hope that every pupil in the county will have the opportunity to plant their own acorns, seeds or nuts to grow a tree in the future. Wellie boots and spring bulbs WE have been doing this with a few schools over the years, it works well sometimes and when it does it is wonderful. Basically the pupils bring their old wellie boots along with holes in the bottom to allow drainage. They put gravel in the bottom provide by Corcoran’s Concrete, top it up with soil and plant the bulbs, partically funded by Tidy Towns. Only biodiverse bulbs are used.

They also planted spring bulbs in beds at their own schools, following the rule to plant any bulb two and a half times its length. That was difficult to explain to some pupils and their fingers are not too strong to make a big of enough hole too. As part of the project we also brought along a wormery. Every school could have, as could every household. It does wonders for the garden. Mary O’Malley demonstrated to Naíonáin Mhora about the design and what footstuffs these little tigers like. More Teachers can contact us at the Westport Community Garden at gemma.hensey@yahoo.ie or michellegranghan@hotmail.com 

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