FLOWER POWER may be nothing new, but the focus on food at this weekend's Bloom festival is a timely reminder of how linked the garden is with what we eat, writes Hugo Arnold.
There are few things as exciting as growing your own food, and the challenges that process encourages are one of the key ways of encouraging children to experiment.
A radish may be one of the easiest vegetables to grow, but its fiery peppery heat can be quite a shock. However it is hard to resist trying one if you have had a hand in growing it. The same is true of rather more vegetables than you might at first think. With the advent of polytunnels, it is possible to grow cabbages and cauliflower, courgettes and cucumber, if not every month of the year, then at least more months than used to be the case.
Why then do all schools not have a garden? At this year's show, the Kerry Earth Education Project is showcasing the Living Classroom, which highlights the huge possibilities of using the school grounds as an education resource.
With this garden, they are focusing on organic production and the importance of biodiversity. "Although it is small it will have everything, from fruit and vegetables to meadowland, trees and shrubs," according to one of its creators, Ian McGrigor. This enables issues as diverse and important as climate change and development education to sit alongside nutrition and culinary appreciation.
There are those, such as Alice Waters, recently featured in these pages, who believe that the growing and cooking of food can and should form the central plank of education. Waters, owner of Chez Panisse restaurant and pioneer of the Edible Schoolyard project, both in California, believes that all education can stem from such a garden; from maths to chemistry, from history to politics.
Institutions such as schools and hospitals have such a key role to play, she argued, because they are so close, at least in theory, to what food should be about - health and vitality. And they are in a position to buy large quantities of food from their surrounding areas.
While sport is undoubtedly an important, some would argue crucial, part of education, school grounds are too often exclusively given over to playing fields and concrete. A garden can transform a small amount of that space into an interactive educational resource, which is what this exhibit at Bloom is all about.
At a time of escalating food costs and concerns over global availability, this re-engagement with the idea of local food, not to mention the prime role vegetables can and should play in our diet, seems entirely apposite.
It is welcome news, too, that the number of artisan food producers showing at Bloom has increased, from 27 last year to 40. Not only this, but the organiser, Bord Bia, is promising that food available for consumption at the event will break with normal tradition and showcase some of our considerable culinary talent. Caterer, Masterchef, is using Irish artisan products in its menus.
This is a practical and welcome step towards focusing on fresh, seasonal and local food, to which far too many hotels, schools and hospitals pay lip service, while relying on a developed distribution system.
If you are keen to start an organic garden you can e-mail earthedkerry@gmail.com. Kerry Earth is currently working with half a dozen schools in the Kerry region and is in the process of preparing a DVD to explain how to go about the process, which should be ready in the autumn.