If you spray pesticides on your vegetable patch, then you have kinda missed the point

by Kenneth Keavey

If you are spraying pesticides in your vegetable garden, you have kinda missed the point of growing your own food in the first place.

I know for sure that my grandad did not use pesticides, he grew vegetables for himself and his family, including me when I came along. In fact, I have a memory of sitting on his lap drinking sweet, boiled turnip juice out of a tin cup. I know, I dare you to try that with your own kids today, see how far you get. I’d get thrown out of my own house if I suggested such a thing, what between the protein bars, and the smoothies, sprouting broccoli and avocados, I wouldn’t stand a chance. There is no doubt our food system has changed, some for the good, some for the not so good.

He grew carrots, they were amazing, my dad grew carrots they were amazing. My Grandad grew carrots for the Johnsons and the Blakes the families that lived in Cregg castle, he was the head gardener there and grew those vegetables in the walled garden at Cregg. Those families were the lucky ones, they didn’t need to subsist on a diet of potatoes and turnip juice. They had tomatoes, imagine tomatoes on your plate locally grown in the 1950s. it did happen you know. But you know something else? They were an absolute luxury, no doubt about it.

I mean where else would you have gotten tomatoes in the West of Ireland in the 1950s as a normal person, you wouldn’t, and when or if you ever did, imagine what that would have been like? I do remember podding peas, that was a remarkable thing, really and truly.

I also remember harvesting the apples and the jam jars hanging on strings to stop the wasps, I remember all the different varieties of apples, and of putting them on metal sheets in the shed to keep them for the autumn and stop disease spreading by spacing them out.

It was a different era, some good some not so good.

But you know what my grandad and my dad did not do? They did not use pesticides, they didn’t. My grandad had two work horses, one was called Snowball and he also had a small mixed farm, the same one we have now, he never sprayed it. It wasn’t a conscious choice, he just didn’t have the option, there were no chemicals available to him and yet he grew the food.

The food was tasty, simple wholesome. As I have gotten older, I still love a simple meal of new potatoes and fresh seasonal veggies, what’s not to love about that?

Chemistry belongs in a lab not on our food, there is little doubt that going out to spray our food with chemicals to stop other creatures from eating it and then bringing that food into our homes and eating it ourselves is a little bit silly.

As always, we need your support during the summer more than ever, the time of the best Irish seasonal plenty.

Thank you

Kenneth

PS PLEASE if you can at all continue to support us during the summer we would really appreciate it. If you haven’t gotten your ticket for our sustainability festival yet, please click here to get yours, this is a not for profit event to celebrate all that is good in food in Ireland, check out the line-up it promises to be an amazing day.

Make sure you are at rock bottom, before you look up…

by Kenneth Keavey

When you think it almost couldn’t get any worse, this week has proved make sure you are at rock bottom before you start looking up!

On a positive note, the weather has been fantastic, as a person without a farm I would be celebrating having a summer. The reality from a food growing perspective is a little different though, we are heading into the end of 2 months with very little rain, our weather station is reading a large moisture deficit.  Here in Galway, this is or was once a very unusual occurrence. You know those once in a lifetime climate events they used to talk about, that now happen all the time!

So out came the water tanker this week. Our crops are really struggling we have disease and drought stress across the crops. We purchased the water tanker after the serious drought of 2018, and while conditions so far are not as bad as they were then, they are pretty bad, so the tanker is out and we are watering, we have to water as the soil resembles more of a desert that a farm in Galway.

We have also taken out our old sprayer, and as luck would have it, both machines broke down. The sprayer is important as the dry soil mean very little water is going into the veggies which means they are not getting nutrients and as a result they are suffering both from lack of water and lack of food.

For the first time that I can remember we have aphid (Green fly) infestations in our brassicas.  So, we have been scrambling around, we have bought a new sprayer, and we hope to have the water tanker operational again. So yesterday we were out spraying seaweed and a liquid nutrition boost (made from plants) and micronutrients also, and finally an herbal tonic to boost the immune system of the plants. Fingers crossed it helps.

The long-term forecast is for a dry August, that will be month three of little rain, so we must get on with the time-consuming job of spraying and watering. We are lucky though here in Galway we have access to water and there are no fires.

Spare a thought for all those in France and Spain and across the world that are burning and suffering the worst impacts of the climate breaking down. Meanwhile the Fossil fuel companies are rubbing their hands together as they no doubt make record profits again from the high price of oil. They are responsible for our planet burning.  Man made climate change is our reality now, and it is happening all around us, every single year.

I see it here with my own eyes.

Having said that, we are doing all we can in our little corner of the world, and there are many people like us and your support is a vote for a cleaner greener future.

Anyway, back to watering and spraying and harvesting. Your support especially during the summer keeps us going and growing, so, thank you.

Kenneth

PS We have finalised the lineup for our sustainability festival in September and it promises to be an amazing day, if you haven’t gotten your ticket yet, please click here to get yours now. This is a not-for-profit event.

PPS We have at last the first new Irish organic potatoes from Cameron at Battlemountain farm and we are so excited, check them out here. His crops are also suffering from drought, so they are later than usual and smaller than usual, but they are here now.

This is a plea-thank you

by Kenneth Keavey

Last week I stood out in a field and asked your help for our farm. A difficult conversation to have. We have been bowled over by the level of support we have received. I cannot put into words how much the feedback, words of encouragement, and orders have impacted us. It has been overwhelming. Thank you all so much.

I can tell you now that most of the courgettes we harvested have all gone to good homes.

Amid all the good will I wanted to highlight one particular gesture (of many, and apologies I cannot highlight them all) One of our customers in Dublin offered to buy most of our excess courgettes to donate them to charity. 

I spoke to the gentleman involved, I couldn’t begin to express my appreciation, it was an emotional conversation, and the fact that I was able to decline his generous offer as a result of all the other support was quite frankly amazing.

This is one example of many.  We have had so many orders for charity boxes from people here in Ireland and all over the world and we will be distributing the boxes and produce to charity mainly Saint Vincent De Paul in the coming weeks so that people who would not normally ever have access to fresh organic food will receive deliveries to their doors. Again, thank you all so much.

The struggle to make mixed sustainable organic farming work on a scale like ours is real, and there are many other farms up and down the country of Ireland that now also need your support, you will find them at Farmers markets, they will supply restaurants, or small independent shops, have box schemes or honesty boxes. Please support them.

For us next week and the week after will present the same challenges as this week, so if you can remember us and think about putting in an order it will help our farm and the other farmers we source from enormously.

There is an irony in all of this, in that we have been so busy this week we nearly didn’t manage. Going from one of the quietest weeks of the year to one of the busiest presents its own challenges and harvesting all this produce and packing it in the middle of a crazy man-made climate change fuelled heat wave has been tough.

Thanks to all the farm team that worked so hard in the heat every day to harvest all the amazing produce and to the dedicated packers who packed all your orders. Despite calling in everyone we knew, we could not stretch to packing the last tranche of orders, and for this I am truly sorry to those customers who were affected. I hope you can bear with us.

Sustainable food production as with clean energy is under pressure at a time when we need both more than ever, and if the raging wildfires, multiple heat waves, record breaking temperatures and the threat that a now guaranteed 2C of warming (due to burning fossil fuels) 2 billion people will die by 2050 doesn’t convince us of that I am not sure what will.

I think this quote from Elon Musk sums up all that is wrong with the world:

“You don’t seem to understand that SpaceX will be worth more than the rest of Earth if we accomplish our goals”

Greed and power the staples of the ultra-wealthy, fuelling their insatiable appetite for even more power and money at a price the rest of us and our lovely green planet is paying. Our one truly beautiful home is being destroyed by people than care little for you or I or the environment, it needs to stop.

We have spent 20 years in our little 25-acre patch of land here in the West of Ireland developing a sustainable food system, it has not been easy and there have more than our fair share of road bumps. Last week we received from you a resounding and overwhelming endorsement that our planet and our land deserve our care.

I think this quote from Margaret Meade sums up all that is right with the world:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Thank you

Kenneth

I am so upset, and hopeful…

by Kenneth Keavey

What are we doing to our planet? In equal measure I feel sad and angry, how can we treat our home like we do, spraying chemicals on our land, dumping plastic in our beautiful oceans, consuming resources beyond what the planet can offer, pouring earth warming gases into the atmosphere which may well end up being the greatest travesty of our time.

The never-ending pursuit of profit, driven by greed, this it seems is all that matters to the corporate leaders. The maths doesn’t add up, it cannot continue, we will be the ultimate losers.

Why does the whole fresh food industry have to be based on aggression? From growing to pricing, to selling? Whatever happened to partnership, and fairness? Couldn’t it be different?

The phenomenal scale of corporate greed behind it all, big industry, big ag, big food, they are all the same, and they are ruining our planet. Not only that but these companies and their lobbying groups are causing epidemics of chronic disease. 

It doesn’t need to be like this.

We received a lovely comment from a customer last week, I think it highlights what we have been fighting for, for the last twenty years, and reading this fills me with hope. 

“… Your service gives me time that I would otherwise spend researching suppliers, chasing down seasonal produce and trying to verify how food has been grown and sourced. Instead, I get to spend that time with my children. They eat well, they learn that food has seasons, and they develop an appreciation for quality, provenance and value that extends beyond a price tag.

Most importantly, I am paying for the confidence that someone else is doing the work of finding produce that has been grown and sourced in the way I would choose myself. If I attempted to do that sourcing (or growing!) personally, it would require far more of my own time and effort. In many ways, I am paying for your time so that I can spend mine where it matters most.

The produce is wonderful, but the real value lies in everything that happens before it reaches my doorstep.”

The cornerstone of our business is anchored in healthy, chemical free food, and a food system that restores the earth and by default our health. Our business is a system that is fair to our food producers, to our partners, to our farmers, to our bodies, to our land, to the living creatures we share the earth with. A food system that can enrich our lives, can energise our bodies, that can make us well not sick, and can heal our planet. We don’t have a big farm, but we have many other farms that we work with, farms that share our common goal, to make this world a bit better, to make our health a little better, and to restore some sanity to a food system that has gone over the edge. 

Thank you for using your power wisely, your support is evidence enough for us to keep our heads down and heading in the right direction.

Thank you

Kenneth

A company of contradictions….?

by Kenneth Keavey

When we started out 20 years ago, as we struggled to contain the weeds on our 0.25 acre plot, we had two pieces of wisdom imparted to us. Never let a weed see Sunday, a fair statement, meaning if a plant doesn’t go to seed you won’t have a million more minions to deal with in short order. The other was “Why not use a touch of Roundup?”, I love this one, because it frames the chemical as benign, but far from benign Roundup is!

A company that makes €2.9 billion a year from a product with 67,000 pending cancer lawsuits against it, while simultaneously targeting €10 billion in cancer drug sales by 2030, has structural incentives that are deeply misaligned with public health.

No conspiracy here, but there are two outrageously conflicting business units in operation under one corporation here. Bayer the giant Agri pharmaceutical company does just that. The question I often wonder about is why with all the litigation against it doesn’t Bayer withdraw Roundup from the market.

Well, there is the €2.9 billion in sales for one thing, but there is another massive revenue stream that is often overlooked where the discussion of Roundup is concerned, Roundup ready crops.

The US government’s own agricultural statistics tell the story starkly. In 2025, 96% of all US soybean acres were planted with herbicide-tolerant seeds — the highest adoption rate ever recorded. Around 92% of domestic US corn acres are produced with herbicide-tolerant seeds, and 93% of cotton acres are genetically engineered herbicide tolerant. So, the real Bayer agrochemical empire looks like this:

Glyphosate herbicide: ~€2.9 billion/year

Full Crop Science division (mainly Roundup ready crops): €21.6 billion/year

Cancer drug ambition by 2030: €10 billion target

It’s an interesting summary, Bayer OWN nearly the whole Soybean, Corn and Cotton production in the US, not to mention lentils and chickpeas too. They own the plants; they own the rights. They own the food system. They make a colossal sum from the crop sciences division, which is nearly entirely based on the patented Glyphosate resistant plants.

You couldn’t make this up, and now because the American food system is dependent on Roundup it looks like they are going to be protected by the US government from the fact that their product probably causes cancer.

Bayer’s strategy is explicit: a favourable ruling by the US Supreme Court could largely end the Roundup litigation — the argument being that since the EPA approved the label without a cancer warning, no state-based lawsuit for failure to warn should be allowed to proceed. If they win that case, which is currently before the Supreme Court in the US, the entire litigation mountain largely disappears — and they keep the revenue.

They are winning and make no mistake this will give them a green light to continue here in Europe also.

Now I may be wrong, and maybe it is just coincidence, but to me there seems to be a resurgence in the use of glyphosate right here on our home turf. Literally on our turf. Everywhere now there are fields sprayed, road verges sprayed.

I was at Bloom last weekend and had a several discussions about the addiction to this product and the damage it does to biodiversity and how unnecessary it is.

One thing for sure, Roundup has no place on our farm or food, so thank you for your support, it means we can keep biodiversity healthy and keep this toxic chemical out of our food supply.

Kenneth

PS To celebrate our 20 years in business, we are very excited to announce our very first Sustainability festival on the 12th of September, this promises to be an amazing day of celebrating all that is right and proper in the Irish food system, nearly half the tickets are already sold, so why not grab yours now.

Also, we will be running our usual farm walk but this year we have planned it for the 18th of July, there is a nominal charge for this, and again numbers are strictly limited, please find all the info here.

Disaster is never far away…

by Kenneth Keavey

It’s been another crazy week. We have so much good stuff happening on the farm. We received the first Irish organic cherries from Darragh Donnelly and they are fantastic.  We have been busy harvesting our own fresh garlic, and we have plenty more for next week, along with gorgeous lettuce, and tonnes other amazing freshly harvested farm and Irish produce, such as salad, spinach, chard and more.

Then there has been the climate fuelled heatwave that we couldn’t quite believe, one minute there was a biting North wind, it was pouring rain, 6-7C and the next it was 30C! and not a single cloud in the sky.  The intensity certainly gives us a taste of what a fossil fuel warmed planet is going to look like. This type of intense heat is going to stress already stretched food systems and mean our reliance on imported foods must shift.

Nevertheless, the dry soil meant conditions for sowing parsnips and carrots beetroot and spinach were ideal, but as with all thing’s that seem to be going well, disaster is always lurking its ugly head just around the corner and sure enough our fancy seeding machine took a turn for the worse. luckily Enda’s ingenuity meant the day was saved and in a MacGyver-esk type intervention we got the machine going again.

We have also sowed an amazing 3 acres or sow of a mix of loads of different clovers and wildflowers which will be a mecca for biodiversity.

Now I don’t know if it is the amazing compost we used in our tunnels this year, but the crops look amazingly healthy. We will be harvesting our first new season farm kale next week and it looks terrific. Not only that but because it was spent organic mushroom compost, we are getting free mushrooms popping up here and there!

But here’s a question for you. Would you prefer caterpillars or chemicals on your kale?

Kale in the US came in as the second most sprayed crop in the EWG dirty dozen list in 2026. How can this super resilient crop need such an array of toxic chemicals to apparently keep it growing? I find this hard to fathom? I write this sitting in our Polytunnel full of the most amazing kale and all it has seen is fertile soil and water, there isn’t an aphid or caterpillar in sight, and that’s no different for the thousands of kale plants we have in the ground in the field, the biggest issue we have there is the pesky pigeons.

Ironically if you did ever find a little critter of some denomination or another in your produce this is a great sign, because it certainly means the absence of chemicals. Now no chemicals on our food are pleasant but I am sorry to say for your US followers that you get a much worse deal when it comes to chemicals on your food compared to here in Ireland. Having said all that the Irish dept of agriculture survey here in Ireland shows that in 2021 nearly 70% of the kale grown was treated with a variety of herbicides and pesticides.

So, the question remains caterpillars or chemicals, which would you choose?

As always thanks for your support each order is changing the food system one box at a time.

Kenneth

Fake Farms and Farm News

by Kenneth Keavey

It’s been a wonderful week on the farm; the soil is dry and that makes planning and getting things done so much easier. Planning around the weather makes growing 20 crops on a commercial scale tricky.

So, to get the last few weeks of dry weather has been a Godsend. Now mind you it has been cold, the wind has been biting, but I am informed that this may be changing towards the end of next week.

Either way we have been making the very most of the conditions. We have planted and sown loads of crops and although growth has been slow, the plants are at least in the ground. We are a little behind, but I feel more confident now that I did two weeks ago for the season ahead.

Cameron our potato grower has informed us we will be coming to the end of his Irish potatoes in the next couple of weeks, he grows all our Irish potatoes, and we have had a great relationship with him for a number of years now.

Richard from Clashganny organic farm has also sent us his last pallet of Irish organic apples, we have buying Irish apples off Richard for maybe nearly 10 years now.

Joe Kelly has cucumbers planted for us, and we are getting salad, and spinach and chard from him most weeks, we will take most of what he has for us throughout the season.

Beechlawn Organic Farm have been supplying us organic produce since we started nearly 20 years ago, and it is amazing to have a resource such as them down the road, they have been true leaders in the Irish organic production over the last 25 years.

Millhouse Farm produce the very best rocket, salad and parsley, and we have been getting produce from them too for a number of years. This is a just a sample of some of our real Irish farmer partners. There will always be discussion around quality and a bit of back and forth, it is fresh produce after all, but we will always make it work.

These are real farms with real names as is our farm. Of course, we import and buy in produce and deal with other amazing suppliers and growers and co-ops in Europe too.

But what we do not do, is create marketing brands that have names that give the impression that they are actual farms. Names that give customers the impression that the produce comes from a real family farm that does not exist, for example the name “Farrells” from one well known discount supermarket. This is NOT a real farm!

The facts are clear, the number of veg growers in Ireland has contracted from over 600 to just over 60 in the last 20 years, the pricing power of supermarkets has had a heavy hand in this.  Primary produce is always the first in the firing line when it comes to discounts and has often and is still used today as a loss leader to lure consumers into large supermarket stores.

You cannot argue with making food more affordable and cheaper, but I would argue there are few industries that are forced to accept a price less than the cost of production, it is not right.

This too is a story of the powerful and the powerless. When any large retail organisation has massive market share it can put undue pressure on small suppliers who in truth have little option but to comply. Thankfully the scales are moving at least a little in the right direction, and it seems the crisis in the Irish veg growing sector maybe the last straw that is at last offering a little protection to Irish producers.

As always, your support is helping move us towards a fairer food system.

Thank you.

Kenneth

PS We may need to get a bigger marquee it seems, the tickets for our sustainability festival on the 12th of Sept are selling out fast, and as the first press releases are going out now we would very much like to make sure you our customers get first refusal, so please have a think if this is something you would like to attend and get your tickets soon. 

A huge Announcement

by Kenneth Keavey

Even after 20 years in business, no two days are ever the same and we keep on experiencing new things for the first time, new challenges, but also new opportunities. 

I have been bursting at the seems trying to contain my excitement at this announcement, which truly is a first for us. Something we have been working very hard on over the last 2 months and finally we can tell you about it, and the scale of this event is a first for us.

We are having our very first sustainability festival on the 12th Sept this year.  

We have an amazing selection of speakers, demos, suppliers, tastings, farmers, growers, beekeepers, music, speakers, speciality food trucks, artisan ice creams, and sustainable coffee, and of course farm tours planned, it will be a day to celebrate the diversity of Irish local food (from a vegetable perspective!) and the importance now more than ever of using the power of our food choices to drive change that impacts our health and the health of this planet in a positive way.

You can get your tickets here, there are a limited number of early bird tickets available, and then the full price tickets are €40, and these will be strictly limited too.

Generally, we have never charged (or charged a nominal fee) for our annual events on the farm, but we soon discovered that just to attempt to cover the costs of an event of this magnitude we needed to charge €40 per ticket just to aim to break even. If there is anything left over from the sales after costs are deducted the proceeds will be donated to our two chosen charities “Hometree” and “Friends of the Earth Ireland” both of whom will be speaking at the event. 

We are also charging for children’s tickets, this is something we would not normally ever do, but we have limited capacity in our speakers tent and so we feel we had to limit the numbers somehow. The entirety of children’s ticket fees will also be donated to our two charity partners.

We have always felt strongly that educating and inspiring children through connecting them with nature (and our two pet rescue pigs, George and Florence of course) is a very important part of our journey and we thought very hard about how we could make up to you as parents for having to charge. So, we have decided to put on an extra annual farm walk/tour this year, we will be running this on the 18th of July and there will only be a nominal charge (€10/car) to reserve your place. Tickets for this event will go on sale soon too so keep your eyes peeled, and we will let you our customers know first.

I always need to pinch myself to make sure it is real; that in fact we have made it to this pivotal milestone. It is hard to think that when myself my dad and my wife Jenny started packing our first veg boxes on pallets and empty Guiness kegs 20 years ago that we would be still here 20 years later. 

I think we are here too against all the odds, and there were plenty of times when I seriously considered throwing in the towel, it has been and continues to be a tough journey. I know some of you our customers have been with us right from the start, and that is something that makes me feel very emotional you are the reason that we are still here, and the reason when times were tough, we didn’t quit.

Now more than ever it is vital that businesses such as ours exist and thrive and grow. Our world is crying out for compassion, fairness, support, inclusion, sustainability, healthy food and somebody to standup for the health of our planet. You are that person, and you are facilitating us in helping deliver that message. 

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for keeping us growing (in every way).

Kenneth

PS In another first we have just launched a brand-new delivery day, we can now deliver to you on Mondays. This delivery day is much more difficult to achieve operationally, and the cost of delivery will be at the higher charge of €8/delivery. This is here to facilitate times when you need an additional delivery or an early delivery, we would ask that you stick to your normal delivery day and only use this facility if you really need to. In order to be offered this choice you will need to place your order as a guest rather than using your registered account.  

Hope springs eternal

by Kenneth Keavey

I was hopeful this week that we would get our first vegetable beds made, but the soil is saturated, and more rain has arrived and more is forecast, it does not bode well for spring planting, this year crops will be delayed. Field conditions at least in the West of Ireland are poor and the soil is still cold and there is a distinct absence of life, I guess the earthworms and little bugs feel the same as we do about cold, wet damp weather. 

The excitement of a couple of weeks ago has waned a little, when we were making some good progress with our field work, it looks like for now patience is the order of the day. At least we have the tunnels to work in, and we will be planting our first new season crops (fingers crossed) at the end of next week, exciting! 

Tomatoes should follow the week after that and tomato planting usually symbolises the first proper start of the season with some brighter sunnier and dare I say it, warmer weather, we will wait and see.

In a rare absence from the farm a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of giving a talk to a growers’ network in Louth, a lovely bunch of people growing some of their own food and it was an uplifting and enjoyable experience. 

On the road up from Galway though we passed several bright yellow fields. If you are out and about this bank holiday weekend, keep an eye out for these fields, they will have an iridescent yellow tinge. 

They shine so brightly because they have been sprayed with an herbicide that has destroyed all plant life. The chemical, glyphosate, more commonly known under the brand name Roundup will have been applied to the land prior to ploughing. 

The EU had an opportunity in 2023 to ban glyphosate for good, instead it was licensed for use for a further ten years. Here’s a couple of interesting observations: prior to 1990 there were genuinely more toxic herbicides in use, there is no doubt about that, and nobody would advocate for going back there (these highly toxic chemicals are still in use in some countries) but we have traded a smaller use of genuinely horrible chemicals for an enormous use of a probable carcinogen and glyphosate is now everywhere. 

Are we any better off? No. 

Should the use of glyphosate be curtailed? Definitely. 

Is this happening? Partially. 

The ban on using it has a preharvest desiccant (it was and still is used in some countries to dry out crops prior to harvest, a genuinely terrible idea) was a positive step in the EU.

BUT there is a loophole, the use of glyphosate can still be used to treat weeds in the crop if it is 2 weeks prior to harvest. So essentially it still can be used as a desiccant, (even it this is not the stated reason). The impact will be the same, and this chemical which is systemic, will still end up in our flour, and in our bread and in our oats. 

I for one will take my porridge glyphosate free, thank you very much.

As always thank you for your support, and happy easter.

Kenneth

The Pesticide, the Darkside and the cover up

by Kenneth Keavey

We thought we were finally emerging from a relentlessly wet spring. I don’t know why but I am always surprised by rain, you would imagine at this stage after 20 years of farming and living in the West of Ireland it wouldn’t come as such a shock!

This week we had rain that can only be described as monsoon like, giant water droplets that have again saturated the ground and delayed further progress on the farm. There is little doubt now that climate chang is impacting food production globally.

We are right in the middle of the hungry gap, and we import fruit and more veg at this time of the year, and we can see form talking to other farmers in Spain, France and Holland that the weather has put massive pressure on growing systems in these countries as well as our own and has delayed and reduced harvest, it is proving difficult to get produce at present from anywhere.

This, I think makes it even more urgent to have the discussion around our own food security especially with the closure of one of our largest carrot growers two weeks ago.

But back on the farm we have had a few days of sunshine and the three days of fine weather we got last weekend we took full advantage of. We have spread all our compost, ploughed the land and tilled some of it.

We are still harvesting on the farm too. The last of our own farm parsnips are still available, we are harvesting our own leeks and from the tunnels a bumper crop of rocket and spinach and chard, we will also be harvesting loads of green kale this week and this is the crop I wanted to talk about.

Some of the green kale is on the cusp of going to flower and if the temperature gets back to over 12C then we will have our native Irish honeybees flying all over the farm. The first place they will go is to these beautiful flowers, which we will leave until the first aphid infestation begins.

But here is a couple of facts you may be interested in. In conventional systems up until relatively recently many brassica plants were sprayed with neonicotinoid pesticides to destroy amongst other things, aphids.

These chemicals are thankfully now banned in the EU. 1 teaspoon of Thiamethoxam alone can decimate over 1.25 billion bees. But this is not the end of the story. These chemicals and this one in particular is still manufactured in the EU, in Belgium by Syngenta and is exported all over the world, it is hard to get accurate data but somewhere in the region of 10,000 tonnes of the stuff is exported to other countries. If you assume that one teaspoon is 3g, then is a lot of teaspoons, it is enough to wipe out the global population of honeybees and wild bees 10 times over.

Not only that, and here is the real dark side of this (as if it was not already dark enough) Syngenta knew and did not release data that their chemicals decimated bee population, they kept this from regulators knowing the damage these chemicals did.

So, when we are told by the companies that manufacture pesticides that they are safe, and where they stand to earn billions of dollars in profit. I error on the side of caution and tend not to put too much trust in what they say.

As always, your support, protects and supports a way of farming that keeps these toxic chemicals out of our food chain and helps protect biodiversity and in this instance our native Irish honey bee too.

Thank you.

Kenneth