These multi-seed flapjacks make for a delicious addition to any lunchbox. They keep well in an airtight container for up to five days, and they also freeze well too. Once cooled, add to a freezer-proof container, and freeze for up to three months. To defrost, simply take what’s needed from the freezer and defrost overnight at room temperature in an airtight container. I’ve added a mix of pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower seeds, which add extra nutrients, flavour, and texture to the flapjacks.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/Gas 6. Line a 20cmx20cm baking tin with greaseproof paper
In a small saucepan, over a low heat, melt together the butter, sugar, golden syrup, and vanilla.
Once melted, take from the heat, stir through the oats and seeds, and stir to combine.
Transfer into the lined tin and press down well. Bake in the preheated oven for 18 minutes.
Take from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack. Carefully score 16 squares. Leave to cool completely in the tin before cutting fully and transferring to an air-tight container for up to five days.
Isn’t it funny that if you or I choose to grow our own food we will always, always choose to grow our own food without chemicals! Funny that this is a criterion in our own gardens but less of a consideration when it comes to choosing in a supermarket. My Grandad grew peas, and turnips, and carrots and potatoes as did my dad. My mum had raspberry bushes, blackcurrants, and goose berries. We were picking and eating our own fruit and vegetables and that was in the 70’s and 80’s. What happened?
Where did all the back garden growing go? Not only that where did all our commercial veg growers go?
In our 20 years we have seen so many changes to our food system we have seen the number of vegetable producers here in Ireland fall dramatically to just 60 commercial field scale producers, down from over 400 in the 90’s. Supermarkets have had a hand in this, squeezing the farmer to the extent that there is just nothing left. The consolidation of the packing and distribution process into the hands of a few middlemen has not helped either. In the space of just one generation, we have become disconnected from our food. Where is our food grown, who grows it, how is it produced, how is it handled? This disconnection is not our fault.
We have had school kids come on to our farm and been completely mesmerised by the fact that carrots come from the ground, having thought they begin their life on supermarket shelves in the plastic packaging. So it is that the shiny plastic packs that line the supermarket shelves give us the impression that our food system is unlimited, vibrant and fair, but of course this is not the case. The problems occur when we try to apply factory type controls to a natural system, but nature is not a factory, and the same rules do not apply.
Covid seemed to rekindle our interest in food. People are really interested again, interested in where our food comes from, what it’s impact on our precious planet is, and interested in how it has been grown. This is a wonderful change. We here on our farm certainly know where our food comes from, and we know that it has been produced without chemicals.
This week we have taken delivery of the first pallet of Irish organic apples from Darragh Donnelly in Dublin he also grows the Irish organic cherries we had earlier in the season. These apples are quite frankly amazing, the flesh is a bright pink, I have never seen apples like this, and the great news is this colour is caused by anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds.
But the best part of all is that these apples will take you back in time. They took me back to the orchard my grandad used to have in his back garden, the apples there which I picked as a young lad were full of flavour. I believe there is a distinct flavour and taste to an Irish apple, and Darragh’s apples are that if they are anything.
We have so many crops coming from our own farm, and we certainly know how they were grown, what field they came from, even what part of what field they came from! In fact, we could probably tell you who harvested them and who packed them into your box and who delivered them. Now you would be hard pushed to get that level of traceability and understanding of where your food comes from in a supermarket.
It is exciting to see that our food and our food producers are becoming a revered part of our culture again, thank you so much for being part of that transformation!
20 years ago, myself and my dad were out with two hoes dealing with the weeds on the vegetable ridges. It is worth being mindful this this was probably the height of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom and for two people to be out in a field weeding was as far from the reality of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ as you could get.
So it was, that an interested party came up to see what we were doing out there in the middle of the field, such an unusual sight at the time. A funny conversation ensued; it went something along the lines of:
Him: “What are you at there?”
Us: “We are weeding”
Him: “Why in the name of God are you doing that? It is an awful waste of time”
Us: “Well, if we don’t weed the crops, we won’t have any produce”
Him: “But Surely all you need is a TOUCH OF ROUNDUP”
All I can say that after this brief interchange, there was little in the way of mutual understanding shared on that particular day, in the end, in the nicest possible way we had to agree to disagree on our approach to weed control and I asked the man if he was not going to help us, to let us be as we had quite a bit of work to do.
There were many funny incidents in those first early days. We actually had the local Garda visit to investigate what mischievous plants we might be growing in our polytunnel one evening. To be fair to both protagonists above it is worth noting that a polytunnel in the west of Ireland would have been a thing of rare occurrence back in those days. Not so much anymore.
In fact, in the space of 20 years there has been a vigorous interest in growing our own food again, at least in the small-scale regenerative way. It seems sad to me that the opposite has happened to many of the larger conventional vegetable producers. 20 years ago, was just about when supermarkets started to take a very mercenary approach to dealing with many of the larger conventional growers in the country, and supermarkets have been instrumental in bringing the horticultural industry over the last two decades to its knees.
It is even sadder to think that the price of this destruction could be for as little as 5c on a head of celery.
It is funny too how supermarkets will fight for that 5c and squeeze the primary producer and at the same time post billions of euros in annual profit. But maybe we are all a little guilty of seeing food as a commodity that needs to be as cheap as possible?
Either way quite a bit has changed in the last 20 years, there are now only 60 commercial growers of field scale vegetables left in the country down from around 400 in 1998. But it is not all doom and gloom and there have been many new smaller scale organic and regenerative startups which shows that there is still an appetite for growing vegetables and doing it without chemicals.
As always thank you for your support, without which we would not be here today.
Kenneth
PS Thank you to everybody who has supported us through the summer. As we head into September and back to school, this is a time that is just as important for us as we have so many great crops from our farm and from our other farmers, and we need your support, what better time to get back into a routine with the very best Irish organic produce.
PPS We have opening currently for full time packing staff, if you would like to join our team please click here for more details.
When new potatoes are in season, it’s time to let their natural sweetness and creamy texture shine. These Garlic & Herb Smashed Potatoes are golden, crispy, and full of flavour; finished with fragrant herbs and a sprinkle of cheese for that extra indulgence.
By choosing local, in-season produce, you’re not just tasting the best of summer, you’re supporting Irish farmers and making a more sustainable choice. Simple, delicious, and made to share, this is comfort food at its best.
Preheat the oven to 220°C/ fan 200°C / gas mark 7.
Remove the potatoes from the steamer and add to a colander. Allow to cool and dry for a few minutes.
Melt the butter in a saucepan with the garlic, thyme and chives. Once it starts to bubble remove from the heat and add a little salt and black pepper.
Place the potatoes in a large bowl, add the melted butter mixture and coat the potatoes evenly.
Tip the potatoes onto a parchment paper-lined baking tray. Smash them with a flat surface, such as the base of a glass. Drizzle over any remaining butter from the bowl. Place in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove, grate over an even layer of cheese and return to the oven for another 5 minutes.
Now I am going to go out on a limb here, but if you have ever consumed alcohol, you may know that mixing your drinks does not produce a great feeling the next day, the hangover that can ensue can be quite horrendous, (so I have been told….). Truthfully, having experienced a few in my day, it has often been said if you forgot you were drinking the night before and work up feeling like you can feel after mixing your drinks, you might actually think you were dying!
So it is with chemicals, and this is something that cannot be measured and is not very well understood, but picture consuming small amounts of pesticides regularly in our food, nobody actually knows what impact this may have. Some research suggests overtime the results may be quite detrimental to our health.
Certainly, over the last 20 years, the application of chemicals on our food here in the EU has reduced, with many of the more toxic chemicals being banned. This is a great thing, and we can be thankful to the EU for this control, despite chemical company lobbyists issuing misleading information that we could not produce enough food without these chemicals.
The spraying of our food with synthetic chemicals is just not good for us. All the studies in the world, even if they demonstrate that the chemicals are safe, are not going to convince me that it is ok. Filling a giant tractor sprayer and going out into a field on a scale that has never been seen before and spraying everything in sight, is like taking a sledge hammer to put in a pin in a wall. This is what is happening, there is no selective application, it is blanket application of chemicals and everything gets a coating, plants and biodiversity alike.
Now maybe these chemicals are safe in certain doses under certain lab tests, and that may well be the case, and I am not disputing that, I have spent long enough working in a lab to understand that. I also know I wore gloves, and used extraction hoods, and took great care when handling any of these lab-based chemicals. But a field and our food is not a lab.
There have been some studies done on the cocktail effect of chemicals in our food. A 2012 EU-funded project called ACROPOLIS studied cumulative pesticide exposure and concluded that current risk assessment systems may underestimate real-life risks.
A 2021 review in Environmental Research noted that low-dose pesticide mixtures may contribute to hormonal disruption, cancer, and neurodevelopmental issues — particularly in children.
It is hard to know for sure, and probably close to impossible to prove, but if you wish to minimise your exposure the best way is to know your ingredients, to cook from scratch, know who produces your food and know that they are not using chemicals, organic produce is the best way to keep chemicals out of our food chain.
As always thank you for your support.
Kenneth
PS Your support over the summer has meant so much, we have so much great produce and your help makes all the difference to our farm, so if you can continue to support us, it makes a real difference, thank you.
We’ve asked by many for advice on what to do when you’re faced with an abundance of seasonal vegetables. Pickling is a great way to preserve a harvest, or you could turn a bounty into a stash of jams or chutneys. Cake or muffin recipes, using carrot, beetroot, or courgette, such as the recipe we shared last week, can be baked, cooled, and popped in the freezer to enjoy at a later stage. While a tray of roasted vegetables can be enjoyed fresh or added to stock to make a soup, which could then be cooled and refrigerated or saved in the freezer for another time.
This mixed vegetable stir-fry can be enjoyed with rice or pasta but is particularly tasty when served in a wrap with the addition of pesto and cheese. Either assemble on the cold pan, before turning on the heat under, or assemble on a plate and transfer to the hot pan. Serve alongside a green salad for a delicious seasonal lunch.
Start by preparing all the vegetables. Add the olive oil to a large frying pan or wok and stir fry the courgette, pepper, and onion for about 5-7 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine and continue to cook for another few minutes, until the tomatoes have started to break down. Add the spinach and the roughly torn basil leaves. Stir through and after about a minute take from the heat.
To make the wrap, add a teaspoon of pesto evenly to a wrap, top with a layer of grated cheese and a good serving of the stir-fried vegetables. Fold in the side of the wrap over the filling and roll, tucking in the edges.
Add a little olive oil to a clean pan over a medium heat. Once hot, add the wrap and cook on each side for about 3 minutes. Serve warm and enjoy immediately.
I remember many years ago meeting two brothers who were growing oats for Flahavans for their porridge. One brother was growing it organically and one was growing it conventionally (With chemicals) The organic farmer tilled the ground, sowed the oats, did some mechanical weed control, and essentially left the oat crop to its own devices.
The other brother was in and out with his sprayer at regular intervals to control, weeds, and fungal infections, using chemicals such as Inatreq ™ (fenpicoxamid) another systemic chemical, Prothioconazole, azoles, and folpet.
Next time you drive past a field of cereal, have a look for tractor wheelings called tramlines up and down the field. This is where the farmer drives up and down spraying the field, and will use the same wheelings for multiple applications to reduce damage to the crop.
At the end of the day although the organic farmer may have had a slightly lesser yield they came out with the same profit due to the cost of the chemicals. Of course, what was not factored in was the cost of the chemicals to our environment and our health, so the question remains why even bother?
While the EU extended the licence for Glyphosate for a further 10 years in 2023, it banned its use as a crop desiccant.
This is the use of a chemical to “dry out a crop”, it is used to reduce the moisture level in cereal crops like wheat. Drier kernals are required by the processors for milling. Even though there is a ban on the use of Glyphosate for desiccation, farmers can still use Roundup for late control of weeds in wheat, so it seems it is still possible to use this toxic systemic chemical for control of weeds in wheat, meaning of course it ends up in our food and in our bread.
I wonder how many farmers are using this loophole to effectively continue to apply roundup prior to harvest?
Roundup is systemic, it gets absorbed into the plant and stays there, classified as a probable carcinogen by the WHO, it is the most used herbicide in the world ever, sales in 2023 reached $10.3 billion.
The funny fact when it comes to roundup is we are allowed to have twice the amount of roundup in our porridge that we are in our wheat. It makes no sense you can’t possibly say the same chemical is twice as safe in a different crop and essentially tell people it is safe to consume twice as much, this of course is rubbish.
But that is the way it is, let me frame this for you, you can have double the helping of roundup in your porridge than you can have in your toast, does that make sense to you? Well, it doesn’t make any sense to me.
I’ll be going with the organic porridge and toast thank you very much.
As always thank you for your support
Kenneth
PS Please remember supermarkets wont miss your custom, but we are completely dependent on your custom to keep our farm running, and every order makes a massive difference, there has never been a better time to get the most amazing seasonal local Irish organic produce as now, thank you.
These rich, fudgy chocolate muffins have a secret ingredient—courgette! Baking with seasonal vegetables isn’t just tasty, it’s better for the planet. When you eat what’s in season, you cut down on long-distance transport and reduce your carbon footprint. While choosing pesticide-free produce, helps to protect pollinators, soil health, and our water sources.
So next time courgettes are in abundance, skip the waste and bake something delicious. Small choices, like this, make a big difference.
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/ fan 180°C/gas mark 6. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
Sieve the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and mixed spice into a large bowl.
Add the courgette and stir well with a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined with the dry ingredients.
In a jug, lightly whisk together the eggs with the oil. Add to the dry ingredients and stir well until all the ingredients are well combined. Stir through the chocolate chips.
Divide the mixture between the prepared muffin cases.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until risen and golden. To test if the muffins are cooked insert a metal skewer and if it comes out clean the muffins are ready. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire tray.
Store in an airtight container for up to three days. These muffins also freeze well – on the day they are baked, once fully cooled, store in the freezer in a freezer-proof container for up to three months.
We were out spraying our crops this week, we were having problems with our sprayer, so I was out there with Brenda fixing the machine and ensuring it was working well. It struck me as I was down near the crops checking to ensure we were getting good leaf coverage with our spray that this is exactly what happens with toxic chemical sprays, they are applied, and they are sprayed directly onto the crops and are in some cases absorbed into the plants.
It was visually striking and although I have known this for years, it really hit me there in the field. We sprayed all our brassica plants that day with a mix of seaweed, boron, Epsoms salts and an herbal tonic.
At the time we were spraying black kale, funny thing is kale is a regular feature on the dirty dozen list, mindful that this is an American compiled list and there are so many more chemicals applied there compared to here in the EU, that doesn’t give us Europeans a free pass though.
Even so, for the life of me, why? Why spray kale? It used to be grown for cattle and is as hardy as vegetables come. We have been growing kale for 20 years and never had a disease problem. The only time we have an issue is with aphids, and that is after we leave the plants to go to flower, and they are exhausted at the end of a long season.
Chemicals that are absorbed into the food are called systemic, that means they penetrate the skin of the plant and get into its circulatory system, washing or rinsing does nothing to remove these chemicals.
You may note from the video that there are plenty of weeds in our fields, one of the most notable differences between organic and conventional agriculture is the absence of weeds. Weeds in conventional systems are managed generally starting with the ubiquitous spray of roundup followed by herbicides applied once the plants are in the ground. Then there is the fungicide and insecticide applications. All in all, whilst it is better in Ireland, the best way to avoid ingesting synthetic chemicals is to choose organic.
If you would like to know the chemical concoction you might find on your kale read on. Fungicides like, Difenoconazole, Boscalid, and Fludioxonil, insecticides such as Lamda-cyhalothrin, herbicides such as metazahlor, pendimethalin may be used, if you are in the US I am sure you can add a whole batch of more toxic chemicals to that list.
As the day went on, we got all our brassicas sprayed, I can only imagine the good the mix we applied is doing the plants, and I hope you can taste it in the flavour, freshness and richness of the produce coming off our fields and the fields of the other farmers that supply us.
Not only that, but I Saw a few bees fly though the spray and of course they flew on, no issue there, maybe it even did them some good, don’t think you could say the same for any synthetic chemical that might be sprayed.
As always thank you for your support.
Kenneth
PS Don’t forget to support our organic farm at this time of the year it makes all the difference to us and all the other organic farms and farmers that supply into us. Thank you. Kenneth
Potatoes are so versatile to cook with and they’re a good source of vitamins, minerals, and fibre. Irish new potatoes are now in season. New potatoes are packed with flavour and are waxy, perfect for potato salads and tortillas, as opposed to the floury winter variety which we associate more with mash.
This potato tortilla, or Tortilla Española as it is more commonly known, can take a little time to prepare, but few ingredients are needed and the result is something truly delicious. It makes for a tasty and nutritious lunch, and serves well alongside some of your favourite salads.
Place the potatoes in a steamer and cook for 15-20 minutes, depending on their size
While the potatoes are cooking, add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil to a deep sided, ovenproof frying pan. Place over a medium heat. Add the onion and turn the heat down low, and sauté the onions for about 15 minutes, until they are soft and golden in colour. Stir occasionally. Once cooked remove to a plate and wipe the pan clean
Add the eggs to a jug. Season with a little salt and pepper and gently whisk together.Peel and thickly slice the cooked potatoes. Season well with salt.
Add the remaining oil to the frying pan and using a pastry brush evenly brush the oil along the side and base of the pan.Place the frying pan back over a medium heat on the stove. Once hot, add a layer of potatoes, about half, followed by an even layer of the onion. Pour over half of the egg mixture, then add the remaining layer of potato. Finish by pouring over the rest of the egg mixture.
Cook the tortilla over a low-medium heat until the top is starting to set, which will take about 15 minutes, Preheat the grill and then transfer the pan to under the grill to cook the top.
Turn out onto a plate or wooden board and cut into four or six slices. The tortilla can be served hot or cold, with a salad on the side.
