I love gardens and I love animals so when the two are teamed together it makes for a very special day for me. I went along to see Lyn (No Digger Dee) and the ‘Wizard’ and had a lovely morning.
The house is spectacular, it’s a vernacular building which dates back to the 1700s, the upper story was added in the 1940s to cope with the large family living there. Lyn and Steve moved to Ireland 12 years ago, they’d never been here before but wanted to move from the UK, googled the cheapest place to live in Ireland, found Leitrim, came for a weekend and bought the house! Steve and Lyn gutted the house and have completely renovated it. It was open to the public as part of the wonderful Green Door Project and you can read more about it here.
Not only is the house something else but so is the garden. I didn’t know why Lyn goes as ‘no digger dee’ and now I do. She doesn’t dig! All her flower beds and vegetable patches are dug at all! It was fascinating hearing about this concept as I’ve never heard about it before. You can read more on The Cottage Garden Facebook page.
Lyn also explained how everything is reused: the chicken bedding is used as compost when it’s broken down, nettles and comfrey are used as feed for the plants, even the alpaca hair is used in the garden. Lyn doesn’t use any pesticides or chemicals and she really is fascinating to listen to. She’s done courses in the past and hopes to again in the future, so keep a look on her page for updates. She also has a lovely wildflower meadow.
Oh I didn’t tell you about the animals did I? Well there are two lovely alpacas, around 50 chickens and ducks and geese. My idea of heaven.
I also enjoyed looking around the poly-tunnels, and loved the unusual plants. The couple are self sufficient when it comes to fruit and vegetables.
It really was an inspiring morning. Thanks so much to Lyn for sharing her knowledge, she explains things so well and I now have some ideas for my small garden.
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