Welcome to Roisin's Garden
My name is Roisin Cotter and I want to welcome you to my garden and to the world of growing your own food. I have been growing food at home in my garden in County Louth since 2005 and have had much success and some failures too! Even with the things that can inevitably go wrong from year to year, I have found growing food so fulfilling that it’s something I believe I will always want to keep doing. My Mission is to help you to get growing your own food and to experience that sense of achievement and closeness to nature that I believe will enhance your life and that of your family or community.
My Mission
I am passionate about growing food and I want to encourage you to start growing some of your food too . In my opinion, it is the No.1 change you can make to your life that will bring huge benefits to both your physical and mental health.
My Vision
How much healthier our nation would be if only we all grew a little bit of our own food. By teaching our children how to start growing, we are giving them a skill for life. My vision is to see growing food become part of the national curriculum. School gardens are such a wonderful resource. Research shows that learning to grow food teaches children to be resilient, resourceful and ready to learn more effectively. Every school have should have one!
My Values
I value nature and and want to work with her by practising organic gardening methods. Caring for the soil and protecting and enhancing the biodiversity where we live and work are the most important actions we can take as growers.
A bit more about me
I have worked in school gardens since 2010, when I started a garden in my son’s National School, which became an 8 year long gardening project!
I studied Organic Horticulture at the Organic College in Drumcollogher, County Limerick and subsequently started running food growing workshops in local venues and developed a Grow Your Own programme for TY in two Secondary Schools in Dundalk. I also teach an 8 week night class in O’Fiaich College in Dundalk in the Spring and Autumn terms and work as a tutor with the LMETB for School and Community Courses.
In 2020 I became a Heritage in Schools Expert with the Heritage Council and I look forward to working with more students and teachers in our National Schools in the future.