Looking through the huge windows from the bright airy restaurant that is GrowHQ I can see rows of kale just like my delicious breakfast kale, with free range eggs, sourdough bread, carrot chutney, organic quinoa and flax seed fritter. Crunchy fresh kale really enhances this breakfast favorite, simple, healthy and so so tasty! It’s a lovely warm sunny bustling environment this morning, the open kitchen brings mouthwatering smells along with good coffee aromas.
GIY is a vibrant global movement of food growers, the HQ is right here in Waterford Ireland where anybody can come and learn how to grow food and cook it before eating it within 112 paces of where it grew. It’s all about eating delicious seasonal veg, herbs and fruit where it is grown, with meat, fish, game and brews from the very best local suppliers. GrowHQ is also the set for the RTE 1 TV Series GROW COOK EAT .
Michael Kelly founded GIY back in 2008 in order to encourage us all to grow some food, and with 500,000 people taking part in the GIY programme this year it has been a huge success, the gardens grow well! But the plants and their soil need nutrients and the best nutrient is compost, which can again be produced on-site by recycling the food waste, veg prep, garden trimmings and any plate scrapings. The Ridan composter is unbeatable for on-site composting at this scale, it is almost free to run, doesn’t use any power, can compost meat and cooked food all outside in double quick time. So we installed a Ridan Pro 400 food waste composter system comprising a Ridan Pro 400 food waste composter and three Maturation Boxes and here it is along with my breakfast.
So no food goes to waste any more, it all gets turned into compost which is used to enrich the soil and grow more crunchy kale……
GIY and GrowHQ are an outstanding example of a better way to live, growing our food where we live and eat, reacting to the changing seasons and recycling everything possible.