PICTURES: Standing room only at Laois organic gardening event

There was a fantastic turnout for organic horticulturist Kitty Scully’s Talk and Walk held as part of Laois Climate Action Festival 2026.

The Laois native hosted the Grow with Nature: Low-Impact Gardening for a Changing Climate on Thursday afternoon, October 15.

This popular event with standing room only began with a presentation in Abbeyleix Library. Drawing on her extensive experience as an organic gardener and food-growing advocate, Kitty gave an insightful and engaging talk on how working with nature can create productive, healthy and more resilient gardens. She explored topics including soil and compost, biodiversity, seasonal growing, and reducing waste and inputs highlighting how simple, everyday gardening choices can make a positive contribution to climate action. In particular, she referenced no-dig and organic methods.

All participants then made the short journey to Abbeyleix Community Garden, where members welcomed visitors for a special Tour & Taste. This visit tied in very well with Kitty’s earlier presentation and offered an opportunity to see practical approaches to sustainable growing in a community garden setting.

During the talk & walk around the garden, Kathleen O’Connor from Abbeyleix Community Garden referenced the rainwater-harvesting and solar-powered pumping system that was installed last year through the Department’s Community Climate Action Programme and thanked the Climate Action Team at Laois County Council for helping bring the project to reality, along with a smaller system which could be used as a model in people’s own gardens. The need for such system is invaluable now considering our changing climate where long dry periods were experienced this summer.

Speaking after the event on behalf of the Abbeyleix Garden members, Kathleen O’Connor said: “I was delighted to join Kitty for this lovely event which was a great opportunity for our members to showcase a working community garden while offering those in attendance a chance to sample some of the produce grown in the garden. We hope they enjoyed it!”

Abbeyleix Community Garden is a garden “for the community and by the community”, where people come together to learn about and grow fruit and vegetables. The members host gardening sessions, workshops, garden visits and sustainability projects.

By bringing the event from the library into the community garden, participants had the opportunity to move from discussion to seeing practical community growing in action.