Editor’s Note: These pieces are intended to offer a deeper look into each episode of surfer Fergal Smith‘s Line9 series, Growing, a new clip published every two weeks. The series is a year in the life of Smith and his brother. With a new clip published every two weeks, the series follows them as they take a step back from the rat race while spending days tending to a sustainable garden and surfing the readily available Irish slab.
Author’s Note: My main reason for doing this series is for showing the what else I’m passionate about — aside from surfing — and to try to promote all the good, positive things that people are doing.
We are not scraping the barrel or anything , but this edit speaks a lot to the perfect day in the way of getting in a surf of using our garden. This past summer, I was asked to show this chef Colin Fassnidge around for local Channel 7, so I thought as long as we were going to be filmed all day, we might as well film it, too.
It is a long way from last summer now, and the field is bare with not a vegetable in sight; therefore, it is nice to look back on all the food we grew throughout those summer months. That is one thing that is great about filming this series — we get to document the garden over the course of the different seasons. And it is all just about to kick off again for another year. We are currently waiting for the land to dry up, then it is back to preparing the land and then start sowing again. This year is particularly exciting as we have a greater understanding of what we are actually doing. Last year was the first time growing in the field; it was a totally new kind of learning experience. One of the cooler things to come from publicity from the series as well as simple word of mouth is that a lot of people have expressed interest in getting involved, which is great and I am really looking forward to organizing a structure to bring people in and get everyone growing.
Back to the edit — having a top chef in the garden picking food to cook is awesome. There are plenty of chef programs out there and they talk about the importance of real food but you rarely see the veg being picked for the meal. So it is good to get a top chef pushing the importance of this real food. Also, it is good to bring in top chefs like Colin to see other methods by which food can be produced. By Colin showing what we can do with a small community, it might inspire more communities to do something similar.
