Click Upon the Video clip above to view Dublin Community Gardening featured on RTE's Nationwide Programme on Wednesday 30th June 2010.

Click on the video clip above to hear the Community Gardening Interview from 4FM on Sunday 21st February 2010. The interview was with Robert Moss from the "Dublin City Guide to Community Gardening", and Michael Kelly of GIY Ireland. The radio host was Michael Comyn.

Click on the map image above to go to the Interactive Community Garden Map of Dublin.

Click on the above picture of "The Dublin City Guide to Community Gardening" to download a copy of this document.

The Phibsborough Community Garden:

Seasonal Photo Diary for 2009.

At the start of this project the gardening was cold, and the garden a little bit bare.

5th April 2009.

With a handful of people helping out the gardening is not such a chore. There are plenty of plants contributed, more than enough to keep up with the digging. These lettuces brought by Anne from County Meath did not last long because of the attentions of slugs and snails.

10th April 2009.

That evening several planks liberated from a skip add an air of mock professionalism to the garden.

10th April 2009

It obviously worked for on Wednesday 3rd June the garden is visted by three Green Party politicians and local election candidates.
From left to right David Geary, Deirdre De Burca, and Trevor Sargent planting a Sage bush.

3rd June 2009.

Not all vegetables succummed to pests and eratic weather. This is one of 2 Courgette plants donated by Hedda Dick of Sitric Road Community Composting Garden.

5th July 2009.

The dry sunny weather in June caused the lettuces to bolt, and the cool wet July encouraged slugs and snails to destroy a score of melon seedlings. Regardless of this the garden is blooming under the gloomy skys.
At this stage the garden is probably at its most orderly, prior to the excessive growth of some plants creating a mixed veg jungle.

5th July 2009

This Composter was installed during the last week of June. It caused some complaints, although more people chose to make use of it.
The photograph is taken after the composter was lined with chicken wire to deter rats. It is also kept locked, so that it can only be used under supervision on Saturday afternoons.

18th July 2009.

On a wet saturday the composter was lined with chicken wire and a plum tree donated by Marion was used to screen the composter, which a few people had denounced as an eyesore. The next weekend it was camouflaged with green paint, and the complaints died away.

18th July 2009.

The Plum Tree has to be replanted, as it is not able to survive beneath the Sycamore Tree, next to the composter.

22nd August 2009.

The garden volunteers working to plant a new screen in front of the composter, using plants donated by Fitzgerald Nurseries. They were no longer required after being used at a recycling promotion at Smithfield.

22nd August 2009

This was a very hot day as Ireland emerged from a wet cool summer towards the end of August.

22nd August 2009.

Many of the donated plants are planted into large plastic plant tubs. After the residents party the next day, these are placed in different streets within the surrounding area. All but 2 were stolen within a week.

22nd August 2009.

This hedge was planted on Saturday 29th August 2009. During the week there were complaints from Dublin City Parks Department. After meeting Ciara Dowling, from the Blessington Basin Depot, on Friday 4th September, it was decided to move the hedge from this position, to the area in front of the composter. This was due to concerns of visibility of traffic, and to allow the Parks Department access to mow the grass.

5th September 2009.

The garden is at its peak in September, producing many courgettes.

5th September 2009.

A warm sunny day in early Autumn. Geraniums, Gladioli, Japanese Anemones, Sunflowers, and Indian Daisy’s, can all be seen in bloom. At this point in the season there were numerous moths visiting the garden in the evening. Amongst them were orange under-wings that flittered spectre like from flower to flower in the dusk.

20th September 2009.

A Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly feeds on a French Marigold.
September was a good month for butterflies at the community garden, because of the sunny weather. They tailed off towards the end of September, but a few were seen in October.

20th September 2009

The residents’ Halloween Party was held after a bright sunny day, during an evening of rainstorms.


31st October 2009.

Strange Fruit.

31st October 2009.

Under the tree, sheltering from the rainfall.

31st October 2009

After the deluge, the set sun and moon illuminate the rugged crowns of the rain storm to the east.

31st October 2009.

Proposal for Photographic Exhibition “Natural/Unnatural”.

A series of images looking at natural landscapes, urban landscapes, and the collision between these two.

By Robert Moss


robcontrolaltdelete@yahoo.com



Architectural Icons:

Bilbao →Los Angeles → Ballymun.









Cloud Formations of ... the Sky!:


Having no respect for state boundaries, these clouds are from all over the World.






Dereliction:

Engineering shares the same life stages as Architecture. Design, Construction, Use, and Demolition. There is also occasionally the stage of Dereliction.






Environment:

Photography from both the natural and urban environments. However it is the collision of the two that always produces the strongest and strangest sights. The two adversaries often provoke strange patterns of interaction from one another.





Geologic:

The law of uniformitarianism suggests that the whole story of past present and future is mapped out conveniently beneath the feet of all those that have been brought into existence. In its simplest form it states; “The present is the key to the past.”



Fossilised Siphonodendron coral colony.
Exposed upon Malahide Beach, 360 – 320 million years after they lived within these seas.
Almost indistinguishable from their living relatives, this coral was preserved during the Lower Carboniferous period.










Granite block. Lashed by intrusive veins of Pegmatite.
Glendalough.
Formed during the Silurian Period, circa 400 million years ago.
Photographed during April.







Reflections on a Bank Holiday:

All photographs were taken within Dublin during bank holidays.

Trees:

Wildlife:

The biomass of insects upon the Earth exceeds that of vertebrates by at least 2 to 1.
It is only a trick of scale that keeps them at bay. But is this a fixed boundary, or could it be crossed?

View the Exhibition Video!

Sidi Ifni Gallery 2 (January 2007)

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The Spanish Consulate survived the departure of the Spanish State from this Moroccan enclave for a number of years. Its main function being the issuing of work permits to local Moroccans for employment in Spain and the Canary Islands. Now the performance of this function has been reduced to the annual arrival of a bureaucrat at the "Hotel de Ville" in Laayoune and then Sidi Ifni.
17th January 2007.


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Corroded detail from the front of the Spanish Consulate in Sidi Ifni.
17th January 2007.


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The backstreets of Sidi Ifni, around the corner from Bank Populaire, on Avenue Mohammed V, are completely dug up. Trenches and pipes leave the narrow streets resembling 1st World War defensive emplacements.
17th January 2007.


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A lazy start to a lazy day on Avenue Moulay Youssef, just up the hill from the hotel Suerte Loca in Sidi Ifni.
18th January 2007.


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A cactus forest, approximately 50 km’s northwards along the coast from Sidi Ifni, at Aglou Plage. The journey from Sidi Ifni is beautiful despite the countryside being arid. The coastal plateau and hillsides that we passed through brought us into a World criss-crossed with dry stone walls and prickly pear cactus groves. The hills were burnt brownish tan with a hint of pink.
Occasional shrike, swallow, and kestrels patrol through the sky, and it seems as if only birds could extract a living from such a sparse environment.
18th January 2007.


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The view of the seaward pylon and dock from the cliffs above the port.
17th January 2007.


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Sprats, seen within the port near Sidi Ifni, they will often appear on your menu in Morocco as "Merlin".
17th January 2007.

Click upon the above video clip to view mysterious movements by shoals of sprats within Sidi Ifni harbour.

They favour the areas of shadow beneath pontoons, and under the hulls of small boats. They swim in a lugubrious manner, with proportionally large heads tapering away into slender bodies, which move through the water in a sinuous fashion.

This location is endowed with the peaceful Mediterranean calm that can sometimes be encountered at such latitudes ... south from the rage of industrial civilisation, and north of tropical chaos.