Citizen Kale

Ahem. Testing. Testing. *taps microphone*….if there is anybody out there, Fiona is back. Repeat, Fiona is back. Return of the craic.

I know my lovely readers will have been wailing, keening, sweating and puking with severe Fiona withdrawal symptoms of late. I know you have all been sitting at home, wondering where I’ve been; spending your long, empty days and sleepless nights, bereft of my gardening wisdom and wit. I know it has been a long time since I last made you laugh, cry, cringe, roll your eyes, or regale you with tales of my underwear, and for all of those things I am truly sorry. It is the ultimate cruelty to suck you in and then leave you hanging, waiting for just a little hit. I am the world’s top garden blog dealer, El Crapo strikes again.

You see, I am now very famous and important, and as such, I have been too busy being famous and important to spend my time writing for plebs on the internet (this fame is going to my head slightly I think, I still love you all). It hasn’t been easy. I’ve had the traumatic experience of being dragged kicking and screaming to a number of fabulous gardening, food and music festivals in order to talk about food growing and party the night away in forests. It’s been a real struggle as you can imagine.

I’ve given myself repetitive strain injury in my right hand from signing millions of autographs after being featured in an ad campaign for Electric Ireland. My face is sore from smiling for thousands of photographs and my feet are in pain from the horror of dancing the night away in my polka dot wellies at a music festival.

In addition to these very difficult changes in my life, I’ve also been ardently busy on the plot. Take today for example, I had to trek the whole two minutes to get to my allotment, make a latté with the community room’s coffee machine, eat a handful of fresh raspberries, put on my shorts, play some pink floyd, whip out my laptop and sit in the sunshine beside my horrible wildflower patch while I wrote a blog post. I mean, I’m not even sure how I manage to pull myself out of bed in the mornings anymore.

I’ve even become quite accustomed to having my very own make-up artist, director and crew of photographers and cameramen at the allotment. Well, it happened once. But that was enough to turn me into Dublin’s Digging Diva, I’m all but short of demanding handsome men fan me with palm leaves while I tend to my garden and half expect adoring fans to throw rose petals at me when I walk down the street.

It was a pretty amazing – if not unnerving – experience to have 21 people crammed onto my allotment while I stood in my polytunnel talking about planting spuds. The day of the recording was way back in February, in the depths of the worst spring I’ve ever experienced in my garden and the allotment was an absolute state! Cue much embarrassment on my part, and attempting to explain that gardens in winter are the least glamorous places on the planet.

I mean, I know I am a fan of looking gorgeous in the garden but never before have I worn that much lipstick outdoors. Or indoors for that matter. There was a photoshoot which involved two hours of stroking my rhubarb and looking lovingly at my kale while staring off “into the distance”. The “distance” in question was actually a poor photographer’s face. Picture this: me, bent over my kale, seductively running my fingers through kale leaves, eerie smile plastered on my face while being told to stare into the eyes of a complete stranger. “Look into his eyes Fiona, get your hands in deeper”.

Awkward.

There were hours spent in an attempt to look good while gardening; trowel twerking, hip-wiggle digging, whimsical wheelbarrowing, fastidious fake scrolling on my laptop. I put my hat on. I took it off. I put my hat back on again. I changed my wellies. I changed my coat. I took my hat off again. The film crew descended on my house for an hour where I recorded a series of voiceovers which I absolutely nailed. I was proud as punch of this fact until I realised I was chuffed with myself for simply managing to read things from a page out loud into a microphone. I stabbed myself twice in the eye with the spoon in my cup of tea. More scrolling. Rocked back around to the allotment for lunch, where the lovely crew had gotten in a caterer and we stuffed our faces full of fancy sandwiches, soup and cakes. It really is so challenging being a celebrity. Back to the plot for more filming. Roped my fellow allotment pal, Domo to be on camera with me, we had a twenty minute long fake conversation about fake potatoes. I put my hat back on. I tried not to flash everyone while changing outfits in my shed; the ultimate celebrity gardener green room. All in all, the day was long, exhausting, adventurous and awkward and I loved every second of it. I am now awaiting a phone call from the academy about my well deserved oscar nomination.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBPR760-1Yo&w=560&h=315]

In fact, I’m considering crowdfunding a new movie venture. Fiona Kelly stars in Citizen Kale. The greatest movie ever made. About Kale. Oscar is in the bag!

I have also spent quite a lot of time on stage of late. I was kindly invited back to the GIY Food Matters tent at Bloom in the Park this year where the brave gang at GIY let me loose with a microphone on some poor, unsuspecting festival goers for five days straight. It was one of the best weeks of my life. Mostly, it entailed me brandishing a microphone like a weapon of mass destruction, making terrible gardening jokes and talking filth, being attacked by a wasp in front of an audience and attempting to stay calm, being asked an incredibly challenging question by my Mam in front of an audience and having to admit she knows more than I do and meeting some incredible people and learning more about food growing than I have in five years. There was also a Thursday afternoon thunderstorm during which we all played air guitar on stage to AC/DC. Life goals now complete. Over the five days, I  got to tour the show gardens, make new friends, eat incredible food and soak up the sunshine. It’s hard being me.

I also had the amazing opportunity to be a part of the wonderful Bloom Fringe Festival but I have a separate blog post coming up about that, and last weekend, I spent a life changing few days at Body & Soul Festival with GIY which I also have a lot to write about so watch out for those over the next few days.

I will say this though, there was a kale ice pop. It was disgusting.

In the garden itself, it has been a rollercoster in recent weeks. Everything is growing really well for the most part, especially the weeds! I’ve spent three days this week simply pulling up weeds.

Three entire days.

There are still lots of weeds.

As many of you know, a few weeks ago, I experienced something I’ve always dreaded. My allotment was vandalised. I arrived at the plot to find major damage to my shed, polytunnel and raised beds. Most of the plants I had spent all springtime establishing were killed and I lost pretty much everything in the polytunnel. It was disheartening to say the least. It set me back quite a few weeks, but, in an amazing turn of events, my fellow plot holders all banded together, replaced the plastic on my tunnel and gifted me with dozens of plants including tomatoes, courgettes, funkiness (that was supposed to be pumpkins but it’s such a good typo I have to leave it as is) and even some cape gooseberries. Today, my poytunnel is looking better than it has ever looked before. The kindness and generosity of gardeners, has once again, humbled me to my core.

My Dad has been an absolute lifesaver throughout the past few weeks, planting, watering and caring for the polytunnel while I had a little meltdown. So, to Daddy Grows Food, the Monster in the Corner himself, I love you and thank you for always having my back.

My raised beds are now full of sweetcorn, peas, beans, kale, cabbages, leeks, pumpkins, spinach, chard, salads and one lone carrot. Yes, my carrots failed miserably and now I have one carrot that I am treating like royalty. I sing to it, talk to it, water it, coax it to grow. I don’t stroke it though, I learned a valuable lesson from the great kale fondling of 2017.

My garden is thriving like never before and it continues to amaze me every single day.

 

Except for the weeds. They can f*ck right off.

You can check out recordings of the panel discussions on the GIY soundcloud page, including this recording of a panel discussion I participated in with some amazing people about the healing garden. Mostly I made terrible jokes about beetroot because that is just what I do.

https://soundcloud.com/giyireland/the-healing-garden-grow-for-therapy

 

Currently accepting applications for the role of Fiona’s allotment make-up artist. I can only pay you a salary of cabbages but you’ll get to touch my lips a lot so you’ll be the real winner.