THE STORY OF
GLASRAÍ
How it started
Joe grew up on a dairy and beef farm, was a carpenter for many years and got into growing vegetables when the boom started to slow down, in his home made polytunnel. He did a course in Organic Horticulture in Mayo Abbey where he met Aoife. He went on to become a gardener in the organic garden and then a tutor on a Horticulture course. Aoife studied Commerce and got interested in organic growing while gallivanting around the world WWOOFING (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). When Joe’s course finished up they started building some real polytunnels together from old mushroom houses. And suddenly the wheels were in motion. In the meantime they had two crazy noisy children and put up a lot of infrastructure that made the dream realizable.
Why an Organic Farm?
For a hundred million squillion reasons. We met each other doing a course in organic horticulture so it was a bit inevitable that an organic farm would become our legacy. First off we love food that is good for us. We love growing food. We want everyone to eat real food. That is non-processed, non-chemical, non-genetically modified. So we started our small business. To grow food for the people we love, that doesn’t cost the earth.
Today
Now, every day we feel lucky to be living a meaningful life, and to bring our children up on the land, eating good food and surrounded by such wonderful idealistic people. The farm fulfils our goals of looking after the planet while growing really healthy food. We work tremendously hard but we value the little things in our everyday: each grasshopper the children find, our tadpoles growing up, identifying the birds eating the dock seeds over Winter. We always make time for the business of wonder. And we really are surrounded by wonder when working with nature.