A farm showcasing Ireland’s unique landscape and 6,000 years of farming and dairy production will be featured in one of the show gardens at this year’s Bord Bia Bloom festival.
The National Dairy Council (NDC) garden at Bloom 2024 titled ‘A Feast for the Senses’ has been designed by Hungarian garden designer and regular at Bloom, Tünde Perry.
Bord Bia Bloom, Ireland’s festival of Irish horticulture, food and drinks, returns to the Phoenix Park in Dublin this June bank holiday weekend from May 30 to June 3.
The garden is designed to promote a greater understanding of Ireland’s dairy production system and “outstanding” nutrition credentials from locally produced dairy produce, the NDC said.
“The heart of this garden is the farm, showcasing Ireland’s unique landscape and 6,000 years of farming and dairy production. It will include a grass meadow, multi-species swards and Irish native trees, shrubs and hedgerows.
“Part of this section on the visitor side the mound forms a wedge shape, vertically cut sections will show the different layers of the soil and its importance in Irish food production,” the NDC said.
The show garden will also feature a farmhouse and an open kitchen replicating an old bar with an open cow shed, covered with corrugated sheets, as well as a solar panel on the roof.
Bloom 2024
Activities and events at the NDC garden this year include a discussion about what it was like to be a farmer in 1964, a milk moustache booth where people can take selfies, and a sustainable food hub.
As part of the NDC’s presence at Bloom 2024, they will also be holding several interesting and engaging panel discussions, talks, kitchen demos and games in the garden across the five days of the festival.
“There is still a disconnect from grass to glass, and we need to capture these opportunities to tell the dairy production story at a largely urban consumer event,” the head of communications at the NDC, Cathy Curran said.