One woman’s pet project

Gardening profile

“Are you nervous about dogs?”

Martina Seligova poses the question through my car window before I even get out. The dogs are integral to her Mountnugent garden; as are her cats. She has a few of each, but it’s the dogs that are especially forthcoming. Sophie and Oskar are dotes but Bruce a German Shepherd requires a bit of plamásing.

To many people gardens and pets are uncomfortable flowerbed fellows, but not Martina. The garden belongs as much to them as it does to her and they have the run of the place. Behind an aubergine growing in the polytunnel I find her cat Joy reclining.

“You always have a broken pot, but I wouldn’t be without them - it would be a very lonely place without them.”

And it’s quite the beautiful site they share: one and a half acres with a slice of Lough Sheelin visible from the rear and a ringfort that gives the townland its name: Fortland.

The rest of the garden is bordered by mature trees, many of which surely date back over a century or more. It’s little wonder Martina and her partner Kevin Brennan fell in love with it when they moved from Dublin five years ago, with their teenage children Kevin and Margita.

They are currently extending the house, and have left parts of the garden untouched until it’s completed.

“As you can see it’s a work in progress,” volunteers Martina who works in the garden section of Woodies.

Born in Czechoslovakia Martina says she “partially” remembers communism as not “a bad thing for ordinary people”.

“Everybody was looked after, we had the basics,” she recalls.

Natural

Kitchen gardens were the cultural norm and Martina lived with her maternal grandparents.

“I grew up in a household where everything came from the garden,” she says explaining they had a pantry in the house and a second underground pantry for root vegetables and fruit. “Also we had a cow so we had all the dairy products as well and hens.

“It was just natural, that’s what you did.

“It should be taught in schools, because children don’t know where strawberries come from, they assume you can get them any time of the year - because you can get them in shops.”

Given food production is the primary goal of her garden, it comes as no surprise Martina is an organic gardener. She’s believes that by spraying herbicides or pesticides “we are destroying the planet”.

“If any product is designed to kill, it doesn’t belong in a garden. There are birds, they will deal with that insect. So I am trying to live with nature, and you saw - everything grows.”

Martina’s interest in being in tune with nature goes beyond her organic instincts. She also sows seeds mindful of whether the moon is waxing or waning.

“I would plant my vegetables and my flowers, as much as I can according to the phases of the moon. My mam always tells me the days, what to do where.

“Basically when the moon is growing, whatever is above ground you plant.

“When the moon is waning, you plant root vegetables, whatever is underground.”

The concept is gaining traction among some notable gardeners, such as the ‘no dig’ advocate Chris Dowding. She marvels at how our ancestors understood the significance of the moon and solstices.

“They knew when the equinox was because they knew when the season was changing, and when to plant and what to harvest. It all made sense but we just forgot about it because we get strawberries at Christmas in Lidl,” she says with a laugh.

Martina savours the flowers as they emerge and is mindful of the passing seasons. Asked for a favourite she explains:

“The flowers I have been picking are the flowers I would have had at home, and that my grandparents would have had - the old cottage style - flocks would be one of them. I love daisies, they were my grandmother’s favourite plants.”

Martina named her daughter Margita after her grandmother, which also means daisy.

“I love daisies, the ox-eye daisies - I picked them as a child,” she recalls, noting they reseed freely here.

Beds lining the outside of her impressive polytunnel are truly a beautiful feature. Reclaimed scaffolding planks create neat beds, and the generously wood chipped paths give structure and allow the plants to shine.

Time

A working garden, it nevertheless has an air of tranquility. The Celt asks Martina where she likes to sit down in the garden with a cup of tea?

“I wouldn’t have time. I can’t sit down, there’s always something.

“The worst thing would be to sit down because I would go: okay that’s something for me to do, and there would be another project!”

She considers how far the has come and looks forward to new additions.

“When we have time we do a bit - it’s just life isn’t it? It’s not finished, there are bits overgrown and projects started and not finished, but we’re happy we wouldn’t change it.

“And they’re happy,” she says of her dogs, ever by her side. “They’re doing this journey with us.”