THE regular person, on being caught with weeds in the garden, will muster a bashful blush, but not so the folks at Sonairte, the National Ecology Centre in Laytown, Co Meath. They wear their weeds proudly. In the organic garden there, stray vegetation is a valuable commodity, feeding the compost heaps that feed the dry, sandy soil. As long as they get no chance to set seed, weeds are welcome.
Sonairte's home is an 18th-century fruit farm owned by a local man, Luc van Doorslaer, who has a large, conventional farm nearby. Ten years ago, the property, The Ninch, had been unoccupied for half a century, and was falling into serious disrepair. When Anna Doran and a fellow member of the local Greens, Trevor Sargent, heard about the old place they were able to acquire it, plus eight acres "on a long-term lease for a peppercorn rent".
"We wanted to bring together the ideas of organic horticulture, renewable energy and nature conservation," remembers Anna, who is now managing director.
"Originally it was to be a place where people came and lived together off the land," says Anna. "But in the end we decided it would be an educational centre." So Sonairte - which takes it name from an old Irish word meaning "positive strength" - was born. Eventually, when it was steady on its young feet, "Trevor went the political way, while I stayed here to run the centre".
There are displays of alternative energy - including nifty fountains powered by solar panels and a Heath Robinson-type water-boiler in which a black pot is suspended over a reflective dish - and a nature trail, a river walk and an adventure playground. But most interesting, perhaps, is the two-acre walled garden, dotted with the bumpy, off-kilter forms of 40 or 50 old, old apple trees - of 20 different varieties - that date from the days when The Ninch supplied fruit to the Dublin market.
Now, the apples are made into an organic wine "which is being piloted in the centre," says Anna. "We've had lots of politicians that we've fed it to, and nobody has died yet."
Some of the apples are workaday ones such as Bramley seedlings, Beauty of Bath and this-or-that Pippin. Others are very special Irish varieties, such as Blood of the Boyne - a bright-red, early eater - and Sheep's Nose, so called because one side of the apple is higher up than the other, just like a sheep's nose, according to Laura Turner the garden adviser.
The original Sheep's Nose tree was on its last legs some years ago, but Laura rescued a twig and bud-grafted it onto new root-stocks. Just one of the grafts took, but that was enough to produce an infant Sheep's Nose, which in its turn has provided grafting material for other people interested in keeping old Irish apples extant.
There are also about 50 vegetable varieties in the walled garden, in tunnels and in raised beds, and "one of the best herb collections in the country", Laura claims.
The entire garden is run on strict organic lines - and that precludes the use of peat. Many of the herbs, including nine different kinds of basil, are grown in containers with an alternative, non-peat-based potting-compost. The mix is one part riddled (sieved) garden soil and one part either Danu (grains from the Guinness brewery composted with rape straw) or Envirogro (a product made from dairy sewage and surplus), and a bit of seaweed meal. Plants that look peaky are given a nitrogen-high tonic of nettle tea, or a potash supplement pressed from comfrey leaves.
In the ground, crops are often planted in beds that have been fortified and bulked up with a "green manure" - lupins and winter tares (for nitrogen), or mustard and Hungarian grazing rye (for potassium) are grown and ploughed back into the ground before setting seed.
Greenfly-attacks are dealt with by the crowds of ladybirds and hoverflies living in the garden. Laura, who came to organic gardening with a science degree, admits she was sceptical at first: "I found some things interesting, but others I thought were just talk to fill in the lines." Ladybirds controlling aphids fell into that category for her, until she saw them cleaning up a greenfly-infested basil crop in a polytunnel in Leitrim.
If all else fails "you can make sprays of things like rhubarb leaves and garlic. But my own principle is to get the plant really healthy and it will withstand most things," she says.