Fergus takes the growing pains out of gardening

Date Published: {J}

Fergus Whitney gestures out the window to the pristine small lawn of the house he rents in Renmore. “You wouldn’t believe how much you could grow in that small space,” says the organic gardener, who hopes, with his landlord’s permission, to use the area as a showcase for his fledgling business.

Fergus, a former quantity surveyor, changed direction three years ago as a result of the recession, and now offers a service to people who want to grow their own fruit and vegetables but don’t know where to start.

The young Leitrim man who trades as The Organic Gardener, isn’t just for vegetables – he will also cut grass, trim hedges and do general work, with an eco friendly approach.

“If you want a gardener, I can do all the jobs that need doing,” says Fergus whose clients locally include an 80-year-old man, for whom he has installed raised beds where they grow vegetables, which the man uses for juicing. In a small city back garden they are growing spinach, garlic, carrots, red and green cabbage, kale, red and white onions, beetroot, and a range of herbs including sage, coriander, flat-leafed and curly parsley, tarragon, rosemary and thyme.

It’s all about “growing things that are practical, to maximise your returns in a small garden”, Fergus points out.

That’s where his knowledge can help.

“Your garden can be an asset, and can be good for you health-wise.”

Fergus’s background prepared the ground for his current career. He was born on a 75-acre farm in South Leitrim, which has now been converted by his brother into an organic holding, specialising in beef. But organic farming wasn’t his first calling.

After leaving school, he did a Diploma in Construction Economics in Sligo IT, graduating in 2002 and getting work pretty much straight away with Intel in Leixlip, where he stayed for over a year before going to work for a company in Dublin. There Fergus worked with clients who were building houses, ensuring their projected costs were being adhered to. It was in the middle of the boom and he was working with very wealthy clients.

“But I found I wasn’t learning; I was just thrown in at the deep end.”

His final job in the construction industry involved working on Dublin’s Smithfield Regeneration Project and converting the top floor of the Four Seasons Hotel into penthouse apartments.

However, he could see that work was beginning to slow down and he faced a choice.

“If I wanted to stick with it, I’d have to move abroad. At that stage I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to be in Dublin. I was friendly with the people I worked with and socialised with them. But apart from that, it was just going to work and coming home. And you didn’t even know your neighbours. I felt I needed a change.”

Fergus went to FÁS for a chat about possible options and filled in a questionnaire which pointed him in the direction of organic horticulture. Then he was lucky enough to get a place in the Rossinver Organic Centre in North Leitrim, one of the country’s oldest and most successful organic farms.

“Eighty of us went for an interview for 15 places in 2009 and they gave preference to people who were local. It’s one of the best courses in the country and I wasn’t sure I’d get it.”

Training lasted a full year, from January 2009 to January 2010 and was a totally different experience from his time in Sligo IT.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.