A baker who caught a serious gardening bug during the pandemic is now selling her own homemade compost – made of native worm castings which has seen her own garden thrive like never before.

Mary Carr Faherty is normally slaving away inside a kitchen, producing bread and sweet treats for the hordes of visitors to Wildlands Adventure Centre in Moycullen.

But when locked out of a professional kitchen during the Covid lockdowns, she found herself spending more and time indulging her passion for the outdoors and improving her green fingers.

“I found myself baking in the sun in many of those queues for the garden centres. I definitely swallowed a bug or two in those years,” she laughs.

Using loads of shop-bought compost led to an explosion of weeds in her garden, some of which she had never seen before.

“We don’t know what’s in that compost. It doesn’t hold onto moisture. You’re having to constantly water everything. I just decided to research making my own and I haven’ t looked back.”

She sells the Múirín Beo ‘vermicast’ in one kilo bags for €12.50 which is packaged in old coffee bean bags. Múirín Beo translates as ‘live compost’.

Caption: Mary Carr Faherty.

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