The learning, the tools, the seeds - and the advice!

If you've ever dreamt of collecting fresh eggs from your own chickens, picking your own herbs, salad vegetables - or even a few tempting new potatoes - from your own back garden, but aren't sure how to go about it, you could find much of the headache taken out of the process for you, if you emerge as winner of the fantastic Self Sufficient Garden competition being run jointly by Belvedere House, Gardens and Park and the Westmeath Examiner, with the help of a host of sponsors.The overall winner will be announced on February 14 - but there is still time to get entries in for this wonderful prize, which will give one lucky reader everything they need to transform their back garden into a smallholding.Bartle D'Arcy, General Manager of Belvedere House Gardens and Park and local Grow It Yourself (GIY) "champion" believes that self sufficiency has become the dream of a large number of people. He told the Westmeath Examiner: "Modern society has become so dependent on processed food from supermarkets."But people are beginning to ask more and more questions about where their food comes from and whether it is in fact good for them or the environment. Issues such as air miles, how their food is reared or grown and where it is processed is all being taken into account."Yet while these questioned are being asked, the skills to move away from supermarket dependence have all but disappeared. This competition will offer the winner the tools, the animals and the training needed to move towards self-sufficiency."The competition winner will receive for their garden all the seeds, plants, tools they will need to create a smallholding - and even chickens or saddleback pigs (if they have room!).Even better, they don't have to do all the work themselves, as Belvedere's garden designer, John Smyth, will work with them to design, and install everything, to create an idyll of self-sufficiency just outside their back door - all laid out and finished in an attractive and convenient fashion.They don't need to know if they don't know anything about self-sufficiency, or even just growing their own - as the prize also includes a five day course for two people at the "John Seymour School of Self Sufficiency" at the Killowen Self-Sufficiency Smallholding in Wexford.