No Dig Policy at Dunmore Country School, Durrow, county Laois: Grow Your Own Vegetables

Discover the benefits of our No Dig Policy at Dunmore Country School, where you can cultivate your own vegetables in a:

  • Convenient and Cost-Effective Way: Enjoy fresh produce without the hassle of traditional gardening.
  • Environmentally Friendly Manner: Promote soil health and biodiversity with sustainable practices.
  • Time-Efficient Approach: Spend less time digging and more time enjoying your harvest.
  • Back-Friendly Method: Garden without the strain, making it accessible for everyone.

Join us at Dunmore Country School to embrace this innovative gardening technique and reap the rewards of homegrown vegetables!

Sustainable No Dig kitchen gardening and Natural beekeeping classes using well proven techniques that have stood the test of time.

The best sustainable gardening and natural beekeeping courses


Gardening Courses Focused on Sustainability

We offer gardening courses where you will learn how to grow your own food using our simple, No-dig gardening techniques. This method not only improves soil health but also saves time and reduces strain, making it a back-friendly gardening solution. Our approach encourages minimal weeding through the use of mulching techniques.

At Dunmore Country School, we also practice energy transfer in gardening. This means that all organic matter produced in the garden—such as grass clippings, leaves, hedge trimmings, and even weeds—are reused to fertilize vegetable beds. This method helps create areas with varying levels of fertility, from productive vegetable beds to biodiverse meadows, all while reducing the need for chemicals. As a result, our garden remains balanced and supports biodiversity without the use of insecticides or sprays.

Cooking and Preserving the Harvest

Our kitchen garden is focused on homegrown vegetable production for personal consumption, not for market. We prioritize maximizing yield by working in harmony with nature, using techniques like interplanting and intercropping to grow multiple seasonal vegetable crops per year.

At Dunmore Country School, we also understand the importance of cooking and preserving what you grow. During our courses, Isabelle will prepare delicious, fresh, and seasonal lunches using homegrown produce, and we’ll share tips on how to make the most of your harvest with preserving techniques.

A Practical, Time-Efficient Gardening System

Concerned about time and effort? Our sustainable gardening system is designed to be time-efficient and easy to maintain. We show you how to start small, get comfortable with the techniques, and gradually expand your plot while keeping weed control manageable. You’ll learn how to make weeding easy with our no-dig and mulching approaches, ensuring a cost-effective, environmentally friendly method of growing food.

Join Us and Start Growing Today

Whether you’re new to gardening or looking to improve your sustainable food production skills, our courses at Dunmore Country School will help you grow tasty vegetables and cultivate a deeper connection with nature. Learn how to create a biodiverse, self-sufficient garden that yields fresh, healthy food all year round.

French Courses

We are both native French speakers who came to Ireland 22 years ago. Isabelle has been teaching students ranging in age from 5 to 70 years old for the past 20 years, both in primary and secondary schools and at language schools such as Alliance Française de Kilkenny. She also offers one-to-one classes and prepares students for the Junior and Leaving Certificate exams, making her very familiar with the curriculum. In addition to her teaching, she has two daughters attending school in Ireland. She also has a passion for gardening and cooking!
Pruning trees

Visit Our Online Store

Visit Dunmore Country School's online store, where you will find a range of courses and gardening tools. With courses such as Start Your Garden From Scratch, Month To Month Stroll in the Garden, Warré Hive Beekeeping, and French Classes, to mention but a few, there really is something for everyone!

In the spring, we are running online Live Zoom Gardening Courses, so you can still learn how to create and manage a beautiful kitchen garden, with our sustainable no-dig system!

Have a look around!

Find Us




Garden Consultancy:

Tanguy can bring his wealth of expertise in your garden and help you make a plan of action. Tanguy de Toulgoët has a strong profile as an environmentalist, educator and gardener. He is a tireless campaigner and advocate of sustainable gardening and has given lectures and talks all over Ireland.

Dunmore Country School have been featured in most of the Irish Newspapers (Irish Times, Irish Independent, The Business Post, Sunday Times, Farmers Journal) and internationally in publications such as the Washington Post.

 TV programmes such as "The secret garden" RTE, Nationwide RTE, Queerbet (Germany), Chouette prod (France TV) and books like "From the ground up" Fionnuala Fallon, Irish Gardens (Jane Powers).