Helens Bay Organic Gardens is a 12 acre organic market garden with 12,500 square feet of protected cropping in polytunnels and a 1 acre walled garden - all in Helen’s Bay Co. Down.

The farm produces a wide range of seasonal vegetables to supply the Root & Branch Organic Box Scheme which delivers fresh locally grown organic vegetables to households in the greater Belfast, North Down, and Lisburn areas.

The soil is a heavy clay type best suited to producing those crops that grow above the ground. So Helens Bay Organic Gardens works in partnership with other N. Irish organic farms with lighter soils to grow winter root vegetables.

Organic farming is a food production system that combines knowledge of the past with the present to provide food for the future. By this we mean it takes into account the need to preserve the biodiversity of nature around us and uses natural systems of soil fertility building with primary energy input coming from the Sun. For example, growing leafy crops to build soil fertility - using photosynthesis rather than fossil fuel by-products. These fertility building crops can then be ploughed in to the soil to provide nourishment for subsequent food crops. This is currently the most sustainable model of food production on the planet.

In practice at Helen’s Bay Organic Gardens this means that at any one time two fifths of the land is in grass / clover building soil fertility and three fifths is being cropped for food. This is supplemented by locally produced standard green waste compost (PAS 100) and a small amount of organic chicken manure from the same farm that provides the Root & Branch Box Scheme with eggs for sale.