Photography/Organic Farming Weather Watchers with Barra Best - Shorts

My Weather Watch today takes me across the Inishowen peninsula

to meet up with photographer Martina Gardiner.

Martina's photographs are dramatic nightscapes,

featuring constellations, auroras and the Milky Way.

Martina, you have a lot of night-time photographs here.

It's a real passion of yours.

What got you interested in it?

Well, I was always interested in photography,

but it's really in the last four or five years

that I have got into night-time photography.

There's just something about being out there on a great starry night

and just looking up and enjoying the stars and...

Yeah, I just can't help myself. I just love it.

It can't be as easy as that.

I mean, looking at this photograph, that's fantastic,

but surely you can't just go out and think,

"I'm going to get that photograph tonight."

No, to catch the Milky Way in a photograph,

it has to be the right time of the month.

That's a time when there's little or no moonlight.

The other thing is you need an absolutely clear sky,

so trying to get the two on the one night, that's the difficult part.

What are the chances of both of those things happening

at the same time?

Well, we've picked the right day.

There is no moon by the time we can photograph the Milky Way tonight.

And the weather I'm not too sure about.

It's a little iffy, but maybe you know better.

Well, sure, why don't we have a wee look before we head off?

We can see there a few wee breaks in the cloud.

Hopefully they'll continue and we'll get a few photographs like this.

-Yeah, fantastic.

-Perfect.

We're off to Malin Head,

the most northerly tip on the island of Ireland,

with the wild Atlantic Ocean for a neighbour.

You'll have heard of Malin Head

because there's a weather station there.

Malin - south five or six, fair, good.

Hebrides...

And the weather element which distinguishes this

from other stations throughout the country is the wind speed.

Storm force 12 winds are regularly recorded.

Well, it looks like we're in a bit of luck.

-Some clear skies.

-Yeah.

That's always good, when you see some clear sky, that's for sure.

And you've been here before when it's been like this,

you've got some amazing shots, so perhaps we'll get some more tonight.

Yeah, if we get a clear sky even in one direction,

we'll be able to work with it,

so, yeah, I'm quite optimistic so far.

This is the spot you reckon we'll get a good shot from?

Yeah, we'll get a good shot of the tower from here.

It's really shaping up nicely.

I'm really very excited.

So we just line it up here and...have a look.

Try to get all of the tower in and leave space for the stars as well.

So here we go.

It's not looking too bad so far.

No, the main thing is that we've got the whole tower there

and we've got plenty of sky,

so, when that fills with stars, it'll be a pretty nice shot.

And it's not a bad night to wait out.

I'm sure you've been here when it's been much worse.

-It's the windiest place in Ireland.

-Yeah.

Like, tonight, as nights in Malin Head go, I think this is amazing.

Having no wind is really something.

So sit back, wait for that perfect shot.

'It mightn't be windy tonight but it's cold.

'Very cold.

'It's no wonder the Romans called Ireland Hibernia -

'the land of winter.'

We haven't got long to wait.

-That's hopefully going to heat us up for a wee while. Cheers.

-Cheers.

OK, Barra, we're ready for a shot.

-OK, ready.

-So you've got to stay steady for 25 seconds.

Ready, and...

..action!

'Deep breath in. I don't want to end up a blur on the landscape.

'Here goes.'

That looks great.

Erm, come on down, have a look.

OK, breathe out.

OK.

Let's have a look.

Well, that's fantastic.

The colours have really come out well, haven't they?

Yeah, they've turned out pretty well.

Now, we haven't got, like... all the stars I'd like.

A few stars at the top but...

The weather hasn't completely let us down.

It's been a great day, great photograph.

-Has gone a bit chilly, though, hasn't it?

-Yes, it has.

But it's all been worth it.

'Maybe not as starry as Martina would've liked,

'but I think it's picture perfect.'

And, as beautiful day follows cold night,

I make my way from County Donegal

to the more temperate climate of County Down

to meet up with organic farmer John McCormick.

-How are you?

-I'm very well, thank you.

It's perfect weather for the auld garden, isn't it?

It's beautiful. Beautiful day.

'John is passionate about growing organic food,

'locally produced and completely dependent

'on our Northern Irish climate.'

John, a nice big tunnel here of cherry tomatoes.

They've done well with our weather this year.

Yes, I'm very pleased with them. They're called Sakura.

They're a very sweet tomato,

so would be incredibly popular with children, as you can well imagine.

And you've got your normal amount of crops for this year?

Erm, yes, by and large the cropping would appear to be good.

We normally go for seven or eight trusses.

This is a truss. They start at the bottom

and, you know, work right up to the last truss at the top.

This would be the eighth truss on this.

So eight trusses is actually a very good yield.

If that, between now and the middle of October, grows and ripens,

what doesn't ripen will go to chutney,

but they're actually doing very well.

So another few weeks left and these boys here will be ready to pick.

Five, six weeks before I start taking them out.

'Food is a requirement for all life,

'but we need the right weather to grow it.'

County Down is one of the driest counties in Ireland.

It must have some benefits for your farm.

Well, I'm very surprised to hear you say that,

because, while parts of County Down are dry,

we're in Helen's Bay,

and Helen's Bay has a lough on one side

and has the hills on the other side

and regularly, when it's raining here,

I would phone my friends in Donaghadee or Newtonards even,

and the sun would be shining and we'd be sheltering from the rain.

What can you do here that you can't do in the west?

I suppose we're blessed, in the sense that

if you want to be a vegetable grower,

you're far better off over here on the east coast

than you ever would be on the west coast.

We can just about grow everything

except bananas and citrus.

What I have noticed is we seem to be getting extremes.

We're breaking records left, right and centre.

We're getting the hottest days that have ever happened in the year,

we're getting the wettest days that have ever happened in the year,

and this does throw particular problems at farmers.

These nets, John, do a good job

protecting against pests and rabbits, that kind of thing,

but they also protect against our bad weather.

That's right. We're finding increasingly that

in the summertime we're getting very, very heavy rainfall

and the result of that is it splashes the mud

back up all over the lettuce and makes it unsellable,

so the nets act as a barrier.

So, when the rain hits that,

it diffuses, and there you don't get that splash.

You also keep bees here.

How has the weather affected them?

Erm, 2015 has not been one of the great bee years.

We had a cold May, which wouldn't have been nice for the bees,

but they were busy enough and survived it

and managed to build up to a decent brood size for June.

And then we had a nice June. We had a good June.

So the bees were very busy in June

and there was plenty of nectar and pollen around

and they started to bring in a lot of reserves.

But then July turned wet,

and by the end of August, because we had another wet August,

they had already started to eat into those reserves.

There can be up to 50,000, 60,000 bees in a colony

and they all need to be fed every day,

and if they can't get out to feed they will eat their reserves.

So we won't be taking much honey off the bees this year,

simply because we want to leave them with the reserves that are there.