So summer 2019 has come around very quickly and here we are at the midsummer solstice. Although my schedule is behind, I am making progress. We grazed the new forest garden field right down with the horses, and then seeded the areas that are due to remain as tracks or open areas when we replant […]
It is now approximately 7 weeks since the horses were completely withdrawn from the pasture, other than 1 day stint in the side field by the woods. The results are quite noticable – although the grass is growing much more slowly at this time of year, we’ve had a warm autumn and it is still growing. Certainly the biggest and most damaged of the fields is looking considerably better, and the bare soil is becoming covered. This time last year it was damaged to the extent that the horses had churned the ground up and there was no growth on around a quarter of the field. This also resulted in a lot of puddles and standing water. This time we’re not seeing that, despite plenty of rainfall.
We’re really pleased to have become the first Permaculture LAND centre in Northern Ireland. There are currently LAND networks in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Scotland, England and Wales. The LAND networks have been established to provide practical examples of land based permaculture design in a wide variety of places, climates and cultures. Centres are generally those […]
The Learning And Network Demonstration network is comprised of permaculture demonstration sites, set up to show permaculture in a safe, accessible and inspiring way. Currently England, Scotland and Wales have LAND sites, but as Northern Ireland has traditionally been part of Permaculture Ireland, we don’t have any (yet). What we decided was that there seems no reason that we couldn’t have a LAND site under the auspices of Permaculture UK (as we’re part of the UK), and then use it as a starting point to roll out similar LAND sites (IreLAND, anyone?) into the rest of the island of Ireland.
Winter progress
LAND centre pioneers
A LAND Centre for Northern Ireland
Design 1 – Learning pathway