Category Archives: Forest Gardening

Apios Americana

Just harvested the first apios americana tubers. Also known as the groundnut or potato bean this curious vegetable is a legume and shade- tolerant climber that produces strings of edible tubers up to about 2″ long: I bought my original … Continue reading

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American Odyssey Part 2: Permaculture in the Pacific North West

Living mushrooms for sale in the Ferry Terminal Building, San Francisco: After two weeks of driving it was a relief to bring the car back and get onto the train to Seattle. Amtrak’s Coastal Starlight is considered one of the … Continue reading

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A Taste of the Unexpected

Book Review A Taste of the Unexpected How to grow your own remarkable fruit, vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices and flowers by Marc Diacono Hdbck 192pp Quadrille publishing 2011 Marc Diacono runs Otter Farm in Devon, “the UK’s only climate change … Continue reading

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Perennial Vegetables

Here are a few perennial vegetables that I have been growing the past couple of years. We have some of these, and more plants, for sale at the Derryduff nursery. I will be away from next week until the end … Continue reading

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Mushroom Logs

Yeah! We have fruiting Shiitake mushrooms on birch logs. Actually they are not mine, but the logs were inoculated about 2 years (!) ago by permaculture students during a field trip to John Dolan’s site near Ballingeary, West Cork. Dowels … Continue reading

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Practical Permaculture in Wicklow July 31st- Aug 1st

I will be teaching on a 2-day course in practical permaculture at Carraig Dulra, Co. Wicklow, July 31st and August 1st, with Suzie Cahn. The first day will include charcoal making (a potential business opportunity), biochar (which improves soil while … Continue reading

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Creating a Forest Garden

Book Review: Creating a Forest Garden Working with nature to grow edible Crops by Martin Crawford Green Books Hardback 384 pp Forward by Rob Hopkins Martin Crawford, Director of the Agroforestry Research Trust in Devon, UK, has produced a beautiful … Continue reading

Posted in book review, climate change, Forest Gardening, Permaculture | 10 Comments

Permaculture at Kerry Earth Education

Kerry Earth Education Project (KEEP) hosted a 2-day Introduction to Permaculture and Forest gardening course which I led for 18 participants last weekend. The course was wonderfully hosted by Niamh and Ian and Cathy of KEEP at their centre at … Continue reading

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Forest Gardening in the Irish Times

We were fortunate enough to have Irish Times columnist John Gibbons attend our last permaculture course in Cloughjordan, and he had a great write up in his column last week: Permaculture offers one vision of a future where human ingenuity … Continue reading

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