Skip to content

Category Archives: Gardens

Stir- Crazy: Permaculture, Biodynamics and Compost Teas

In a recent interview, permaculture teacher Albert Bates discusses Rudolph Steiner and Biodynamics: Click here for MP3 Albert defends Steiner on the basis that Anthroposophy has created a “tribe” which he sees as a good thing. In reality, Anthroposophy is more like a cult, which obscures its intentions, and is doing untold harm in persuading [...]

Biodynamics: Why Believe What Steiner said?

It is hard to know how best to respond to Judith Hoad’s article in the current edition of the IOFGA magazine Organic Matters in which she admonishes me for being “blinkered” in rejecting biodynamics, the esoteric practice of farming proposed by Rudolph Steiner, whose philosophy of anthroposophy has also lead to the creation of the [...]

Forest Gardening at the ART

I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to attend a 2-day course on Forest gardening with Martin Crawford at the Agroforestry Research Trust. The course was professionally delivered by Martin who has encyclopedic knowledge of his subject and was a fantastic experience, re-inspiring my own attempts and forest gardening and showing me some [...]

A visit to the Eden Project

The Eden Project in Cornwall was established 7 years ago and has become a world famous visitor attraction with its iconic huge bubble-wrap domes providing the closest you’ll get to an experience of the rain-forest this side of the Amazon. I was visiting my sister this week, who lives nearby in Bodmin, and got the [...]

Fruit and Nuts at Derryduff

I am off to attend a Forest Gardening course with Martin Crawford at the Agroforestry Research Trust in Totnes, Devon, next weekend, so I thought it would be appropriate to tell you how some of my own fruit and nut trees are doing, seven years after moving to Derryduff. Of greatest excitement, I have a [...]

Permaculture at Derryduff

The summer break from Kinsale College has givien me some time to spend on the site at Derryduff and I have been developing the gardens and landscaping here over the last couple of months. In particular, a large extension to the small pond has now been created, with multiple potential uses: -swimming hole- glorious to [...]

Road Trip

A recent trip up country took me first to Westport where I called in on the Sustainability Institute, home of the Irish Sustainability Magazine. Right: Sustainability editor Andy Wilson hard at work Andy Wilson’s creation of the Sustainability Magazine has been a remarkable achievement, bringing a much-needed serious journal into the Irish environmental landscape. Starting [...]

Solstice at Derryduff

Please try and limit your consumption and reduce your ecological footprint this holiday season, and otherwise have a great time; but if you are not sure what to do with yourselves these long dark evenings and want to both save money AND do your bit for the environment, have a look at this. (thanks to [...]

Powerdown Roundup

It has been a busy few weeks and I only now have a chance to catch up by reporting on a few events I have attended over the last few weeks. On November 8th and 9th I presented an introduction to permaculture workshop at the Tipperary institute, for final-year students on the Sustainable Rural Development [...]

Seed Saving

A recent trip to Madeleine McKeever, founder of Brown Envelope Seeds, down near turk Head on the south coast, provided the permaculture class with a fascinating introduction to the world of seed-saving.