Over the past week or two I found myself in public parks picking up nice green freshly fallen acorns , from healthy looking Oak trees.

Although its important to select seeds from healthy looking trees, for genetic diversity its also good to select seeds from a variety of trees !

Furthermore some “weak or sickly looking trees” may be in that state due to environmental conditions ( beside a busy polluted road, bad soil, exposed to very high winds, lacking in sufficient light ) so genetically they may be very strong. One last point is that seeds are always stronger where there is a number of Oak trees in the area, this means they can cross pollinate, which leads to healthier seeds !

One great thing about Oak growing is that you can plant the seed immediately, and you have a good chance of success.

Another great thing about Oak is that it supports more wildlife than any other single plant in the UK and Ireland. Up to 284 types of insects call an Oak their home , and these in turn will attract insect eating wildlife such as birds, and so on.

Heres a nice link on the subject http://www.oldknobbley.com/woodland_ecology/trees/trees_oak_english.php

Most other native Irish tree growing involves some form of seed preparation, but not so with the Oak.

Pot it or plant it right away and see what happens.

My first attempts at growing Irish Oak this year ended in miserable failure, but as always there was a lesson.

I had been given a large bag of acorns collected in the Phoenix park Dublin. I planted five each in two buckets filled with soil and compost, and complimented myself on being so green.

I left the buckets at the back of our house, in a small yard space, which backs on to a public park.

A few days later I noticed that the soil had been dug up on one side of a bucket, I realised it must have been the work of an animal. When I checked all 10 acorns were gone.

I had seen a grey squirrel occasionally skipping accross our back wall, and put 2 and 2 together.

Now that I have a fresh batch of 2011 acorns , I will need a strategy to outwit the squirrel.

Any suggestions ?

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=Corofin,+Co.+Clare.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x485b0c8e8b9c6ef5:0xa00c7a99731f5c0,Corofin,+Co.+Clare&gl=ie&ei=gpL-TZLsF4K1hAf00KGbCw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ8gEwAA

We are currently raising 500 native Irish saplings , including Oak , Ash , Birch , Alder and Willow .

We will spend an hour or two , cutting back , ferns , bracken  and weeds trying to overgrow our saplings.

We will probably spend a lot of time drinking tea , and potentially some biscuit or cake eating.

There will be a short introductory workshop on the following topic..

“How to raise saplings and start your own tree nursery “

Please take note that the workshop will aimed at beginners, and will be also taught by a beginner

There will probably be some general discussion about Green projects, and all are welcome , especially new members !

for more info email  greenfriends.irl@gmail.com

The pond also boosts caddis fly larvae, who build and live in a tube made of tiny stones or plant
matter, diving beetles, water skimmers and other larvae which may be dragon fly or damsel fly
larvae as well as lots of other tiny unidentified creatures.

Our latest addition are some beautiful
pond snails which came for free with the pond plants we bought a couple of weeks ago, and they
have been observed mating – just as well as their numbers in the pond are declining fast. Every week
there are some empty snail shells on the grass by the pond and I suspect the crows and magpies are
the culprits.

Some juvenile frogs from last year have been spotted on various occasions and it is great to see that
they have survived the hard winter and are doing well.

The course is aimed at beginners, consists of 8 classes, and is a mixture of practice and theory.

Participants get to design their own garden,  sow seeds, dig beds , make mini tunnels and lots more.

For more info email getgrowingire.rm@gmail.com.

Courses will mostly run during April and May to catch the spring !

One of our projects at the Dublin vegetable garden , to create a habitat for frogs and other pond creatures has been very successful.

We estimated we had about one hundred happy tadpoles in our pond which we were feeding on cat food (salmon) once they had developed tiny legs and needed some meat to complement their previously vegetarian diet.

The tadpoles were growing fast and it was fascinating to watch them going through the metamorphosis and surely exhilarating to spot the first tiny froglet! Its difficult to make out the tadpoles in the picture, but there are four of them feeding off a chunk of catfood. Their favoutite is Salmon !

How many tadpoles made it to become frogs we don’t know as the froglets only stay in the pond for a few days and then hop off to spend most of their time on land until they return to mate, but we are estimating  60 or more.

Frogs are a declining species and our project has helped to spread the frog population to the Crumlin area. From the organic gardeners’ point of view frogs are also a very welcome sight as they feed on slugs!

Our little pond has also become a habitat for water skimmer, water beetles and lots of other tiny pond organisms.

One side of the pond is surrounded by a beautiful wildflower meadow that attracts bees, bumble bees, butterflies and ladybirds all which are also declining.

A few of our fellow allotment-holders at the Pearse College allotments have been inspired by the sight of our wildflowers and pond, and want to start their own, pond and wildflower meadow !

If you couple that with the fantastic weather we have been having during May and June, and also not forgetting the friendly crowd of other allotment holders at Clogher road, it makes more sense. Surprisingly for us despite our lack of experience, and general haphazard approach, the vegetables we have planted have all grown remarkably well.

We have been fortunate to have had a helping hand from an experienced gardener or two ( thanks David and Gerry) for a couple of small plants to get us growing.

We found a handy skip just beside the allotment with old wooden desktops from Pearse College, we recycled these into 2 small compost bins ( you can see them in the backround of the first photo ).

We spent and evening “skip surfing” and created some ingenious “Saloon style” entrance gates, we are amazed at the good wood that gets thrown away!You can get an idea from the picture, that one persons junk is anothers treasure.

The fencing of the site was possibly the biggest single job, and fortunatley we have a couple of volunteers to help out that day. We bought a number of fence posts ,a roll of wire , and a sledge hammer. The hardest part was making a deep enough hole for the fence posts. The land contains a lot of stones and broken glass, which had to be dug out so that the fence post could be sunk deep enough.

Small groups attended from most european countries, and each had a chance to present a few notable projects from their own countries.

Italy had projects on using EM in agriculture, and collecting food  that is treated as waste by modern agriculture.

France presented on its Bee sanctuary project and Seed garden.

Finland are working on preserving their countries natural meadows, by mowing them.

Ireland’s projects included Beekeeping classes, Wormeries, Vegetable gardens, and mulching.

The finishing touches were put to the Been Sanctuary, in the form of a cob-plaster finish, sourced from local materials.

All presentations are available upon request, in pdf format.

One of the GreenFriends France projects that best illustrates how ecology and spirituality can be combined in a harmonious way is the Bee Sanctuary.

This was originally part of a project called Babel.

The Been Sanctuary is a meditation hut, which has built in bee-hives in its walls.

The bees launch pads are on the outside of the building

so they dont bother your meditation.

The back of each hive has a glass wall so that you can observe the bees at work.

We all gathered for a small inaguration ceremony as you can see in the photo below.

After the first weekend of digging 10 lazy beds are complete.

The project will run fortnightly, the next day being Mar 28th 11am .

The aim is to make growing skills and organic food available to the unemployed, but it is open to all.

Materials were collected  for the compost making, a big pile of bracken ideal for adding carbon and minerals to the pile. At the end of the day the first outdoor crop (Parsnips) were planted , and  the day finished  with lots of people hanging on and socialising.

For more detail see the Wesk Cork Community Garden blog

http://corkfoodweb.ning.com/group/gardeningcourse?xg_source=activity

Its been a rather long wait with a few false starts, but we now have a small allotment in Crumlin.

Pearse College Clogher road are providing approximatley 100 allotments of 8x10M at a yearly rent of €200.

There was a very good turnout to signup for the allotments, and it currently looks like demand will exceed supply.

There are plans in the pipeline to provide more allotments at this site, contact Pearse College for more details.

The college have provided 2 water taps, and some storage containers, which may double as a tea-room eventually.

We made a start on Sat morning 6th Mar , with the plan of making Lazy beds. There was lots of friendly banter between the new allotment holders, many of whom ( like us )  were first time vegetable growers.  There was a refreshing mix of sunshine and hard work.

A few more hours digging on Sun 7th, and we now have four “Lazy beds”. Each measures approx 1M x 3M. This covers 1/2 of the site. The work went surprisingly smoothly overall, and we finished off the day by planting a few flowers.

If you are interested in finding out more  please contact greenfriends.irl@gmail.com

It is intended mainly for unemployed people but anybody with an interest in growing organic vegetables is welcome. To know more about this please follow this link

http://corkfoodweb.ning.com/group/gardeningcourse

or if you would like to get involved please contact David at greenfriend.irl@gmail.com or call 0863350202.