To commemorate the arrival of Imbolc (Brigid’s Day) we performed the ancient tradition of the ‘orchard visiting wassail’. This custom awakens the land and promotes a good harvest for the year ahead. This was followed by a tree planting ceremony with our long time supporter Steve Marsh.
Due to the milder weather some of our bare root apple trees are beginning to bud and we estimate our bare root selling season will stop towards the end of February. There is a big rush to purchase our Irish heritage apple trees as gardeners are beginning plan for the season ahead. We have Irelands largest selection of heritage varieties and are all certified organic. To see our full listing click here
When we are not busy sending out orders we are using these dry days to tidy up the orchards and do our winter pruning. Scion wood cutting from our mother trees will be collected shortly and these will be used for our grafting of new apples trees.
In our seed gardens we will be busy sowing for the coming month. Syrian beans, early peas and the every popular Bun onion will all the started off this month. We will be planting over 1,000 onion and they selecting the very best that will go on to produce seed. In the tunnels our overwintering lettuces, rocket, mustard leaf and cabbages are all looking well and we are busy building up the soil in our new polytunnel with a mix of manure and quality top soil.
Towards the end of the month we will be digging up our leeks and selecting the best, these will then be transferred into the poltunnels for the second year of their seed cycle. Finally our Seed Bank team are kept extremely busy sending out the free seeds to our supporters. there is still time to become a supporter and select your free seeds from our exclusive ‘supporters only’ selection of rare heirloom seeds. Click here to sign up today.
