Life on the Farm

Our orchard team are working together with Dr Gordon Reid to take leaf samples from old orchards around Ireland. This is part funded by the Genetic Resource Grant Aid Scheme and we are targeting significant orchards in Bantry House, Birr Castle, Dunsany Castle, Franciscan Monastery on Achill Island, an abandoned famine village in The Burren and several [...]

March is all about seeds and deciding what to grow for the season ahead. In terms of sowing this month beet, French and runner beans and peas have been sown in our propagation tunnel. Tomatoes and peppers have been pricked out and broad beans will be planted out shortly. Overwintering radishes are coming back to [...]

In January Irish Seed Savers hosted a collection day for the Burren Beo ‘Hares Corner Project’. Over 350 Irish heritage apple trees were collected on the day with each participant receiving 8 trees. These heritage apple trees will be planted in many orchards across county, contributing to the improvement of biodiversity in County Clare. As [...]

In the orchards, we are pruning and collecting scion wood for bench grafting in spring. We are also planning a new orchard for varieties that we have secured from Loughgall, which we didn’t have in our collection, and also varieties which have been drawn to our attention in Ireland and have since been DNA tested as unique. [...]

December is when we deliver the hundreds of orders for our Irish heritage apple trees. We have to wait until the trees become fully dormant before we dig up our bare root apple trees and then prepare them for delivery, before shipping them out before the Christmas holidays. It's great to see so many orders [...]

There has been a huge demand for our Irish heritage apple trees this year and unfortunately we have to announce that we are completely sold out of our stocks for this year. As the bare root crop approaches dormancy, the trees will be prepared for unearthing and as soon as they are fully dormant, they [...]

We are processing hundreds of varieties of seeds at the moment. We are working hard to harvest, clean, test and pack seeds and while this is tough work we are excited about the many varieties we will be able to make available to you in our upcoming catalogue. These heritage open-pollinated varieties have the ability to adapt, and [...]

Apple season is upon us and our nursery have been busy preparing for our apple tasting tours. These tours are always a highlight of the year and offer you the chance to taste some of Ireland's rare heritage apple varieties. These tours are all currently sold out but if you would like to be added to [...]