The Phantom Planter

 Great news for The Phantom Planters HQ! Had the meeting yesterday with the NIEA (Northern Ireland Environment Agency) about lots of our trees being planted on ASSI ( areas of special scientific interest) and lets just say things couldn't have worked out any better for The Phantom Planters HQ aka Belvoir Memorial Orchard. This community orchard will be here to stay for future generations! The guys that came out to inspect I couldn't have got on with any better, proper nature lovers they were. I knew I would have a lot in common with them anyhow. We were all singing off the same hymn sheet. I did take on board lots of their concerns and had to compromise on a few things, totally understood where they were coming from.  But overall it was an amazing meeting and I was glad we meet. I learned so much from both of them. Really had no idea how many different invasive species are running wild out there.  Just always be careful what your phantom planting guys, try and keep it nat...

 Me and wee betty planted about 40 oak trees yesterday down at the bottom of our Lisnabreeny orchard. Past while I have changed the way I have been planting bare root trees. Takes a wee bit longer than usual but every one I've been planting I just know they are going to thrive well. I love my solo tree planting meditations, so good for me and so good for nature. Its also good being part of the antidote to all this destructiveness that is the way of our world. Some nice things have came my way in life recently so its important for me to practice more good deeds and generosity, keeping myself humble and grounded. Some Buddhists say if your life is good then your reaping the rewards of past merit earned. So its important to keep generating more good merit for the future. My delboy dad always said you make your own luck in life, I think he was a secret Buddha himself. He was always helping everyone and always giving people gifts. He was always laughing too and on his last days before h...

 Check out the sign my Big Druid right hand man made for our spiral. This is the first of the iconic oaks to be planted in the spiral of ancient oaks. This oak has been grown from an acorn collected of the Bowthorpe oak in England, at over 13 metres in girth and over 1000 years old it is one of the oldest and thickest girthed oaks in the UK. I should have taken some more up close pics as my Druid mate has went to a lot of effort to make this. He has carved into the wood some oak leaves and the name is carved into the wood too then filled with resin. Cant thank you enough big mate, none of this would be happening without you. We also went round and checked over the 500 heritage Irish apple trees that we have planted in the next field, replacing any that didn't survive from last years planting. We updated our tree map also as we have all the varieties logged and mapped. Again the best growing tree in the orchard is James Grieves, this tree is made to grow in our climates. Another ama...

 Planted 37 dogwood cuttings yesterday among the 40 birch trees and 30 apple trees that I planted over the previous couple of days. This is at the bottom of our Lisnabreeny community orchard where we are going to make this into a wild mixed type woodland. I've another 100 oak trees that I'm getting today to get planted here also. This is the time of year to be planting trees guys. You'll find bare root native trees in most nurseries right now. Some of these can be as little as 50p each. Many online places will post them to you also. This year I intend to get our Lisnabreeny orchard completely finished and next year I will be on the hunt for some new land to make into mixed native woodlands.  I will be looking for farmland to plant up in and around South Belfast.  So many say we need this farmland for food.  Take a look around you guys, we are not short of food here. Rising obesity is our biggest problem. And most of our farmland is used to produce dairy which 90% of ...

 Me and wee betty planted 40 birch trees and 30 apple trees yesterday at our Lisnabreeny community orchard.  Great way to spend the day planting trees. Love it!! Please do support our mission in creating free food orchards for all.. https://paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=FAJZHB3TBXMSL I challenge you to phantom plant a tree  Peace and love  The Phantom Planter and Wee Betty

 Did a post there the other day about the NIEA (Northern Ireland Environment Agency) getting in touch with me saying that many of my trees are in their area and that they will need to be removed. They also threatened me with the police if I didnt stop planting. Turns out my free food map created a rod for my own back. The NIEA used my own map to go round and inspect all my trees. They have pointed out that hundreds of them are in an ASSI (Area of special scientific interest). What I did find odd though is the majority of our phantom planted trees are on old overgrown football pitches. I rang the officer in charge of this to say to him how can football pitches become an ASSI. He had no idea the area used to be football pitches. I explained to him that most of our fruit trees are memorial trees, with many having loved ones ashes planted in with the tree. We must have around 300 families memorial trees phantom planted in this area, with so many of the families regularly visiting them ...