The Phantom Planter

 Busy day yesterday with the trees. We planted two Bramley apple trees at our new Lisnabreeny orchard, one was a memorial tree for Albert Thorne and the other was a celebration tree to mark the birthday of Big D aka Dalai Lama. We then spent some time thinning out some of the trees at our other orchards, taking off some apples from branches that were about to snap with the weight of apples on them and staked up some others. In the evening I went to water and mulch about 20 or so fruit trees in another part of the estate. These were potted fruit trees that we phantom planted last year and during summer months its important to water potted trees for the first couple of years to get them off to the best start. Bare root planted trees dont seem to need it though. The amount of ladybirds I've seen this year around our orchards has been unreal, its so good to see. Maybe fruit trees attract them or something as nearly every tree I visited had ladybirds on them. There was even one at the g...

 You can plant trees anytime of year! When I post about planting fruit trees in midsummer I see so many comments from people saying I'm wasting my time or winter is the time to plant trees. One dude commented saying I don't know what I'm doing and when I looked at his profile he was standing planting a tree and many of his posts were all tree related. Obviously a text book tree planter.  Well guys, I've news for you all, over the past 10 years I've planted thousands of potted fruit trees in midsummer with about a 99% success rate. And you know what my secret is? Water them. So simple.  I dont know what half these so called experts think sometimes.  The first tree I ever planted was this one in the pic. I remember a guy from the National Trust said at the time it will die as it was not the right time of year to be planting.  I knew nothing about planting trees back then but my intuition was telling me not to believe this National Trust tree planter.  I went ...

 Bought seven top notch bramley apple trees yesterday to plant in the spaces of our new Lisnabreeny community orchard where the trees we planted last year didn't make it.  Between Bramley and James Grives I'm not sure which one grows better in our wet Northern Irish climate. I have never seen any of these 2 trees with canker or any other disease.  Bramley is a great variety to guarantee a heavy crop and the apples can store for  months.  An apple a day keeps the doctor away is a saying that's believed to be very true. Not the apples they sell in the shops though. We have no idea what is sprayed on these or where they've came from. Wild phantom planted apple straight from nature is what you want.  But apples have been known to be one of the best super foods we can eat. Cleaning our insides better then most other foods.  Studies have shown how much they can benefit our gut and intestines with just one apple a day.  We don't have to be eating berries...

 Priceless moments yesterday. I go to this local park sometimes and train on this wooden garden gondola doing my usual pull ups, handstands and spinning upside down and stuff. All the usual stuff you do when you get in touch with your inner child in later life. This place is right next to basketball courts and about 30 or so kids came with a couple of adults to play. These kids must have been around 9/10 years old I would say. As they were playing away and I just carried on doing my workouts I heard some of them say. "wow he's like superman" - "how can he do that" - what is that man doing" - ! what kind of of crazy moves are they"! These were just some of the things I heard coming from the court. Many of their wee faces were just standing looking in amazement and I heard some of them say to the adults, can we do what he's doing, can we do handstands' and then one said why are we not doing pushups. One of the young lads I noticed was just lookin...

 Big D aka the Dalai Lama made a statement yesterday saying he has decided to reincarnate himself again here on earth. He said back in 1969 that when he turned 90 he would let us know whether he would be needed again here in the world as a spiritual leader. When great beings like this come to the end of their lives they can either enter Nirvana or come back here in the world to help show us the way. When you read into how his next rebirth will be found it always makes me think of Jesus and the 3 wise men. The Dalai Lama will leave instructions where he will be reborn and some monks will seek out to find the newborn Dalai Lama. Pretty powerful stuff and whats pretty powerful also is how did Big D know he was going to live till he was 90 when he made that statement back in 1969. Many great beings like Big D choose when they die. I've read many many stories about this. Monks that are completely healthy and they just tell their friends, right thats me I'm out of here tomorrow 12pm!...

 Haven't been up to our apple tree nursery in ages now as I've been so busy and last night I took a drive up to have a look and couldn't believe my eyes! You would think we knew what we were doing! We only just started grafting 2 years ago. 1000 Irish variety apple trees thriving! All these trees were grafted onto mm106 rootstock just a few months ago and check out the size of these beauties. The growth has been unreal. These are all cuttings/scions from old Irish variety apple trees that myself and some inner council members went and collected from old orchards about the country winter past. Next year I'm making a few changes on my phantom planting tactics when all these trees are ready to plant. For the past couple of years now I've been making big pushes on here to make money from what I do. Living in a rotted cabin was doing my head in. Now I have my new cabin home bought and paid for I dont need much money to live. I get what does me wheeling and dealing my mat...