The Phantom Planter

 Most nights on my main The Phantom Planter Facebook page 've been sharing some clips of stories from my past that I'm putting up on Patreon. I've noticed though that from I started telling these stories on Patreon about my dodgy past I've lost some followers. I dont think some people like to hear what I'm telling, Maybe some people didnt know about my past and I'd say some of the stories may have came as a bit of a shock for some. And to be honest guys, many of the stories I'm trying to keep them a bit lighter than they really were. Most of you know I wasnt always a tree hugging planting and chanting Buddhist! "Directing 40 footers through estate winding streets was one of my many childhood chores Open the door it was ciggies and more Andorra had just become the new bank offshore Gangsters on forklifts having the odd nervous fit Hoods loading vans i'm sure got on the neighbours tits but they kept their wit as most were in on it Counting money galor

 I remember the first time I read this after stumbling across a Buddhist monastery. I landed up to the place drunk after jumping off a viking boat at the lowest point in my life and said to the monk can I stay with you guys, I need to stay here! They had just the room for me and this was on the wall. I read it and something came over me, like everything I already felt inside about our way of life that is pure lunacy was being affirmed for me in Jampa Ling by Big D! At the time I read this I had just went from riches to rags, back to riches again and then back to rags on that monopoly board we are all tricked into playing, ( a finely tuned soul trap if you ask me). I was bankrupt a few years before this then I hit it big time again and then I got robbed and lost the lot again!! All I was left with was a long list of expensive self gratifying habits and addictions. Thats what too much money can do, makes you accustomed to passing poisonous pleasures and when the money runs out you enter

 After all the strong winds we got now is a good time to be collecting seaweed to mulch around your fruit trees. This is by far the best thing you can add to your trees for health. I just mulch a thick layer straight off the beach around my trees, just keep it about 6 inches or so from the trunk and this will all break down over time providing all sorts of good nutrients for your tree and soil.  I love all the different types of fungi that come about when seaweed mulching, over the years I've noticed all sorts of mushrooms growing out of the base of our trees which Is always a good sign of soil health. I never wash my seaweed either, just add straight from the beach. Back in my old wheeling and dealing days I'd of been bagging this stuff up and selling it around the doors. As I was bagging some up one day and carrying into the back of my van and just for a joke I was shouting at passerby,  "Bags of seaweed for your garden only a tenner"! This old lady came up and said

 Buddhists believe we earn our own good merit, that we make our own karma and good luck. How we live and interact with the world around us determines our path in this life and the next. I believe this to be true and what I also believe to be true is its easier more so now than ever to earn good merit and good fortune from our good deeds. The ways of earning good merit is being sold off too cheap these days because not many are interested. The good merit half price sale is on, get in quick before its too late! What I'm meaning by this is never has there been a time when so much of the world is wrapped up in so many problems with the Internet, we are dividing ourselves over everything these days and venting anger about problems all over the world. Disturbing our own peace of mind and keeping us stuck in low darker vibrations. I believe its all manufactured and by design and I dont believe getting wrapped up in any of it will serve any good for your ownself or the people around you. S

  Its coming up to bare root planting season which usually starts around November sometime and this means lots of nurseries will be getting in cheap bare root fruit trees meaning they dont come in pots and they are much cheaper and easier to plant. Many other types of native trees like oaks and birch can be as little as 50p a sapling! There's really no excuse not to become a phantom planter! Ring around your local nurseries to see who will be stocking fruit trees and also ask them for local native grown ones if possible, these will grow better than any other type for your area and will need less looking after and will be better for our ecosystem too. But if you cant get native dont be worrying too much just get planting and chanting. If your going to be phantom planting on council land like one of my Leaftenants has done in this pic, please make sure you dont plant under power lines or inline with any manholes or sewers, always plant 5 metres from a path or road so no falling fruit

  You know all our mountain ranges here in the UK and Ireland are not natural. Although when your coming into these areas you see signs saying area of outstanding natural beauty, maybe it should say, area of mass destruction. At one time all our mountains were all forest, not this heathland/ grassland type terrain, this is is what has come about from over farming and grazing. Sheep and cattle have been wrecking and ruining these landscapes for thousands of years. When we had predators like wolves they would have keep grazing cattle moving so they didnt have time to hang around one spot and eat everything in sight. This allowed the ecosystem to thrive and the forests to flourish. Everything is about making money from the land, if you cant make money from it its no good to us. I get we need cattle for food but most of ours is exported, turned into paper and digits and stored in some bank somewhere and our landscape has been destroyed for it. If we ate what we produced and didnt export th