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Lets get making our streets and estates into urban orchard for everyone to have free fresh food!

206 apple trees planted.

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 Thats 206 heritage Irish apple trees phantom planted so far in the past month. Over 200 more to go. Most of which will be planted at our Lisnabreeny community orchard where everyone can go and enjoy. For over 10 years now I've been randomly phantom planting fruit everywhere I normally go. A green patch here or a layby there. I eye up the spots and fill them up with fruit trees. It was around 7 years ago when I really started to up my phantom plantings. I managed to escape the alcohol trap and had so much extra time and money on my hands from not hanging around bars drinking all the time. So I decided to use that time and money to buy trees and phantom plant them. It was an antidote for me, in Buddhism they talk a lot about antidotes. The antidote idea sat so well with me. As when I tried to give up drink or types of drugs in the past it was slowly being replaced with some other type of unhealthy desire. Give up drinking, all of a sudden you start to smoke more weed. Give up the co...
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Stay warm, plant trees!

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 Your not long getting warmed up tree planting in the cold. Love it being part of creation. It expands the mind planting trees. I visualise into the future how everything is going to grow and provide for nature and community. Visualisations are such an important practice in Tibetan Buddhism. For years all I was visualising was my next drink, drug or self gratifying fix. And guess what? Thats what manifested in my life. We are all becoming our thoughts whether we like it or not. Be careful what you get caught into thinking about as thats whats going to manifest. I've manifested people and things into my life with mind blowing accuracy. Some things I wanted and some things I didnt. These days I try my best to keep my thoughts pure for the benefit of nature. Most days I wake I say my Buddhist prayers for trees and sentient beings. "May the attractive and healthy forests be increased in all the one hundred directions, may sentient creatures be freed from untimely death and live ha...
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Happy new year!

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 Happy new year everyone. Hope you all plant some trees in 2026. Planted 30 more apple trees yesterday at the Lisnabreeny community orchard. Did these 30 solo in 2 hours. Love the workout you get from doing this. Its a great back pump digging holes and up and down squatting all the time is so good for you too. Then being out in the fresh air giving back to nature just enriches you in so many ways.  Definitely a different type of high on News years Eve! That brings the total to 192 apple trees I've planted in the past month. My big right hand man has been measuring out the rest of the field to see how many more apple trees we can fit. Its works out roughly we can fit 450 apple trees. So far there is around 330 planted, so thats another 120 to go, which I will have these in in no time! I was just saying to my mate yesterday that in 50 years time people from Belfast will be coming up to this community orchard and filling boxes with apples and taking them back down to share out ar...
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81 apple trees completed

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 Added bamboo canes and trees guards yesterday to all the 81 apple trees we phantom planted in the estate over the past few days. Luckily when I got down yesterday no more trees had been broken. Only 2 so far had been snapped with possible dogs running over the trees as they are so small.  They were hard to see to be honest without the tree guards on them. Hope now the dogs will see them better and also they will be able to take a bit of a hit now with the canes and guards acting as an extra strengthener for them. This is going to be an amazing little wild orchard when this all gets established. Such a mix of heritage Irish trees phantom planted here. Cant wait to watch this all grow over the coming years. The community really loves the idea of fruit trees being planted around the place. Everyone stops to say how much they love it. So many dont know also how many different types of native apple trees we have. It's my life ambition to fill our local estate and beyond with all t...
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Another 33 apple trees phantom planted

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 Phantom planted another 33 apple trees yesterday back at the same plot where we phantom planted 48 the day before. This brings the total apple trees here at 81. In the space of one day 2 have been broken already which I replaced yesterday. I do expect to take looses here where I've phantom planted these.  The Paramili-Trees will keep sending in reinforcements! One good thing though is I can just pull out the rootstock and regraft another apple tree onto them for next year. I've got a load of bamboo sticks and tree guards which I'm going to go back today and add to the trees. Hopefully this will add a bit more protection and the dogs will maybe see the trees better and not run over them. I'm determined to get this new orchard established. What was pretty special about the planting yesterday was all the men that came to help out, we all have a bit of a shady past and we have all gotten into Buddhism. Yesterday the 3 of us just talked Buddhist stuff and planted apple tree...
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Priceless memories!

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 48 Heritage Irish apple trees phantom planted yesterday creating another new orchard in the estate! Had some real good helpers and new recruits for this one. These kids that came to help out were pretty special. Love watching kids when they take an interest getting stuck in planting trees. Cant thank the parents enough either as they practically dug all 48 holes. The family was a massive help. I couldn't have got them all in without you. Thank you! Phantom planting this new plot is a bit of a gamble. I dont normally phantom plant trees that are so small like this on council property as there is more chance of them getting run over by dogs and whatever else. Planting trees smaller though is much better for the growth of the tree as it grows into a bigger stronger tree much better than potted trees. As I was saying yesterday if all these trees didnt make it for some reason it was all still worth it as I met some of the nicest people around. There is good people in this world and pha...
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New orchard getting phantom planted today!

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 Heading out here today to phantom plant a community orchard on a large field in the estate. I have a new method of planting I'm going to experiment with. It will be more like a wild fruit forest rather than a maintained orchard. I've around 50 mixed heritage apple trees to plant and I'm going to plant them all quite close in a circular island shape in the field. I will then get a mower and cut the grass around the edge of the island of trees to encourage the council mowers to just keep cutting around it. It will be all left for the grass to grow wild in and around the trees. You see woodland trust do these types of plantations with other native trees, but I have never seen one with native fruit trees. I love it when apple trees are left to go wild with fruit, just falling and being left. It creates such a biodiversity hotspot. I have seen more life around wild fruit trees than most other types of tree. All my apple trees are grafted onto mm106 rootstock which means they wi...
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