Paul's Permaculture Stories Ireland

Summer Orchard Pruning Season is Open!

26/07/202526/07/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentOrchardapple pruning, cork, fukuoka, ireland, orchard, skills, summer pruning, sustainability, watershoots, workshop

What a glorious fruitful year it is with many of the trees laden with fruit. The perennial question I am asked is: “Why oh why would you prune fruit trees in the summer? Surely its better in the winter?” The answer, as usual in permaculture, is: “it depends”. Most Fruit Trees are Summer Pruning Candidates Firstly, all of the prunus species of fruit tree are summer rather than winter candidates for pruning, so it you have cherries or plums winter pruning runs some extra disease risks. Most apple and pear trees benefit from summer pruning, many suffering from excessive winter pruning without the appropriate summer care. Summer pruning mostly addresses this year’s vigorous growth, directing that energy to future fruiting. So most mature apple and pear trees I tend to benefit from skillful summer pruning. Here is a little video about dealing with water shoots during summer pruning: I tend Continue Permaculture Story

Summer Pruning Workshop Story

23/07/202508/08/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentOrchardapple pruning, cork, grafting, ireland, lorette, orchard, orchard pruning course, permaculture, skills, summer pruning, sustainability

The pruning workshop covered the following topics: Why prune at all; the natural shape of an apple tree; the purpose of grafting; its effects and side-effects; summer pruning vs winter pruning; vegetative and fruiting wood; orchard guilds and design considerations; pollination; tools and tool care; disease pruning; pruning demos; plant succession mulching, and importantly, the Lorette system of summer pruning.

Teaching Children Permaculture

18/07/202518/07/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentCourses and WorkshopsBilbao, cork, drought, Dunmanway, flood, keyline design, microclimate, permaculture, rainfall, skills, Spain, sunshine, teaching children, temperature

Permaculture farm in Dunmanway County Cork hosts summer language students from Bilbao It’s all happening around Dunmanway County Cork these days. Since I began my professional permaculture design practice, the area between Drimoleague and Dunmanway County Cork has shown to be a consistent hot-spot for permaculture projects. A few years ago I worked on a farm permaculture design for the Kingston family near Coolkellure, now known as Nowen Rock Regenerative Natural Habitats. Recently John Kingston and I have been collaborating on the build of another local permaculture project in that area. Teaching Children Permaculture John asked me if I spoke Spanish and if I would do a day teaching permaculture for a group of English language students coming from Bilbao to visit his farm. Of course I was delighted to get involved and do more teaching. It was quite a new challenge however as I had not taught children permaculture Continue Permaculture Story

Garden Design Talk for the Kenmare Gardening Group

25/06/202525/06/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentCourses and Workshopsdesign, gardening, group, kenmare, kerry, keyline, permaculture, sustainability, vegetable growing

Sustainable landscape design solutions for gardening and climate problems Earlier this month I was delighted to give a presentation on permaculture design to the Kenmare gardening group at the Gateway Methodist Church in Kenmare Co. Kerry. The church setting was fitting as I had some biblical analogies regarding creation, gardens, fruit, floods and sustainable landscape design. I put extensive research into this lecture and went as far as to write a whole article on my preparatory thoughts, partly as an exercise in putting my thoughts in order and partly to give an insight to my readers on this process. You can read this article here: https://permaculturedesign.ie/2025/05/30/sustainability-talks-for-local-groups/ In particular that article focuses on “design” as a cleavage term in society. When we hear that word, some people envisage a something pleasing to look at or behold in an aesthetic sense, while others think of something being “well designed” when it functions Continue Permaculture Story

Sustainability Talks for Local Groups in Ireland

30/05/202502/06/2025 Paul Lynch1 CommentCourses and Workshopscourse, creativity, design, gardening club, ireland, kenmare, kerry, lecture, permaculture, pirsig, robert pirsig, sustainability, talk, workshop, zen, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

In my permaculture design practice I have often noticed a parallel phenomenon: the most difficult, most constrained project sites are invariably the easiest to design and the best sites, in a conventional sense, are the hardest, requiring the most careful observation to design well.

May Orchard Update – Bumper Fruit Crop Forecast for Ireland in 2025

22/05/202522/05/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentOrchardapple, apple tree, cork, drought, fruit, fruit crop, May, orchard, permaculture, sustainability

A-May-zing weather for fruit trees God bless the spells of bitter cold, snow and frost we had during the winter and God bless the beautiful calm, warmth and sunshine this spring. I expect that most gardeners couldn’t fail to notice the widespread, spectacular flowering of both domesticated and wild fruiting trees this year. Gardeners and non-gardeners alike traveling about the countryside will have been greeted with an almost exotic display around each corner from the hawthorn trees laden in white. With the limits of brilliant white exceeded, an abnormal fraction of the May trees have changed clothes this year and blossomed in pink instead, as if they couldn’t wait longer and ripened themselves instead of setting fruit. Fruit tree “chill hours” requirement Even that winter cold spell – now a distant memory – was good for the trees. Proper cold winter weather has a role in regulating the apple tree Continue Permaculture Story

Flood and Drought Resilience in Wales and Ireland

01/05/202501/05/2025 Paul Lynch1 CommentHorticulturedrought, farming, flood, horticulture, ireland, irrigation, keyline, keyline design, Lantra, permaculture, ponds, resilience, sustainability, vegetable growing, wales

I was delighted to present at a recent Lantra Wales “Farming Connect” webinar titled: “Making Your Horticulture Enterprise Drought and Flood Resistant”. The event was free of charge courtesy of Lantra and the Welsh Government.

Making Your Horticulture Enterprise Drought and Flood Resistant – Free Webinar!

10/04/202510/04/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentUncategorizedcontour, drone mapping, drought, Farming Connect, flood, Food security, keyline, keyline design, Lantra, permaculture, ponds, resilience, sustainability, water storage, yeomans

I’m delighted to present at a Lantra Wales “Farming Connect” webinar titled: “Making Your Horticulture Enterprise Drought and Flood Resistant”. The event is free of charge courtesy of Lantra Wales. The event will take place at 12.30pm on Tuesday the 16th April 2025. I’m looking forward to maintain and grow my Wales Permaculture Connection and to listen and learn from the other presenters. Event listing and how to book: https://wales.business-events.org.uk/en/events/making-your-horticulture-enterprise-drought-and-flood-resistant Flood and drought Resilience Webinar Details This is the event description on the Business Wales Event Finder: “In a time of accelerating climate change, this webinar aims to address the vital techniques we might use to make our farms resilient in the face of both flood and drought. We aim to move beyond the paradigm which frames water management as a problem, to one which recognises water management as an opportunity; we will discuss ways of using living systems and Continue Permaculture Story

Energy Resilience Workshop March 10th 2025

07/03/202507/03/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentUncategorizedcork, energy, energy resilience, gteic, ireland, Muscraí, Muskerry, off-grid, permaculture, renewable energy, skills, solar

Energy resilience workshop I am delighted to give a talk and workshop on the topic of energy resilience on the 10th March 2025 in Ballingeary Co. Cork. Energy workshop topics This workshop is complimentary courtesy of Comharchumann Forbartha Mhúscraí Teoranta, which is a community development co-operative operating in the interest of the Muscraí Gaeltacht area in Co Cork. More info here: https://muscrai.org/ Energy resilience workshop details The workshop will commence at 7.30pm at the Gteic co-working office hub in Ballingeary, Macroom, Co. Cork, Ireland. Workshop Venue: Páirc Ghnó Bhéal Átha an GhaorthaidhCo. ChorcaíP12 PX22 Energy workshop poster Irish Language Sustainability and Resilience Wisdom The workshop will be bilingual, in Irish and English. Most of the verbal presentation will be in Irish with most of the visual presentation in English. This way we aim to cater to users of both official languages and foster an environment where Irish can be learned Continue Permaculture Story

Climate and soil conditions for orchards in Ireland

06/03/202507/03/2025 Paul LynchLeave a commentOrchardapple pruning, climate and soil, cork, microclimate, orchard

Recently I finished an orchard pruning job near Cork. Most of my pruning work is on domestic scale orchards that I manage in a day, but sometimes there are bigger orchards that need a few days, or even a week to get into shape. This orchard had nearly sixty trees and was located in a garden on the outskirts of the city. The site was on a gentle ridge high up on one of the many rolling hills to the south of Cork city, with a northerly aspect. There was little wind shelter to the site save from the landform itself. Many of these conditions are not ideal – the wind exposure, the aspect and the fact that some of the trees were planted too close together. As regards health however, the trees were overall in the better half of orchards that I have tended to in County Cork. Climate Continue Permaculture Story