Over the past 5 years, we have planted in excess of 5000 tress on the farm.
This tree planting project will be our most ambitious tree planting project so far.
The Sheeaun tree plantation project (Sheaun is the name given locally to the hill that will protect the trees fro the full wrath of the Atlantic storms) involves fencing off 3 acres of bog land near the North end of the farm, just west off the light house road.
Follwong advice from an expert from the Department of Forestry, we run a small trial, planting 100 lodgepole pines and 100 Monterey pines in that area in early 2009. In early 2010, we added some rohan and some birch to the mix to see if broadleaves would survive there.
The site of the future tree plantation, with Sheeaun in the background
As you can see from the
picture above, the pines did well and we will be planting 3500 more
trees there in the Autumn of 2010.
Eventually we hope that
this plantation, together with the woodland and the one acre that we
planted in 2007, will enable us to be self-sufficient in firewood
(which we use for heating the houses, but also for cooking and baking
in the main house), and will provide some material for fencing the
land. The Sheeaun tree planting project is also meant to be a carbon offset project. We estimate the plantation will absorb about 330 tonnes of CO2 over the next 25 years. We also estimate our carbon foot print at 8 tons / year, so we reckon that the project will more than offset our own carbon footprint We also hope that it will produce more firewood than we need, and that some of it will be used on the island to replace coal or turf.
How you can help
You can volunteer to come and help with the planting of the trees (in November 2010).
Other projects
- Eco-building project (on going)
- Bread oven (June 2007)