Dig In
Dig In is the new gardening website on BBC Radio 4, which promises to supply the knowledge or know-how you need to sow, grow and harvest your own food plants. On Friday I listened to the programme to discover that The National Trust says 60% of natural fruit orchards have disappeared since the 1950s, putting local varieties of apples, cherries, pears, plums and damsons under threat. Conservationists have warned that traditional fruit orchards are vanishing from England's landscape - with serious consequences for wildlife.
In 1999 The Independent reported that 'INTENSIVE FARMING and the unwillingness of supermarkets to stock home-grown fruit have destroyed more than half of Britain's apple and pear orchards.' Read the full online article to learn more about the decline of England's fruit orchards.
A useful website is The Irish Seed Savers Association (ISSA) which is the only outlet for the purchasing of Native Irish Apple trees. The main objective of ISSA is to halt the depletion of our native agricultural biodiversity, and to support our plant resource by recreating orchards containing traditional varieties of native Irish fruit trees we want to encourage farmers to create and maintain apple orchards with specific varieties traditional to Ireland to ensure the survival of this unique resource. This will increase biodiversity of the local landscape and provide a habitat for wildlife on the farm.
Labels: Fruit orchards, Ireland, UK
posted by Thomas @ 10:11 pm
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