Calling all spring-cleaners!
If you’re planning a clear-out and hate the thoughts of dumping your once-loved goods, don’t fret. Not only is one person’s trash another person’s treasure… rehoming your pre-loved items is also a fantastic way to reduce your carbon footprint.
- Car Boot Sale and Family Fun. 8th May from 8.30am (set-up begins) to 1pm. Buyers will arrive from 10am. Skerries Educate Together National School Kelly’s Bay Drive, K34 CX46 Skerries – View Map
Pack up your car and join Sustainable Skerries on 8th May for a car boot sale in the Skerries Educate Together National School at an early bird cost of €10 for cars (€15 on the day), €5 for bikes and other non-motorised transport. Gates open 8.30am on the day to get yourself set-up before the public starts arriving at 10am. Please bring your own tables and chairs. This price is for sellers only – admission is free for buyers and no registration is required.
Please note, this event is for private sellers only, commercial vans will not be admitted.
It will be a fun-filled morning with family activities, face-painting, music and raffles. There’s an ATM across the road but you might also want to bring small change.
We look forward to seeing you there! Book your spot now on Eventbrite.
On Friday and Saturday, local residents and people from all over Skerries came together to plant more fruit trees in Mourne View and at the pedestrian lights and the Ballast Pit.
So now we have three open orchards in Skerries, with some three dozen trees in total!
If you’d like to join us in the Skerries Open Orchards Project (aka SkOOP), please do – see the bottom of the Open Orchards page on the Sustainable Skerries website for a form.
Over the next six months or so, we will be mainly doing our best so that the young trees are thriving.
We will also work on the text and design for some signage we hope to be putting up in the near future.
That way, everyone will know why the trees are there, and that the fruit, once fully ripe, is for all to enjoy.
In the planting season 2022/23, we hope to start more open orchards. Let us know if you’d like some in your area. We will send information out to all neighbourhood groups registered on the Skerries Community Association’s Neighbourhoods Network, too.
For now, here are some pictures from the planting days – thank you to everyone who came out and helped!
We could not have done it without the two dozen volunteers who came and helped – and especially not without the gentle instruction and guidance and advice from Dominica McKevitt, the Ardgillan head gardener whose help is such a great asset to our group.
Ballast Pit Planting Pics
- Images by Sabine McKenna, Hans Zomer (1), Kristina Davies-Barrett (2)
Mourne View Planting Pics
A proverb says:
It will never rain apples. If we want apples, we must plant trees first.
Introducing: The Ballast Pit Triangle Open Orchard!
Come plant some trees with us (Sustainable Skerries / Skerries Open Orchards Project)
at the Ballast Pit (near the traffic lights)
this Saturday, 26 March 2022, from 2 pm!
Or indeed in Mourne View at Wild Cat Lane on Friday from 4 pm, where we’re starting another open orchard – or some non-fruit trees on Saturday morning from 10 am with Fingal County Council.
Can you join us? Please fill in this form so we can mail you the details!
You may know that we have received funding to start mini open orchards in Skerries, and have already planted 20 trees in Kelly’s Bay. Now we are ready for more – but we can’t do that without you.
- We have had talks with Fingal County Council, and they are very supportive.
- Now we are asking you to help make this plan become a reality.
Join us and plant a mini orchard close to the Ballast Pit pedestrian lights this Saturday!
This is your opportunity to help plant the trees in the designated areas (see map on the other side). The fruit of the trees will be everybody’s to enjoy.
🌳 Information panels will ensure passers-by know the background of our orchard trees. 🌳
Some questions and answers
How come this is happening? When an organisation called ChangeX offered funding for open orchard projects, the Sustainable Skerries committee went for it.
The first planting day in February was brilliant – see for yourself on SustainableSkerries.com/orchards.
Now we have just about enough time to plant a few more trees before the end of this planting season.
Is the County Council OK with this? Yes, we have met with Fingal County Council on location, and they are really supportive of our project.
Will there be more Open Orchards? We’d like some in our area…
We hope there will be many more! We’re coming to the end of this year’s planting season, and have started planning for the next ones that will be planted in the autumn. 🌳 Get in touch, join the Skerries Open Orchards Project aka SkOOP! 🌳
Where can I learn more? Apart from SustainableSkerries.com/orchards, ChangeX has some information about our project and about open orchards in general.
How do I sign up?
Please fill in this form so we can mail you the details – if that doesn’t work, you can also send an email to sustskerries@gmail.com
Will we get loads of apples and other fruit?
Not for the first couple of years, but over time, there should be quite a bit. People are welcome to help us harvest the fruit!
Why start an open orchard, anyway?
What is the thinking behind the Skerries Open Orchards Project?
We’re glad you asked! The Skerries Open Orchards Project aims to plant fruit trees in public places in Skerries. The trees will provide free fruit to local residents and greenery to the open spaces in our town, but there are other benefits too.
A newly planted tree will offer some extra pollination opportunities and absorb a small amount of carbon dioxide as well as rainwater that might otherwise have stayed on the surface. And as the trees grow, so do these positive effects.
Of course there are already many fruit trees around the town, but by planting fruit trees on public land, the project is an investment in our shared public space. The trees embellish our greens and provide an opportunity for residents’ groups to work together to protect and nurture them. The trees will start to produce fruit, but it’s the process of caring for them that produces the most important harvest: strengthening our community and improving our public space.
Overview: This week’s Tree Planting Opportunities in Skerries
By the way: Did you know that it’s National Tree Week? We couldn’t have planned these better so!
- Mourne View Open Orchards Planting: Fri 25 March 2022.
Meet at Wildcat Lane, 4 pm.
- Ballast Pit Triangle Open Orchard Saturday: 26 March
Join us near the pedestrian lights and help planting a mix of fruit trees, from 2 pm.
Join us! Just fill in this form and we will mail you the details!
And Fingal County Council are holding a Community Tree Planting Workshop, Town Park: Sat 26 March, assemble 10 am at the Skerries Mills car park. No need to register. You can find all the details on this on our site, sustainableskerries.com/orchards, as well. Fingal County Council will even have a few trees to give away, free for households!
Sustainable Skerries, a committee of the Skerries Community Association CLG,
is involved in activities around biodiversity (currently implementing the Skerries Pollinator Plan),
food (Sustainable Skerries Food Festival planned for April 2023),
waste reduction / circular economy (Repair Cafés, Car Boot Sale Sun 8 May 2022),
sustainable energy (with Skerries Sustainable Energy Committee) and
sustainable transport (with Skerries Cycling Initiative).
We also engage with other groups in Skerries, as well as Fingal County Council
(e.g. in the consultation process for the next Fingal Development Plan).
Join us! sustskerries@gmail.com
Our aim is to make Skerries resilient, regenerative,
and a great place to live for all… now and in the years to come.
For the last couple of years, you have been collecting your crisp packets and dropping them off in our collection box in SuperValu. Cristina has been sending them to become high-quality recycled plastic. Please continue to do so! Until the middle of March at least. However, from then on we can no longer accept them.
Cristina writes: “TerraCycle have decided to discontinue the crisp packets recycling scheme (see their email below). In the next few weeks I will contact SV to thank them for their support and will send the last delivery towards the end of March. Thanks to everyone for your support on this.”
TerraCycle’s full email:
We cannot thank you enough for your dedication and support over the past three years. When we launched The Crisp Packet Recycling Scheme with Walkers in December 2018, there was no nationwide solution for recycling flexible plastics, such as crisp packets. You immediately embraced the scheme and demonstrated just how much people wanted to recycle their packets!
With your help, we have collected millions and given them a second life, turning crisp packets into new products like outdoor furniture and playgrounds. Not only this, but your actions have helped change the way others think about recycling.
Over the past year, flexible plastic points have been established at more than 150 supermarket locations in the Republic of Ireland. This means crisp packets can now be dropped off for recycling, along with all other types of flexible plastic, at any of these locations. Additionally, flexible plastics can now be collected via household recycling schemes. In light of these developments, and after careful consideration, The Crisp Packet Recycling Scheme will close this April.
Some 30 adults and 20 children got together today, Saturday 12 February 2022, to plant 16 fruit and 4 nut trees. Not only did they get those 20 holes dug and those 20 trees planted in just about 120 minutes, they also had a lot of fun!
The trees will now grow up (we hope) to be the Kelly’s Bay Open Orchard – the first of many which the Skerries Open Orchards Project (SkOOP) hopes to plant.
If anyone sees this who is living in Skerries and is now thinking: “There’s a bit of land near me which would be great for such an open orchard,” please do get in touch with sustskerries @ gmail.com
You can read more about this project on sustainableskerries.com/orchards
Sustainable Skerries would like to thank ChangeX for funding this project, as well as Fingal County Council, who were very helpful when we discussed our plans with them and also promised to help out with signage.
Bulb planting party
A big Thank You to all those who turned up for the first Skerries Open Orchards Project Work Party today, 19 December, in the Kelly’s Bay Open Orchard!
When I say “Work Party,” the emphasis is firmly on “Party” – it was great fun to meet the Kelly’s Bay Guardians Tom, Marta & kids, Diarmuid & son, Fergus & kids, and Joe & kids as well as the SkOOPers Charlie & Marion (as always invaluable with their gardening knowledge), Anne, and Sabine (author of this report).
A SkOOPer had kindly donated a bag of pollinator-friendly spring-flowering bulbs, and within half an hour, the work party had planted them around trees at the bus-stop side of the large Kelly’s Bay Green.
Let’s hope they’ll provide a lot of colour and cheer in the spring!
Progress otherwise
We have now gotten the go-ahead from Fingal County Council and informed all local residents, who responded very positively. There are a dozen “Tree Guardian” families ready to help planting in early spring! If anyone else would like to join this group, or put their area forward for a future open orchard – or if you’d like to know more about what we’re doing, please take a look at SustainableSkerries.com/orchards and join us!
We have started the process of ordering a mix of apple trees, including eating and cooking apples, as well as a couple of pear and plum and hazel trees. Next step: Planting them, probably in mid-February.
The Skerries Open Orchards Project is about to put down roots… and is inviting you to join the journey!
What is happening here?!?
If you live close to the large Kelly’s Bay green, you know, the one along Kelly’s Bay Promenade, you may have noticed small groups of people congregating on the triangle just north of the little path.
What was going on, you ask? Well, they were members of a team connected with Sustainable Skerries: The Skerries Open Orchards Project people! And they were scoping out their first open orchard.
Skerries Open Orchards Projects conveniently abbreviates to SkOOP, and the main aim of SkOOP is to let fruit trees blossom all over Skerries, starting in that very spot in Kelly’s Bay.
Planting an idea for change
When an organisation called ChangeX recently offered funding for open orchard projects, a few members of the Sustainable Skerries committee jumped on it and formed SkOOP. We moved fast:
- We have drawn up a plan,
- We have picked our first location, the one in Kelly’s Bay – one of many, we hope – and met a couple of times there,
- We have looked at fruit trees in Ardgillan (on invitation by Dominica McKevitt, head gardener, who thankfully joined SkOOP) and at a small an apartment block in Strand Street, where another of our SkOOP members instigated a mini orchard just last summer,
- We talked to, and met with, Fingal County Council, who have been very supportive, hooray again,
- And we have put information leaflets through the doors of those living closest to the proposed Kelly’s Bay Open Orchard (KBOO – Kay-Booh?) , inviting them to become Tree Guardians.
Ready to start the first Open Orchard
We now have over a dozen Tree Guardians, who will look after the trees especially when they are young, making sure that any prolonged droughts don’t stress them out, that the bases are kept weed free, that any windfall is picked up before it becomes a bother, and so on.
There will also be work parties, starting with preparing the ground for planting, and in the not-too-distant future, when the trees have been established, fruit parties and so on.
All our Guardians will be invited to these parties, as well as the larger group of all those on the Skerries Open Orchards Projects.
And as is the norm with open orchards, the fruit will be there for all to enjoy!
Join us!
Open orchards, with apples, pears, possibly other fruit trees, and a harvest for all to share, bringing all the benefits which fruit trees have for biodiversity, for improving the local air, for the climate… Every little helps! So here is your opportunity to get involved.
- Do you like this idea of open orchards throughout Skerries?
- Can you see a possible location near your house?
- Would you like to help this effort?
If you answered Yes to one or more of these questions, then just go to SustainableSkerries.com/orchards and join us!
Why start an Open Orchard?
The Skerries Open Orchards Project aims to plant fruit trees in public places in Skerries.
The trees will provide free fruit to local residents and greenery to the open spaces in our town, but there are other benefits too. A newly planted tree will offer some extra pollination opportunities and absorb a small amount of carbon dioxide as well as rainwater that might otherwise have stayed on the surface. And as the trees grow, so do these positive effects.
Of course there are already many fruit trees around the town, but by planting fruit trees on public land, the project is an investment in our shared public space. The trees embellish our greens and provide an opportunity for residents’ groups to work together to protect and nurture them. The trees will start to produce fruit, but it’s the process of caring for them that produces the most important harvest: strengthening our community and improving our public space.
Hans Zomer, SkOOP
This text was written for Skerries News. You may find it in their final edition for 2021 (08/12/2021)!
German environmentalist Arnd Drossel is on the way to Glasgow. In July, he set off in his 160 kg steel ball, which he welded together with his son. And his goal is to get to Glasgow for the UN Climate Change Conference #COP26 in Glasgow the UN Climate Change Conference #COP26 in November… gathering promises on the way.
Every day, he covers between eight and ten kilometres. Wherever he rolls, people stop him to ask about his project. He explains it simply:
“I’m doing this for our children. For their future. We humans have to take the issues of climate change and environmental protection into our own hands. Every contribution, no matter how small, is absolutely useful and indispensable! The UN climate conference will take place in Glasgow on November 1, 2021. We bring every single promise you make on our website there.”
When the opportunity arose at very short notice to bring him en route from Dublin to Belfast through Skerries, we jumped. A few dozen Skerries residents gave Arnd and his human hamsterball a very warm welcome today (Sat 2 October 2021).
You can find out more about Arnd and his project on his website, mypromise.earth/en as well as on his Instagram account and his Facebook page. Thanks for visiting, Arnd!
Charlie Heasman, 12th Sept 2021
It’s exactly a year since we started the wildflower meadow in the Educate Together School so it was recently due its first haircut.
The basic idea was to leave the area unmown all through the Spring and Summer and see what came up, once it had flowered and set seeds it was time to cut it to the ground and carry away the grass. We left it as late in the year as possible to allow the seeds to develop and fall.
It’s generally held that it takes about ten years for a meadow such as this to fully develop so we cheated a little by collecting seeds locally and scattering them last Autumn. It turned out we almost not needed to have bothered at all, much of our seed didn’t take and instead nature provided Ox eye Daisies, Knapweed, Campion and many others. One totally unexpected surprise was the appearance of Cowslips, an iconic Irish wildflower now very much in decline. Stop mowing and you’ll be surprised what happens!
Read MoreReduce. Refuse. Reuse. Recycle. In that order, pleas!
The recent Government announcement that soft plastics can now also be put into the recycling bin is great – unless it means we now are less careful to avoid soft plastic in the first place!
Plastic continues to be a huge waste of resources, even if recycled. Yet only about half of the soft plastic that might hit our recycling bins is likely to be recycled, according to the waste management industry.
So what should we do?
The less plastic we bring into our household, the better. We all can do more of the following:
- Avoid plastic!
- Bring keep cups, refillable containers, reusable bags for loose items when shopping
- Leave packaging in the shops – Skerries Tidy Towns have been actively working with shops to make this easier
- Use waste-free shops like the Greener Grocer in Balbriggan or various stalls at the Skerries Farmer’s Market
- Recycle what you bring home properly:
- Put clean, hard and soft plastic loosely into your recycling bin so it can be recycled more easily. (Dirty plastic is only good for incineration, it seems.)
- Compostable is a more complex problem than we originally thought. We have contacted Panda to find out whether it can be put into the brown bin. Unless it is “homecompostable” it is not suitable for our normal home compost, as it needs higher temperatures to be broken down. However, a bit of web research showed that in some instances (e.g. in one UK case we came across), it proved too complex for the waste company to sort through all coffee cups etc. that found their way into the food waste bin, so that they were all taken out of the composting process. For now, it seems, it’s best to stay away from compostable / degradable cups. Use your Keep Cup instead.
Sources / further reading:
- RTÉ, accessed version: 6 September 20221: Soft plastic can now be put in recycling bins
- Irish Times, 6 September 2021: Household recycling upgrade accepts soft plastics
- The Journal.ie, 7 September 2021: Soft plastic: How much of it will actually be recycled and what difference will it make?
- My Waste FAQs https://www.mywaste.ie/why-faq/
- Compostable, Degradable, Biodegradable…: http://www.lesswaste.org.uk/recycle/compostable-degradable-biodegradable-and-oxodegradable-plastics/
Sustainable Skerries 