By Bernie Bell

We have two compost bins, made from various bits & pieces…

It doesn’t have to be big….to be a garden: Idea No. 12

I noticed, near the top of one of them, some little seedlings which I didn’t recognize, and called Mike over to see.  We decided it would be best to pot them up and see what happens, so we did

Mike was then thinking of what seeds go into the compost bins, and of those seeds, what might have a chance of germinating in the Orkney climate, in our compost bins, and he hit on the idea of apples.

He eats a lot of apples, and we remove the seeds from the cores before putting them out for the birds as there is some debate about whether apple seeds are harmful to birds, and we choose to err on the side of caution!

I then Googled…. ‘First stage of apple tree seedlings   images’ … and it looks like we potentially have five or six little apple trees! 

If they thrive and grow, we won’t have a place to put them, but we’ll nurture them, pot them on as needed, then ask does anyone with a more sheltered garden want them?  

I’ll ask Andrew Appleby does he want one, or more, for Clestrain, as it’s thought that there was an orchard there….

The Fruiting Trees of Clestrain Hall?

It’s the time of year when everything bursts into life – including the compost bins……they feed our veg patch, which then feeds us, and now……they’re  growing things!