A walk in the woods to see how the snowdrops are blooming
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 2022-02-07

Every year I split clumps to keep spreading them out through the woods. Most of these snowdrops were brought back from Russia and Serbia then planted by my grandfather as gifts to his mother, my great grandmother, from his travels. My grandfather traveled to these countries as a young man to learn the language and taught English to earn a living. Granny probably did her fair share of splitting snowdrop clumps when she moved here inn 1940s after my Great grandfather died.



Zwartbles Ireland is a small company run from a farm in County Kilkenny in Ireland. We are a regenerative farm which means restoring soils health and regenerating its natural carbon and nutrient cycle with biodiversity of pasture sward with grasses, legumes, forbs and herbs. This also means we farm with nature. Healthy soils are important for healthy environment. So we encourage all life from the microbial to dung beetles, ants, pollinators to flora biodiversity, birds, hare, hedgehogs, rabbits, fox, badger as well as our livestock. This mean we farm in a style of mob grazing and giving fields long rest times between grazings. We have seen a huge increase and return of wildlife including woodcock and snipe in winter months foraging for dung beetle larvae, red squirrel, wood peckers and pine martens. We also have the rare natter bat and previously thought extinct Tawny Mining bees.
We sell, Zwartbles sheep, Zwartbles blankets and yarn made from the sheep, and calendars featuring Inca the World's Smallest Sheepdog and her coworkers. We also sell alpaca yarn spun for our own alpaca. Our yarns are 100 percent natural, grown by our sheep which grazing our small green Irish fields. This wool is naturally sequestered carbon which you can then knit into warm environmental friendly clothing.