An excellent educational moment with Pat about what was wrong
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 2023-04-03

It wasn’t till Pat mentioned chlorosis that I twigged what was wrong. Of course there would’ve been sickly soil here after generations of coal/turf dust had piles up. Kind of like a mini slag heap. Even though I had dug out loads and added in good soil. The plant’s root probably when beyond the good stuff and hit the old bad stuff. Lesson learned. 

Chlorosis, pale or yellowing, of leaves can have many different reasons. Often it’s a harmless part of a plant’s natural growth cycle. It can however be indicative of adverse conditions such as nutrient deficiencies, pests, diseases or soil problems.
In this case my poor primroses the yellow one with green leaves shows it is feeling pale. This is has a lovely scent and called after gardener and plant breeder June Blake. Likewise the dark leaves of this Claddagh have the same symptoms but expressed with a paleness of its darker leaves which make its leaf Cain’s much more distinctive.  

Veiny and chlorotic looking leaves are one of the first important sign your plant is speaking to you. It’s letting you know that something is wrong. The plants leaves veins are very important for transporting both water and nutrients throughout the leaf. Healthy leaves are needed for plants to make their own food via photosynthesis. This pale look, chlorosis, could occur for several things like it’s not getting enough air in its surrounding soil, too much water or in this case the soil probably too much coal and turf dust. Coal and turf dust and ashes are not good for soil. They block all sorts of nutrients so the plants can’t extract what it needs from the soil. 





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.