Myself and my wife live on the west coast of Ireland, a few hundred feet from the tempestuous Atlantic that has thrown seven major storms at us over the last two months. Our efforts to create a Permacultural smallholding on our half acre are hampered by salt-laden winds and the general roughness of our rocky, acidic soil (what little there is). We also lack tree cover and though we are surrounding our perimeter with lots of hedging it is a slow process as the plants tend to spend much of their first few years working on establishing their roots and seem reluctant to reach for the kind of height we would like. We have seen lots of wonderful success stories from the desert and cold climates but what of our wet and windy, salty-aired, temperate mudbath? How can we best create the microclimate we so need? (We are blessed with an endless supply of seaweed for fertilizer, by the way).
