The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: Auntyhen on September 30, 2012, 09:57:14 am
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Hello. The relevant word is accidental in this group's name as far as I am personally concerned. I have ended up owning five and a half acres of land because when my sister and her husband wanted to buy the house and some land from a deceased tenat farmers landlord, they could not quite afford the proposed land parcel, so I put all my savings in and bought a third of it. This was not as altruistic as it may seem as it is five minutes from my suburban semi and as I have a disability the idea of an idyllic wildflower meadow to watch nature in appealed to me. Holidays require too much feeling like a burden. Long story short, that was four years ago. As the years passed I learned the hard way that nature delivers thistles stinging nettles and brambles when left alone, not wildflowers. I discovered, as did sister, contractors who can small bale hay are like gold dust. I discovered schemes that purport to offer "free" trees usually come with atrings that are either expensive in fencing or contracing, or require hard labour. I now have neither money nor muscles!
I shall be following this forum with real interest, hoping to learn some useful stuff from others. Oh...the complication is that the land has been quarried for sand since Roman times, until about twenty years ago in fact. It therefore is crazily patchy, between hardcore infill with a thin mixed soli topping, and lovely patches of sandy loam. Unmapped, officially "contaminated" but signed off by council as safe. This year got my first hay crop, 380 bales, and helpers plantd three hundred trees at the wet end. Adjacent land belongs to shooting estate and is wooded.
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hi from cornwall. sounds like you have a project on your hands, maybe letting it to the huting fraternity could raise some more funds.
good luck and keep planting trees! :thumbsup: :tree:
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Good luck with your land. Know what you mean about the thistles and brambles. I'm just waiting for the weather to improve before I have another go at cutting them all back.
But all that hay! Must have more than paid for the contractors costs and at least you have plenty of winter fodder. :thumbsup:
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Welcome from Worcestershire :wave:
Sounds great :thumbsup: Lots and lots of hard work, but I bet you are enjoying it really ???
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Hello and welcome, from Durham :wave:
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Hello and good luck :fc:
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:gloomy: Hi and welcome from a very wet Wales :wave:
Sally
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Thankyou very much for such a warm welcome....and Wales may be wet but I have holidayed in the Fishguard area for a few years now and wet or dry it is amazing. I am in Charnwood Leicestershire, lovely to hear from all over UK.
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Hi and welcome from Shropshire. Pity you're not a bit nearer. I could have brought my :goat: :goat: for a vist. They love thistles and brambles. ;D
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Hello and welcome from sunny Carnoustie :wave: