The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: County Dangler on August 16, 2013, 09:58:55 am
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Hi
After 4 years of looking myself and my partner completed on our lovely little piece of Cornwall last April and are now starting to make inroads into establishing our own little small holding and business.
The land is close to the north Cornish coast, is 16 acres and has a slight southward slope. It is bare agricultural land-no electricity, no water, no buildings and no gates so we have a mammoth task on our hands in just getting some infrastructure in place.
At present we have separated a 2 acres strip for ourselves and the rest is rented to the local farmer who currently has a crop of Barley on it which, pleasingly, is going to the local brewery (and I'll be having a sack to start my own brewing!) We have loosely separated our 2 acre strip into 3. In the first area we have established a 25m x 50m veg plot with rabbit proof fencing and a 10m x 5m fruit cage and within the next month it will also contain a 24' x 72' polytunnel, which we are starting this weekend, and a 30m x 50m plot for growing flowers. In the second area we have sewn a non intensive paddock grass mix and in the third area we have laid 10 x 20m strips of mypex under which we will plant the mixed orchard this autumn and the area in between the strips have been sewn with a wildflower/grassy meadow mixture which looks fabulous at the moment. We intend on planting mixed coppicing/edible hedgerows to separate the three areas this autumn.
Myself and my partner have very little agricultural experience though i originally hail from a farming community (last of the summer wine country) and my Mrs is from a family of North wales sheep farmers.
Expect lots of differnet questions over the coming months and years as we intend on doing lots of different things. The plan for this coming year is: borehole, chickens for food (we already have chickens for eggs at home) a couple of pigs and I'm starting a beekeeping course in a month. I am self employed so can put a reasonable amount of time in but my Mrs is looking to go full time on her flower growing in the early part of next year.
Thanks for reading.
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Wow - sounds like a fab setup - well done both :thumbsup:
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Welcome! :wave:
That's a very impressive sounding start - it makes me feel like I should be getting more things done myself!
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It all sounds great. Welcome to the forum :wave:
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Welcome to the forum :wave: I'm exhausted just reading about how much you have achieved in such a short time. good luck with it :sunshine:
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I've just come back from the north Cornish coast. Tehidy, near Camborne. Lovely part of the country. Whereabouts are you?
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Welcome to Kernow - we moved here permanently 4 years ago and I love it more everyday :excited: We are in West Cornwall, equidistant from north and south coasts - only 3 miles away in either direction :thumbsup:
Sounds like you are plannign well and pretty organised - enjoy!
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Welcome to Kernow
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Hello! You've done loads already, it sounds fabulous.
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Thank you for the welcome. It's not quite a welcome to kernow though, we have lived here for 15 years. I couldn't go back. In fact I could live anywhere else. As a sea angler we have pretty much the best fishing in the country. I'm out fishing right now in fact and have a lovely pollock and mackerel to go with some of the masses of veg that needs eating.
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Hi from the Isle of Mull :wave:
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Sounds fantastic and what a lovely part of the uk to build a smallholding.
Enjoy, Ray
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:wave: hi from :sunshine: Shropshire. Sounds like a great place you have there. Will you be installing solar or wind power or are you hoping to have mains electric.
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I'm not sure yet is the honest answer as far as electricity goes. A generator will be our first port of when the need arises and I'm not to sure we will ever need anything more then that. Certainly not for the foreseeable future.