Born and bred in a victorian London terrace to clean parents who despaired of a daughter that liked getting muddy. Taken to my Aunt's sheep and cattle farm in Wales for all of my school holidays while growing up, where I got to experience lambing, shearing, dipping, hay and strawmaking, etc. Lost touch with it all in my mid to late teens when i discovered boys and booze.
Was introduced to food growing in my late 20s after visiting a work colleague's house and admiring her strawberry patch. She dug up two plants and I stuck them on the windowsill of my rented first floor flat and over the months that followed I caught the growing bug. I had a huge bay window so tried growing whatever I could, including herbs, dwarf green beans, beetroot, carrots and mini sweetcorn (talk about enthusiastic!) in massive tubs. I have fond memories of visiting B&Q every evening on the walk home from work to pick up tiny bags of compost.
I outgrew the flat, literally, and ended up moving from to a house with a garden, but the landlord didn't want me growing veggies in the borders so I got a local handyman to knock up two 5x2 foot wheeled containers and I practiced square foot gardening in them. I learnt about foraging and scoured the canal paths and footpaths in the area for hedgerow fruits that I could preserve. I took on an allotment but hated traipsing backward and forward with my tools (i didn't have car) and not having any cover from the elements (sheds were not allowed) plus there was a public right of way through it so produce kept going missing.
After I met my husband, we came across, quite by accident, a very run down three-bed ex council house with a 1/4 acre back garden and decided to renovate it. We grew our own fruit and veg and kept chickens and ducks, practiced preserving, baking, rural skills, as we slowly restored it. Then at the beginning of 2016 we got wind of a massive warehouse development planned just outside the village, so large it would join two rural villages together. By then his hobby had pretty much used up all the available space on the property and I wanted to keep bigger animals so we decided to move.
We'd visited this area before on holiday and loved it so decided to find a farm or smallholding up here. We found this place, again quite by accident, fell in love with it and that was that. Although it was only 1.5 acres, the house was a 20 year old self build and immaculate, and it came with victorian brick barns in good condition and a half acre paddock with mature fruit trees.
There are no veg beds here, so I've started square foot gardening on the patio using pallet collars, and am working on introducing proper veg beds into the paddock, with the help of the chickens who are clearing a large rectangular area every few months. In time we'll acquire some more land and maybe expand, but for the moment we're focused on doing something new and major every year (this year pigs next year sheep) and building up slowly. We still have full time jobs, but i work from home so i can keep an eye on animals during the day and do a bit here and there.
