[symber]

Hello,
 
  I've been wondering how best to make use of the 9 acres of grass I'll soon be living on and have found diagrams like this and this quite useful for ideas.
 
  If anybody who reads this has ever drawn up their own smallholding field-plan like this and is willing to show it, I'd be very interested in seeing it - the more ideas I can gather before I commit to fences/ploughing/planting/building etc, the better, I think.
 
  In case anybody's interested, here's what I've got already...the blue thing is a 14x30ft polytunnel and the grey things are my house, a big shed and the drive/yard.  There are trees planted part way along two boundaries.  The swampy bits marked get wet in the winter and dry out in the summer; there's a small burn running along two boundaries - the whole field is on a slope, steeper in the middle and pretty much level at the bottom.  North is straight up...
 
  Like I say, I'd be interested to see any plans people have drawn up themselves, especially in terms of what's worked and what hasn't worked...
 
  Thanks for any help
 

[pgkevet]

A huge question.

It epends on what you are allowed to do, what you want to do, what you know about then how much money you can invest, whether you need a return, need to lve totally from it etc.

Doubtless the best return if allowed would be to cover it in polytunnels and grow something expensive..

As someone who only has a hobby farm 'cos i liked the view and the amount of land to chase my dog about on a  quad bike... Well what i did was stick 3 greenhouses and a large hobbyshed, planted an orchard and a large patch of soft fruit and ploughed up 2 x 1/4 acre veggie patches. the wide has a few chickens and somehow we've ended up with a few pet sheep. Absolutely nothing commercial about it.

Reality is that it probably costs me more in equipment and fuel and certainly in time and effort to deal with fallen trees and stuff in my woodlands and process the timber for the wood-burners than buying oil and I'd be a darned sight better ff financially if I'd carried on working. Mind you i'd probably have gone nuts....

[Porterlauren]

If you have got nine acres of decent grass. . . . maybe you could put off doing anything until a bit later in the year, get a cut of hay off it first, and give yourself some extra cash to put into your project? Just an idea.

[Stellan Vert]

Hi from Shropshire,

When we moved onto our smallholding 16 months ago I was advised not to rush into anything to give it at least a year to learn about our holding. Although it wasn't what I wanted to hear or do, I am glad I followed the advice. I have learned where the warm and cold areas are, which part dry out quickly, which areas remain wet. I have laid hedges and gained a 5 metre wide strip in one field. I had planned to use one area as a stock holding area and I was going to put a poly tunnel in another area. These plans have changed.

I'd go with Porterlauren's comment; take a hay cut, give yourself time to learn about your land.

SV

[Big Light]

Put gates in the dryest closest corners of fields and not in the middle of fence lines

Depending on how wet the boggy areas are consider fencing them off - (especially if your are in an area with fluke) you could use them for growing willows or summer grazing

If the land is sloping consider how a vehicle can safely travel across it and position fences / gates to allow that also

Make a decision on what you plan to use the land for - if you are planning crops then a big square area is ideal. If you are planning breeding stock then have enough fields for field rotation but remember you perhaps would (for sheep) need one for tups, one for ewes and lambs, one for growing sheep (gimmers  / wethers) plus several others to rotate them into - also ideally create a fank - ( handling facilities) that could lead into a number of fields - obviously different species have different needs and also depending on numbers kept - the tups would perhaps need smaller fields than ewes and lambs etc - or could be let to graze 2 fields

However as others have said take your time make a plan and get in right first time

[symber]

Hello all,
  thanks very much for your comments - wise and sensible all
 
  I left it to grass and had it baled last year - I got about £400 out of it as I remember - I probably will end up doing the same this year, but I'm starting to think I should probably do something more than grow grass year on year
 
  I'm not looking for commercial viability (I'm probably about 991 acres short of that being possible!), but I would like to have a reason to do a bit of ploughing, the space to keep fifteen or twenty sheep or so for the wool, I quite like the idea of keeping a few goats, but I think more as company for the sheep than for any good reason (too soft to farm them for meat / not convinced I'd be able to regularly milk dairy stock).  I've helped keep cows in the past and the one thing I've learned from that is you couldn't pay me to keep cows myself!  I'm putting a poly-tunnel up at the moment with the intention of growing fruit and semi-exotic veg (globe artichokes for one!) and have fruit and apple trees planted, but they're still at the twigs-with-leaves stage at the moment...
 
  Anyway, I'm sort of rambling now, so any more thoughts from people (I'd still be interested to see other peoples field plans) would be very much appreciated,
 
Thanks.

[pgkevet]

I wouldn't have thought of a polytunnel for giant thistles
I did grow artichoke plants the first year but soemthing kept eating the leaves even when they were a foot high. I found that annoying considering I've got one slope where wild thistles grow superbly with no sign of  munching....

You'll find me promoting the following at every opportunity: there are cold hardy variants of pecans, hickory nuts and lots of other nut trees one cn grow..if you have the patience to plant stuff for future generations. Monkey puzzle nuts are highly nutritious too. The website name is on my other PC, though.

Also look at honeyberries for novelty and tolerant to -40C

Also consider some citrus - just need to keep it frost free over winter as opposed to tropical. I'm virtually self sufficient in lemons and limes but I think my grapefruit is on the wrong rootstock and I did lose my only orange some years ago.

There's a plant place on anglesey that claims to grow coffee and tea bushes in unheated polytunnels among other stuff and tea is grown in devon. A dessert grape will always go better in a polytunnel and with careful pruning can act as some summer shade

[AndynJ]

We put 8 log cabins on ours sold them off to other people charge them a ground rent plus extra for looking after their lettings, I reckon we earn more from them than sheep