Tweet
Good morning all - just wanted to introduce myself and my project...
I have bought a 16 acre farm in south west France. Plans are to renovate the 5 buildings into gites (2 old houses and 3 massive barns) and to become as self-sufficient as possible growing our own veg / raising animals for meat etc. We are also looking to use solar and geothermal energy where possible, to cut down our energy bills.
We are just starting though, and its a long-term plan (5 years to complete the gite complex).
However, we are starting the vegetable plot immediately, and next week we are building 8 raised beds (10 x 4ft), a 3 bin compost heap + a couple of containers to make leaf mould.
We have rescued a huge concrete water container that the previous farmer used to use to mix his insecticides (sterilised it, and moved it with the JCB to the new veggie garden area). We are lucky enough to have access to agro water (equivalent to 2 pence per bath load!), so we can use the container to collect rainwater through the winter, and top up with agro water through the summer.
We have also divided off another stretch of land to plant a fruit orchard - cherries, figs, walnuts, pears, almonds, sweet chestnut, nectarines and apricots. And we will be planting that in the next four weeks.
I'm sure that we will have loads of questions as we go along, and I have seen that there are a number of people on the forum gardening in France - who I hope may have advice for my regional issues - like how you stop termites attacking the wood in the raised beds!!
If anyone would be interested - I can post up the progress on designing and building the veg garden and the orchard, with piccies obviously. An opportunity for you to guide me, laugh with my failures and celebrate my successes (hoping that there will be a few!)
I have bought a 16 acre farm in south west France. Plans are to renovate the 5 buildings into gites (2 old houses and 3 massive barns) and to become as self-sufficient as possible growing our own veg / raising animals for meat etc. We are also looking to use solar and geothermal energy where possible, to cut down our energy bills.
We are just starting though, and its a long-term plan (5 years to complete the gite complex).
However, we are starting the vegetable plot immediately, and next week we are building 8 raised beds (10 x 4ft), a 3 bin compost heap + a couple of containers to make leaf mould.
We have rescued a huge concrete water container that the previous farmer used to use to mix his insecticides (sterilised it, and moved it with the JCB to the new veggie garden area). We are lucky enough to have access to agro water (equivalent to 2 pence per bath load!), so we can use the container to collect rainwater through the winter, and top up with agro water through the summer.
We have also divided off another stretch of land to plant a fruit orchard - cherries, figs, walnuts, pears, almonds, sweet chestnut, nectarines and apricots. And we will be planting that in the next four weeks.
I'm sure that we will have loads of questions as we go along, and I have seen that there are a number of people on the forum gardening in France - who I hope may have advice for my regional issues - like how you stop termites attacking the wood in the raised beds!!
If anyone would be interested - I can post up the progress on designing and building the veg garden and the orchard, with piccies obviously. An opportunity for you to guide me, laugh with my failures and celebrate my successes (hoping that there will be a few!)
) I, for one, would love to see pictures of your progress.
Comment