hello Im new

[farmer reu]

hi. my name is reuben. on february 1st this year my partner lee and i took a giant leap with 7 other people and rented a 110 acre organic farm near bath. I had been working as a builder for the last 6 years in bristol and had grown a few veg plants in my back garden , composted etc but had NO idea about farming. on our land we have 1 acre of mature orchard , half acre of soft fruit , 6 acres of veg fields and five 80 ft polytunnels !. the rest of the land we rent out for grazing , hay/silage making. we have also started running events and workshops and have 5 weddings booked for this year !. when we took our farm on it had been squatted for quite a while so it was in bad shape and the land had not been managed well for a few years. after a month of carrying on working as a builder and planning veg growing ,crop rotations land management in the evenings we realised that I would have to be here full time with many volunteers if we were to have any chance of success. we are now coming to the end of our 5th month and things have really changed. there are now 4 of us who are here nearly all the time , we have a few people living in yurts buses ect who work the land for their rent and we are growing more veg than we know what to do with. we have our own website and have established a good volunteer database. at the moment we are mainly vegetable based and we have 10 chickens to give us eggs but we are hoping to get our first pigs soon with many other animals to follow. our motivation is self sufficiency love of nature and escaping the rat race, oh and the peak oil crisis ( looks like we've peaked ). anyway, i love this website and hope to be checking back in soon. got to go now cause the weeds grow quicker when i sit down .

[hedgewitch]

Hello there and welcome to the ishers. Your life sounds like my idea of heaven.

[red]

welcome

sounds like quite a project you have there.excellent

[Annpan]

welcome to ish, sounds like a wonderful thing you are doing there.

[MKG]

Hi Reuben

[Rosendula]

Hi

[clare]

Hi Rueben,welcome to 'ish'.I am new too and really pleased to find like minded people and learn from other 'ishers' too.

[AXJ]

110 acre organic farm near bath.

Holy cow, how big is the livingroom?

LoL

Welcome to a fine forum, very envious, best of luck with it all

[Thurston Garden]

Ahoy farmer reu!

What's yer website address? You could stick it in your footer for all to see!

[margyc]

hello i'm new to. cannot believe i've just discovered this site! Ben looking for something like this for AGES!

[cybach]

:tongue2: welcome I am surprised you even have time to sit let alone use this site it sounds a little piece of heaven you have got good luck it was always my dream I just managed 1 acre 25 years ago too disabled but I can still dream of what might have been