Our Smallholding is nestled in the valley of Slievenamon, with the mountain to the south-west, the hills of Ballingarry and Tullaroan to the west and north respectively. The flat limestone of Kilkenny is to the east.

It's only on loan from nature to care for, nurture and preserve for future generations.

Using permaculture principles and techniques, it can produce enough food to feed us with little resource to manufactured/processed food.

Traditional Methods

I'm Stasia, I grew up on a traditional mixed farm, where care of the land was always a priority.  The methods were natural and labour intensive, but were gradually superceded by technology.  I retain the memories of these earlier methods and the reasons for them; this was the background that informed my early design and planting.

Initially, there were two fields which were made into one and our house was built on the higher ground.  The area for the house was sectioned off for gardens and leisure areas, leaving a field at the south/west, surrounded by higher ground.  Just a few inches of topsoil secrete a heavy clay soil and beneath this yellow clay layer, lies blue marl.  The effects of this geological and topographical makeup are trapped nutrients and the accumulation of surface water during wet periods.

The Field

"The field" - a couple of acres, was too small to make it viable as land that could be leased to a farmer using modern farming methods, yet it is too large to manage ourselves by standard methods.  In the past, neighbouring farmers have set their sheep to graze it or have taken a crop of hay/silage off it, but because of its size, it really was more trouble than it was worth to them. The leasing was probably, more as a favour to me than a viable undertaking for them, especially as I had banned the use of artificial fertiliser from about 1988, which is a necessity in conventional agriculture.

Poultry has always a part of Our Smallholding and for some years we've been breeding to improve utility strains, while adhering to breed standards.  Our activities in this area can be found on our poultry website.

When the grounds were initially planted over 20 years ago, I choose plants & trees for around the house that were suited to our soil conditions, to provide shelter, to encourage wildlife and be visually interesting all year round.  Insects were enticed to flowers, trees were planted for their berries/fruit and a wild garden was allowed to grow unrestricted.

An area was set aside for an orchard and another for a kitchen garden.   Regrettably, I knew nothing of the writings of Rudolf Steiner, the scientifically developed methods of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren or the  the work of Sepp Holzer then; we'd have a fully productive, edible landscape, including a food forest garden by now if I had!

However; it's never too late to make adjustments.  The gardens and the earlier plantings are now well established but lack long-term sustainability.  The heavy frosts and low temperatures of 2009 /2010 and 2010 / 2011 have eliminated any tender shrubs.  A new design is timely, based on permaculture principles.

Ying and Yang

Eddie, my partner is a real good-life enthusiast and always has a project on the go with another one waiting on the wings. He is currently adding the finishing touches to the restoration of a 22 year old pickup that we can use to move heavy and bulky stuff around.  I regret not having earlier photos of this vehicle to compare with how she will look when she is finished.  He is always experimenting on something or other.  Somehow between us we bring a balance to Our Smallholding.

We are currently planting for and developing an ecosystem that will be bio-dynamic and self-sustaining.  This is a steep learning curve for us, one in which I'm sure we will make many mistakes.

We would love you to join us on this journey and perhaps we can support and encourage each other, when we are stuck or get it completely wrong.  We can celebrate together when we are aligned with nature.