8 Comments

Thanks for sharing this piece, Roselle, along with the guest perspective. "The basic idea of a small minority of people producing food for everyone else seems flawed, and the catastrophic environmental consequences of mechanised farming are now becoming apparent." It rings so true, and is so encouraging to hear another story similar to our story, where you just start small by hand and keep inching along, and rather than feeling impoverished, you rather feel enriched 💕

Expand full comment
author

Hi Sydney

Thank you for this. Yes, Gareth puts it both simply and well, doesn't he? Summing up capitalism in one sentence.

Yes, exactly - starting small and inching along; feeling the journey and work has enriched you, as you imply. x

Expand full comment

Wonderful piece and I love Sydney's 'inching along' -- we seem to be barely millimetring along, but it will come... :)

Expand full comment
author

Thanks Jan - and ahh we feel the same here! Little pockets among the now-ungrazed pastureland - which raises other dilemmas for us (I'll explore them in later posts).

Expand full comment
Apr 5Liked by Roselle Angwin

It’s an inspiring concept. We live in suburbs where people used their gardens to provide their own vegetables. It sounds hard work to hoe so much land. And run a publishing business. I look forward to picking up hints that might be relevant to small gardens. We do have plenty of birds. We no longer ‘tidy’ our garden so they and slugs have a great time!

Expand full comment
author
Apr 5·edited Apr 5Author

Hello Marg

Their farm is very inspiring – productive but not tame, and they do work hard, but you can see that once it's set up it's fairly straightforward. The hoe farming is done with a digging hoe, more like a mattock than what we think of as a hoe. The place is beautiful to visit.

I think we should all convert our lawns into veg gardens, preferably perennial! So glad yours is no longer tidied ;-).

Expand full comment

Good history and story!!

Expand full comment

Hi Roselle, this is such an important subject isn’t it?

If only there could by whole communities of Gareth’s! And if only children of school age could be sent to study with these communities instead of being forced to pass or fail as is often the case, exams on subjects that are unnecessary in living healthy sustainable lives..

Petite à petit, Small steps I guess! Just like Garett…

I hope you have recovered full spring force xxx

Expand full comment