The Complete Guide to Smallholding

1 Introduction

COMING CLEAN

If you're looking for a bible for complete self-sufficiency, this isn't it. Just the idea of knitting my own toilet roll or roasting dandelion roots to create a coffee substitute to succour my friends makes me chuckle. I'm not interested in eating cabbage at every meal because it might grow well in our soil, or eating slices from a loaf that sounds, tastes and looks like a brick.

No one could ever give me the epithet of being worthy. I want to eat asparagus cut fresh, moments before the spears go in the pan, and suck raspberries off each finger in greedy glee. I also want a store of stunning beef in the freezer to make a meal of sirloin steak accompanied by field mushrooms gathered that morning and peas fresh from the pod, or a thick slice of gammon glazed with mustard and honey alongside a duck egg pillowed on mayonnaise and scattered with chives with newly dug salad potatoes. I want (I want a lot, don't I?) vats of cider glugging away in the store room for drinking and for cooking with rare-breed pork with chunks of apple in a casserole, and for turning into cider vinegar that will mutate into blackberry vinegar to accompany salad leaves grown in the polytunnel.

I want, when all's said and done, to grow, rear and make delicious things and have an interesting, seasonal, nature-observing and enhancing way of life.

A smallholding idyll.

There are so many different ways of smallholding and being a smallholder, and it should not be a way of life that makes a rod for your own back. Just because someone in the next village or on one of the ubiquitous rural life television programmes finds joy in keeping rabbits for the pot, or grows an acre of wheat that they thresh by hand and mill for flour, doesn't mean you have to. You might yearn for charcuterie without nitrates and have a fancy for pig-keeping, love eating chicken but have a fear of birds (in that case buy oven-ready quality ones from another source and don't keep poultry), or have a passion for jams and chutneys and be keen to grow fruit and vegetables.

This way of life should not be about wearing a hair shirt as if it only feels real if there's some suffering in the mix. Stuff that: life is hard enough. If producing the majority of your own food is an all-absorbing ambition, that's something we share; you have so many possibilities ahead of you, so choose the things that bring you joy.

What I hope this book will give you is a comprehensive insight and guidance into the various elements of a possible smallholding life. Pick and choose the bits that feel right and fit with your life and aspirations, and ignore the parts that don't (although you can't ignore everything - if you have livestock or make food for sale there are rules and regulations).

The reason that smallholding is of abiding interest for so many people is precisely because it offers a different way of being, away from the career ladder, commuting and office politicking. Being in charge of every decision is hugely freeing, but the reality is that this way of life has significant ties: this is a 365-days-a-year job (although you can have time out and holidays - we'll get to that bit later). It's an opportunity to learn a lot of new things and new ways of doing things, not re-creating the irritations, furies and sadnesses of office life. And because making this way of life pay is something that so many potential and new smallholders want to know about, there's plenty of grounding, pragmatic information about that too.

THE GOOD SMALLHOLDER

There are certain traits that undoubtedly help make a smallholder. Having a robust constitution, both physical and mental, is undoubtedly helpful, although it's also clear that smallholding activities can help heal a troubled mind. Machinery is a life-saver when the muscles age and tire or if you have limited strength, but there is no denying that there is a great deal more physicality required in this life than in many others. Some days I can haul a 25kg sack of pig feed over my shoulder and trudge up the track with it, on other days it requires the help of a wheelbarrow.

Having self-discipline is crucial when you have livestock; those chitting potatoes might be able to wait another week before being planted out, but your livestock have to be fed, watered and checked every single day without fail, usually before you contemplate your own breakfast. If poo in whatever form freaks you out, you'll need to overcome this. Dealing with mortality becomes very real. If, like me, rats make you squeal (this hasn't improved much in thirty years), you learn to squeak and carry on regardless.

Having an aptitude for, or at least no fear of learning how to make and mend things, whether that is a fence or a goat shed, is helpful. Using hand and power tools is something you're just going to be doing. You might start off hammering the fencing stake ten times before you manage to hit the staple, but you'll get there if you hold the hammer properly and don't close your eyes while you do it.

Having project management skills is surprisingly useful; smallholding is nothing if not a raft of multiple projects with seemingly simultaneous demands on your time, and no boss other than the seasons providing a critical path analysis.

Smallholding is great for the immensely practical person, but it's also a thrill for those who love a mental challenge: there is so much that you can learn, from land management and enhancement, animal husbandry, midwifery, disease diagnostic skills, fencing, breeding, meat production, using tools effectively - and on and on it goes. Smallholding can keep you intellectually challenged and engaged for life. Unless you come from a farming or veterinary background, the skills and knowledge that you need are not something that most of us learned during our formal education, and there will be a whole swathe of new terminology and confusing equipment to get your head round.

Never has observation and action-based learning been more important as when a life depends on you, whether it be a duckling hatching out in an incubator, or at lambing time. You can (and should) go on some of the excellent courses now available to give you a kickstart and a proper grounding on topics where your enthusiasm outweighs your knowledge by the power of ten. But don't hop continually from one course to the next without putting into practice some of your new understanding: there comes a point when you just have to get stuck in.

Pilgrim geese in the farmyard.

Learn to use your eyes, ears, nose and hands around your new livestock. My nose alerts me immediately to any case of flystrike if we're handling the sheep - and more importantly, reassures that we don't have any problems of that nature. My ears will tell me if a sheep is in distress several fields away - a head stuck in a fence perhaps, or a lamb separated from its mother. Eyes have to be on full alert - you don't simply count the hens, lambs and pigs in the morning when you do your rounds, you are looking, always, for things that you don't want to find, so you can intervene early and avoid more serious complaints caused by failing to notice problems. And get hands on: a thick fleece or heavy feathering can hide poor body condition or parasites. Know how heavy your hens should feel when you pick them up, and how prominent the spine is on a well fed or an underweight sheep.

In the first few years, absolutely everything is a new challenge, from how to put up a livestock-proof fence, to what to feed your ducks, what works best as bedding in your poultry huts, and how to grow vegetables when you have heavy clay soil. But with the basics sorted, and with growing experience and a keen mind, your learning moves on to more demanding issues - to more effective land management, dealing with health issues without constant recourse to the vet, and breeding.

Then there's managing your plot for encouraging wildlife and native flora, rainwater harvesting, drainage, and possibly tractor and machinery use and maintenance. If you are scientifically minded you can explore carbon sequestration and soil health, do your own faecal egg counts and parasite analyses under a microscope, assess the impact of different grazing approaches on your land, and investigate the effect that minerals have on the soil and livestock. For those of a creative bent, working with fleece from the many and varied native breeds of sheep, or carving homegrown timber may satisfy the desire to make beautiful objects, and you will have endless subjects to inspire you if your interest lies in photography, painting or drawing.

You can develop the skills and understanding of an ecologist, environmentalist, nutritionist, agronomist and botanist. You can join schemes to monitor and maintain the health of your livestock, and the improvement of their conformation. If you are interested in showing your stock, that's a whole other learning curve, and would satisfy the most competitive smallholder urge. You could learn about and follow organic principles, explore the pros and cons of raw milk consumption, or write children's stories about a pet sheep named Curly.

Some smallholders become passionate about chickens - they keep many breeds, really understand the genetics behind feather colour, and can talk all things hen for hours on end - whereas I just want big, easy birds for delicious meat. Some smallholders have a passion for sheep and...