| In October 2005, Gary said we might do a little bit of work, but we would have a great opportunity to see Pat Foxwell's Permaculture garden in West Dorset. The deal was to visit the 'producers market' in Litton Cheney, which Pat attends monthly in the car park of the local pub, The White Horse Inn, then to go back to the site, move a small chicken run, share some lunch, and have a guided tour. http://www.littoncheney.org.uk/ Five of us from Tatnam Organic Patch (TOP) garden agreed without establishing quite how big the chicken run was. And despite the TOPS garden being in dire need of some attention, we had planned to spend the day heading west.
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Netting cloches. Pat plants crops around, over, and inside these igloos made from recycled materials. To rotivate the ground, she inserts 2 chickens and closes the door !
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Pat explained that traditionally the pasture was flooded 3 times a year to encourage verdant pasture for cattle grazing. She has re-used the technique, and arranged her paths to double as stream-beds, so that watering the vegetables is achieved by opening sluice gates and wading about between the beds.
But first the work. Amidst the current panic over Asian bird flu, Pat is quietly determined that 'her workforce' of chickens is the best way to keep the weeds down in the corners of the field that she can't easily otherwise get to. Eggs are in high demand, and the young trees she planted across the area are getting swamped by weeds. High time to move the chicken run to enclose a different patch.
Easy except that the most economical way was to move the 6 foot posts with netting attached. Bernard looked doubtful. Next time says Mark, I'll bring some vine-eyes of my own. Luckily the first post proved the deepest set, and only one of them succumbed to too much strength.
Lunch beckoned, Squash soup, stew with ... squash in it, and a vegetable curry. Mark and Gary competed to boil water in their storm kettles first. Fortified with food and tea, we're back to work.
Garry and Mark compete at tea-making
And after a short debate over a big stack of poles and netting, rolled in from both ends, four of us just managed to lug it across site, narrowly missing saplings en-route.
Around 3pm, as the sun was getting low, the tour was finally on. Pat explained the role of chickens, and WWOOFs (Willing Work on an Organic Farm) http://www.wwoof.org/. She delivers vegetable boxes to local customers every week. She said the monthly producers market is a fantastic way to be part of the local community. One of her mottos is act local think global - the Agenda 21 motto.
Pat started at the site in 1999, a short while after we started at TOPS. She designed and built a wooden cabin which is now "home".
There is no mains water, though the stream from a nearby spring runs clear. Electricity is raised by wind and a solar panel, but it only takes a brief visitor with a laptop PC to leave her 'powerless' for days.
Down by the river by summer, and in the end of the polytunnel over winter, Pat has constructed two small ovens, which, fired by a free supply of wood from broken pallets, heats her one luxury, a hot-tub.
Her intention was to be as self sufficient as possible, and to live lightly on the planet. We think she has done pretty well.
We have been considering a composting toilet on-site at TOPs. Not everyone is happy to water the compost heap directly. The picture at Pat's is of the liquid heap. Gents to the left, ladies to the right. As the straw bale decomposes, it is replaced by another, and goes around the trees in her woodland away from the crops. I didn't have time to take a pic of the solid heap, a far grander affair. Pat was grateful for our help, she relies heavily on volunteer help with big jobs. We returned home to Poole insipired and full of new ideas.
