Spring’s arrival of wild garlic has usually been our second major event in the kitchen store cupboard calendar, even as urban foragers before moving to The Secret Acre.
Of course moving to a new area this year first necessitated seeking out local woodland areas suitably carpeted with the Ramsons. But wild garlic has to rate as the easiest of forages. Continue reading
“I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade” – D.H. Lawrence.
This year we really need to make a start on the whole becoming more self-sufficient thing, now the house is fairly finished. Our store room is imposing an air of expectation upon us. Continue reading
One of the great joys and surprises of The Secret Acre’s eco-makeover has been our bespoke recycled kitchen.
From the outset, Emma has been dead set against buying commercial kitchen units. You regularly hear of people spending tens of thousands of pounds on commercial kitchens which all tend to look frankly so cheap and nasty you wonder why they bother. The answer is of course because we are told having a bespoke kitchen made for you is astronomical. Continue reading
One of the big disadvantages of leaving Bristol is moving away from the amazing artisan Mark’s Bread. One of the things we are looking forward to at The Secret Acre is learning to make bread ourselves.
There’s a very good reason why we won’t eat non-organic white bread from a supermarket. Not just because real bread like Marks tastes amazing, but because two in every three loaves of bread sold in the UK contain pesticide residues. Continue reading
One of the things we are looking forward to on our journey to a happier life is being creative in the new kitchen. Using our home grown produce and local foraging to cook, bake and preserve etc, perhaps eventually even selling some ‘farm kitchen business’ style as so many smallholders do. Continue reading
In 2014 we finally took the plunge and decided to put life before work.
The result was to take on a one acre smallholding near Stroud. Both the land and the bricks and mortar are in need of renovation as Estate Agents say!
So, our first tasks in 2015 are an eco-makeover of the house, prepare the veg beds, and repair the greenhouse and orchard for a productive 2016.
The Secret Acre 