Pocket Farm Magazine Features

Starting with self-sufficiency

Harvesting potatoes

Today it can seem unimaginable to leave everything behind and lead a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Smartphones, cars and constant food, water and energy supplies have all contributed towards an existence that is reliant upon these things every day ...

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Smallholding in Ireland

Chris feeding the goats

When Bridie Marshal and her husband Chris decided to sell up their family home and live “the good life” in rural Ireland some people thought they were mad but with both children grown up and living away from home they knew the time was right ...

Applying vintage tools in the 21st century

Old tools hanging in a shed

Mankind has used tools for many thousands of years. Our early ancestors would have used simple stone, bone or horn implements to break, crush or cut. These developed into surprisingly complex flint tools that were refined for precise cutting and ...

Product review: Norfolk Chicken Barn ‘Ecoflex’ poultry house

The Norfolk 'Ecoflex' Coop

The Norfolk Chicken Barn is an attractive traditionally shaped coop but that’s where tradition ends with this innovative new product. Made from Ecoflex – a mixture of recycled polymers and wood byproducts that would normally be burned or dumped in landfill ...

Eastern Promise: Smallholding and self-sufficiency in Bulgaria

Aftert the morning harvest

Antony Barrett and his partner Steph run Frog Shadow Farm – a self-sufficiency project in Bulgaria. We were lucky enough to be able to chat with them about smallholding in Eastern Europe and how it differs from here in the UK ...

Ragwort: menace or maligned?

Common Ragwort

A lot has been written about ragwort over the years and there is no doubt that this plant can be dangerous to your animals if ingested in significant amounts. The question, though, should perhaps be what constitutes ‘significant’ and is the threat posed by this plant worthy of the often ...

Product review: Easichick bio-secure poultry bedding

easichick, biosecure bedding

Easichick, which won a national quality product award last year, is a manufactured poultry bedding made from recycled wood fibre. It is treated with an organic additive making it bio-secure and therefore bacteria-free. It is made by Hadfield Wood ...

Woodland Ways: survival, bushcraft and country craft skills

Woodland Ways shelter building

Learning to live with the materials that nature provides and taking food from your surrounding environment is something that all animals do to a greater or lesser extent. In the case of humans we took this natural instinct and increasingly refined ...

Book review: Gardening for profit – from home plot to market garden

Gardening for Profit - Kate Collyns

This book is not an instruction manual to growing vegetables for retail nor is it intended to be. It focuses very closely on the business side of market gardening and to that end does a good job. It starts with specific information on essential ...

The great school farms revival

lancingcollege_pigs_600

We, as a community, are always going to need the skills to grow food and raise livestock. It’s fundamental and perhaps that realisation, driven by today’s increased interest in where and how our food is produced, is what is behind the recent rise in school farm ...

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