By Obiabin Onukwugha
Venturing to succeed where others failed is one thing that sets entrepreneurs apart. This is success story of a couple who turned around a once famous Wood Garlic Farm.
Wood Garlic Farm is a 200-year-old farmhouse ringed by sycamore trees and a smallholding of vegetables, south of Ballyhaunis in Feamore, Ireland.
The farmers are young Britons, Liz Arnold from Bristol and Jeremy Arnold who grew up in Somerset, Devon. They had never been to Ireland before they came and bought the place in 2018, having first seen it on a Facebook page for smallholders.
“It was on the market for a couple of years. We saw it again and having not found anything we visited. We hit it off with the owners, we shared similar views,” they were quoted as saying by Western People.
It was reported that in their first year in Feamore, the duo unearthed abandoned polytunnel hoops and re-erected them, covering the tunnel which now grows tomatoes (a bountiful crop, part of which they freeze). They also built raised beds from scaffolding planks purchased from Jake’s Yard, an architectural salvage business located near Ireland West Airport.
Having got the gardens sorted, they turned to Airbnb as a source of income and today the business earns them approximately €100 a night for two people. They get guests year-round but close in January, the report noted.
It was gathered that during the Covid-19 pandemic, people came from Belfast and Dublin to escape the big city and once hosted a celebrity guest, actress Aisling Kearns from Fair City.
“In Bristol, I had my own garden and liked to grow. I always had a dream of being a smallholder and keeping some animals. We looked at a lot of places in the UK but there was nothing perfect,” explained Liz.
“We also looked in France, Italy and Spain but maybe the climate wouldn’t have worked, I can’t function in the heat. I like the Irish climate, the rain and the drizzle.”
The previous owners wanted to sell to people who would keep the philosophy of the place.
“We are still friends,” said Jeremy.
That philosophy is permaculture which the couple interprets as farming in harmony with nature while also reducing waste and reusing materials.
The couple, who had taken courses in permaculture before moving to Ireland, have fashioned a greenhouse and a storage shed from reused timbers and steel sheeting. There’s a shed of timbers saved by the previous owners for use in other projects.
A covered deck constructed next to the Bambi camper van allows guests to sit and view the countryside while a fireplace fashioned from the drum of a washing machine is left atop a car wheel rim. It’s an ingenious adaption as both look as if purposely designed for the job, with barbecue implements left to hand for guests.
A washhouse next to the camper van offers a panoramic field view. Again, it’s been assembled with quality recycled construction materials. The cast iron bath had been abandoned in a field and is now repainted with imagination.
The wild garlic after which the house is named grows in abundance in early June – a delicious ingredient for salads and pestos. They have six hens from a rescue – battery hens given a new lease of life. They were pretty traumatised when they arrived.
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Visitors can walk signposted trails which Jeremy has moved through the grass, down to the river where they can sit and view a conifer forest that looms over the far field. Lillies from a waterway in Bristol add colour to a pond along the trail connecting the camper van to the river.
The couple have adapted practices and knowledge long forgotten: the alder tree which thrives in the wetter soils of the west of Ireland re-grows quickly if coppiced for firewood.
The couple grows garlic, potatoes and greens and herbs in raised beds. Mushroom compost has helped mulch and fertilse soil that’s already rich. A compost that includes leaf mulch.
A fruit garden and orchard have provided lots of apples. Two peach trees in the polytunnel bear fruit. Seeds are collected after growing season.
“Plants adapt to the soil and growing conditions as they grow, so each year you collect that seed the plant evolves,” explains Jeremy.
In Autumn, he brews wine from elder and blackberries harvested from the fields.
“All you need to buy is sugar and yeast. With a few demi johns (large glass bottles) the process is simple, as long as everything is sterilised.”
One of the features of the small farm is a flock of 12 short-tailed Soay sheep, a small-bodied breed descended from a population of feral sheep on the tiny island of Soay off the west of Scotland.
“They drop their fleece by themselves,” explains Liz.
Sheltered by whitethorn trees and large sycamores, the sheep keep the couple’s small fields trimmed.
“They were here before us, the owner sent them back from Clare because the soil there wasn’t suitable for them.”
As a vegetarian, Liz is loath to sell them for slaughter. A family in Cork bought one of their lambs for pets.
“Our diet isn’t exclusively Irish or home grown, we do buy cereals at Tesco,” explains Liz, pointing to a shelf of breakfast cereals in the kitchen of the farmhouse.
Six years after arriving, Liz and Jeremy are preparing to move back to the UK. This is partly because as a couple they’ve split up. Also, they feel the project is ready to pass on to new owners who share their philosophy of sustainability and farming with nature.
“We’ve achieved all we’d set out to achieve,” says Liz.
There have been a couple of viewings by potential buyers, including a lady from Switzerland.
“It’s not necessarily going to sell to a traditional local buyer,” explains Liz.
