Hello and Welcome to our blog! We hope you will join us as we share our smallholding journey with you. Both myself and my lovely partner and soon to be wife Michelle have a wide and varied experience around farming, gardening and cooking and are in the process of ‘starting again’ with my micro holding of just under one acre in Smithy Brook. We don’t however consider ourselves as experts in this field and will be sharing what we learn as we go along but also crucially we hope that you will share your experience with us and other readers as I’m sure many of you know far more than we do in many areas.
A little about myself. I was a childhood gardener encouraged by parents, grandparents and great grandparents. We moved house quite a lot but I always took over a corner of each garden as my own and grew mainly vegetables whilst reading everything I could get my hands on. I still own and use a book on vegetable gardening bought for me as a Christmas present by my grandparents whilst I was in my early teens over 40 years ago.
I qualified as a chef in the early 1980’s and spent sixteen years earning my living in various hotels, country clubs, restaurants and finally buying and running a small traditional Yorkshire Home Bakery in Leeds. However, during all my catering (as we used to call it) career I was constantly yearning to be outdoors and couldn’t see myself remaining a chef forever. I also found myself drinking far too much throughout my time as a chef, alcoholism was rife in the industry at the time and I found myself descending into the illness rapidly as I entered my thirties. Things had to change. I had to change. On 28th of May 1996 I started my journey of recovery with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous (I’ve not touched alcohol since that day). September of the same year saw me enrol at college to start my horticultural qualifications.
The last 24 years has been spent enjoying a career in horticulture. I started and built Aire & Calder Landscapes, growing it in to quite a sizeable enterprise. We have built many private gardens, worked with lots of different garden designers and of late moved into the commercial market and focussed on commercial grounds care.
Michelle was born and raised on a traditional Yorkshire Dales farm. She grew up on a farm worked by her parents, grandparents and uncle amid a tight knit dales’ community. She has endless tales to tell passed down through the generations of how farming used to be along with her own memories of traditional farming techniques she experienced as a child. As an adult she farmed around 150 acres with her ex husband and raised her own family whilst doing so. She has since qualified as a teacher and now teaches early years pupils. Michelle has a great love of food and cooking.
Michelle and I met in 2011 and have enjoyed sharing our love of the great outdoors including a joint passion for hill walking and travel. We are due to marry in August 2020 when she will join me in living in Smithy Brook. Her contributions to this blog will be priceless as I’m sure you’ll find out in due course.
I bought my home in Smithy Brook in 2003. A small terraced cottage that a previous owner in the 1950’s had bought an adjacent field and added to the property title. It was a rare chance to buy property with land at a price I could afford. The previous owner was the mother in law of a chef I had worked with for several years. She was selling following the passing of her husband who had used the land to keep poultry and small livestock. My friend Paul phoned and asked me if I was interested in buying. I remember going to view the house which needed complete renovation and then walking down the field to rear. The land was very overgrown with several derelict outbuildings and rotten sheds. Waist high bramble made it difficult to reach the end of the field. As I struggled my way through the thorns a heron took off from its position on the roof of a dilapidated shed where it had been perched surveying the passing water of Smithy Brook looking for its next meal. I was sold.
The timing was all wrong for me to buy. My business was still in a growth stage with little spare cash. My accounts wouldn’t really justify a mortgage. The house needed a complete renovation and I had little time to spare for building work around my growing business. Nonetheless I knew it was where I wanted to live. My recovery from alcoholism had introduced me to a ‘higher power’ or God. I was learning to trust this power and set about trying to buy my dream whilst ‘handing over’ the outcome. A friend in AA introduced me to a mortgage broker and a 95% mortgage was secured without him ever having to see my accounts. Those were the days of easy lending! Six months later when the seller had been allocated a council bungalow to move into, Smithy Brook was mine.
The years since then have been insanely busy. My alcoholic personality – despite me remaining 100% sober- does mean that I don’t do anything in moderation. In fact, my inability to do anything in moderation has become a bit of a joke with Michelle.
I built Aire & Calder Ltd into a sizeable company with a fleet of vans and numerous team members. I also began investing in property, buying and renovating several buy to let houses. In between working in my business and driving thousands of miles around the country attending property training and networking meetings I worked on my smallholding.
After clearing the land in Smithy Brook a poly tunnel and several poultry houses were built. Fences were erected. Gates were installed. Pig housing bought. Vegetable plots dug and fenced. Paths and raised beds installed. Hens, ducks, geese, turkeys, quail, rabbits and pigs have been kept. Beehives and bees have been introduced. Endless varieties of fruit and vegetables have been grown, pickled, frozen and cooked. I’ve loved every exhausting minute of it.
The last couple of years have been a time of reflection and taking stock. I finally realised I can’t carry on working at this insane pace forever.
I had stopped enjoying Aire & Calder Ltd. The business I had started because I loved being outdoors and creating beautiful gardens now saw me spending my days in the office or the car. Instead of building gardens my time was spent dealing with contracts, clients and staff issues. Government attacks on the buy to let sector and private landlords meant my property portfolio was becoming a burden rather than giving me the freedom of ‘passive income’ I had intended when I bought.
Smithy Brook was getting tired. The sheds, fencing, gates and paths I had installed fifteen plus years ago were starting to rot and need replacing. A lack of time meant that areas were becoming overgrown and scruffy.
Most importantly I wanted to be with Michelle. It was obvious I couldn’t ask her to join me in my chaotic lifestyle. It was time to build a more stable and sustainable future.
The difficult work began. Smithy Brook would need to take a rest whilst I sorted things out. At the end of 2018 I moved the last of my livestock off Smithy Brook. The land has lay fallow since then with no gardening at all taking place. I started to reduce my business letting go of most of my buy to let properties except the few closest to where I live. The more difficult task of shrinking Aire & Calder Ltd to a more manageable size started. Our offices in Wakefield and Ossett were closed and a small remote office in Harrogate set up. Vehicles were put up for sale, advertising cancelled, forklift trucks etc sold. Team numbers were gradually reduced throughout 2019 mainly through team members moving onto pastures new and the small team required for our newly structured business put in place.
2020 has started with the future definitely looking bright. My business is now a pleasure again. I am out working with a small team doing what I love – creating beautiful landscaped areas. Wedding plans are afoot and going well.
Now for Smithy Brook. The plan is to start anew. I have learnt much over the last 16 years about the land. How the weather affects it. The frost pockets. The wind direction. The routes the local foxes use to steal our poultry. I’ve also grown as a person over the last 16 years and believe I have better plans for how the garden should look and feel. I was very industrial in my outlook when I first laid out the land. Neat rows of beehives, straight lines of poultry sheds, straight paths and few flowers was the order of the day. The new Smithy Brook I am planning will have a much more cottage garden feel about it. Quirky shapes of vegetable beds, fruit bushes dotted around rather than in lines. Lots of flowers. Beehives hidden amongst the flowers. More decorative and less functional in design. The brook itself, the lovely little stream that flows through the land will also feature more and be much more visible than previously when it was behind a row of poultry pens.
Well those are the plans. Michelle will join me in Smithy Brook following our wedding in August. Until then I will be working to get things in shape. I anticipate the work will be slow as it still has to fit around us both working full time. I will share the journey with you as it happens. I hope you will join me and look forward to your help and suggestions along the way.
Until next time
Chris
