The Permaculture Challenge

This is the tenth anniversary of Bealtaine Cottage Permaculture Smallholding.

It’s hard to believe that ten years ago this was a desolate cottage on three acres of the poorest agriculture land imaginable.

Wet, north-facing, thin, dauby soil promised little in the way of growing.

It was a challenge few in their right minds would have contemplated, let alone sink their life savings into, as well as borrowing from the bank!

But, I fell in love with the land, for it looked immeasurably forlorn and abandoned.

My approach was simple…it was holistic, nothing was separated or apart…all was connected and that included being connected to me, as the new caretaker and caregiver.

I have never taken a Permaculture course, but read every book on the subject and applied the principles. As a teacher I had created environmental gardens in primary school grounds in London, bringing Mother Nature to children living, in many cases, remote from Mother Nature and all her wonders!

In the early days I was physician and surgeon, intensive care nurse and visitor, channeling all my energy and hope into the sick land.

Working on my own was a blessing, for the land took all my time and love.

After ten years, this once barren little place is one of the most fertile and productive pieces of land in all of Ireland…in fact I would like to issue a challenge to The Botanical Gardens in Dublin and it is this: Bealtaine Cottage has more biodiversity in it’s flora and fauna than the Botanical Gardens, Dublin!

Visit and prove me wrong!

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And in the beginning there was only this…