Starting out at Hungerdown Lane

Just before the millennium my partner and I were fortunate enough to find a house and four acres of land that we could afford to buy. It was virtually derelict, the land had been left untouched for fifteen years, 300 square meters of glass was a home to a colony of rabbits, known locally as “Centre Parks for rabbits”. The orchard that had been planted in 1949 was still intact but overgrown. The house was horrid and filthy. It was our dream come true.

We moved to Essex in order to be close to our parents and about to become parents ourselves we wanted grandparents on hand. After ten years of living in Totnes in Devon we suffered from culture shock. Where were all the cafes and where were all the bookshops? Although living in Totnes had been wonderful for some reason that time seemed to be over and here we were in the mainstream world. We were a bit shocked by our decision as were many of our Totnes friends, moving to Essex is not somehow part of an alternative lifestyle. This part of Essex is very beautiful, close to the Stour Estuary it is the home of Constable and those beautiful paintings, tourists are rare, and we are close to a still fully functioning small market town.

Our new home was on a Land Settlement Estate, these are dotted about the country and were build for unemployed miners in the 1930’s. They are made up of small semi-detached houses with four or more acres of land per plot, with outhouses originally intended for pigs and machinery. Ours were also planted with small orchards. Close by is a co-operative originally intended to market the produce from the 60 holdings on the estate. These holdings were privatised and sold off in the Thatcher years and they are now populated by high-tech growers, in this area predominantly out-of-season strawberry growers, where a four acre plot of high-tech glass still just about works as an economic unit. The rest are still occupied by the original “old boys” who have been growing for 30 odd years but cannot now make a living from it and more and more by people with horses.

I however planned to plant an organic orchard, at a time when most people were grubbing out their orchards. I also planted half an acre of woodland and extensive hedgerows. In all, I have planted 3000 trees in five years, 500 of which are fruit trees.

The glasshouse was cleared of rabbits in the nicest possible way …. By digging and watering the soil, they moved out to find another holiday destination. I started to grow salad leaves to put into salad bags.

The field was ploughed and sowed with clover to improve the soil structure and provide nutrients and the trees planted. The contractor who ploughed the soil could not sow the clover for me as the seed was too fine for his machines so we sowed it by hand. The contractor could not quite understand that I, being a woman, was the grower, and referred all of his questions to my partner, who, being a psychotherapist didn’t understand what he was talking about and referred him back to me !

I chose to plant 25 varieties of fruit, apples, pears and plums to spread the picking season and to slow down the spread of pests and diseases through the orchard. These were mostly new varieties bred to resist scab, a disease that puts spots on the apples and makes them unsaleable. Most winters I add a few local old varieties such as “Chelmsford Wonder” and “George Cave” and “Peasgood Nonsuch” ( which is not local but just has a lovely name).

I used permaculture methods to plan the layout of the holding, and biodynamic preparations to enliven the otherwise dead soil.

Growing Communities invited me to sell weekly at a Farmers Market in Stoke Newington, now I pick and sell there over the fruit season. I am not rich but it does mean that when the orchard comes into full cropping in another few years I will earn a decent living via direct retail sales in London. Out grades, or produce not good enough to sell I make into jam or juice and sell in the winter months. In fact I am doing what the original market gardeners did here 50 years ago.

It has taken seven years to develop the garden, and I now have two young children and a thriving orchard, and apples and plums in the summer drop from the sky !

What I have done with my holding seems counter intuitive for many of the local high-tech growers that are my neighbours. Low turnover, but most of it is profit, low tech (one rusty tractor mower) but setting up a system that does not need technology to function, low energy (or carbon) input because I have chosen plants that function at different times of the year to provide continual cropping. It all makes sense to the person versed in organic or permaculture methods, but is somewhat strange to the grower who supplies the supermarkets. I was initially trained myself this way so I can understand how and why they do what they do, but it is a meeting of two worlds. Four acres of glass covered in white plastic with strawberry plants grown on table tops and fed with water and fertilisers in peat, planted every year, sitting next door to a clover field with a wonky orchard (ever tried planting a straight line with young children about ?) a woodland, and a glasshouse that is home to at least 25 crops grown in succession with very few straight lines. But it works, we get on fine, the children play together and we swap produce.


Marina O’Connell
5.1.06
You can visit my Apricot Centre website at www.apricotcentre.co.uk