Workshops at Hope Springs - coming in 2025
introduction to smallholding life
This workshop is intended to cover all questions you may have about how to start the smallholding life. Incorporating the legalities, the practicalities and the realities.
I will let you know the mistakes that I have learnt from and the successes that sometimes surprised me.
From selling your chicken's eggs at the gate to how to register your smallholding to allow you to have animals on your land, this workshop will give you a wealth on information to help you decide if the smallholding life is for you!
Making the most of your polytunnel
This workshop will guide you on how to make the most of your polytunnel through the seasons.
Your polytunnel is a very valuable resource, whether in your garden, on your allotment or just a dream/plan in your head and this workshop will look at crop rotation in the polytunnel, over wintering, caring for your polytunnel and making the most of your space to maximise your crops.
raising and growing vegetables for your kitchen
preserving your produce
There is nothing like your own fresh home grown vegetables. This workshop will walk you through the process of setting up a kitchen garden, selecting what to grow, crop rotation, managing pests, harvesting your crops and general management.
preserving your produce
preserving your produce
As a Smallholder, I have had to learn many new techniques to preserve the produce that have taken a lot of hard work to get to the finished product and as they usually come in gluts they cannot all be eaten at once.
This workshop will cover the following techniques amongst others:
Dehydrating, fermentation, pickling, freezing, batch cooking, jamming and we will look at preserving meat products such as curing, making chorizo and salami.
This workshop can be tailored to the needs of the audience
raising turkeys for the table
This workshop will introduce you to the joy of raising turkeys from chicks or pullets to the table for Christmas. We will look at feed, housing, daily management and will follow the process through to dispatching your birds for the table.
We will also look at the legislation around dispatching and preparing turkeys for sale to the public and how to present and dress your birds for maximum profit.
raising quails for eggs and the table
Quails are an inexpensive, low maintenance, space saving bird that provide tasty nutritious eggs but also delicious if reared for meat. This workshop will walk you through raising and caring for quails, we will talk through hatching your own birds and also the process of dispatching and preparing the bird for your table. There will be the opportunity to take part in this process and taking home your own prepared quail if you would like to (this is optional)