I have been involved with the smallholding group from its inception back in 2010 at the pub in Stow Maries when I had only a few chickens and half an allotment.
Shortly after I upgraded to a 3 acre plot in Wickham Bishops, where I keep pigs, sheep, poultry and bees. I’m also part of a pig share with other members of EESG.
I live in the middle of Maldon town with my wife and two boys who enjoy some of the aspects of our smallholding lifestyle. We are ideally situated to sell our produce from the farm gate as we are right next to the Promenade Park and just along the high street, this includes eggs, preserves, herbs, plants, firewood and seasonal goods.
I’ve recently joined the Country Markets cooperative where I turn our free range meat into tasty pies and savouries.
This coming year we are hoping to start growing and selling our own cut flowers and producing our own biodiesel.
Donna Perkins - Secretary
My name is Donna Perkins. I am the Secretary of The East Essex Smallholders Group.
I live on our smallholding in Mundon with our extended family of chickens, geese, peacocks, ducks, horses, sheep and pigs and 2 cows not to mention the dogs and the cats.
I work as a Receptionist at the local vets in town. I have been working there for the last 11 or so years and enjoy meeting clients and exchange many animal tales.
I am an approved member of the Oxford Down Sheep Breeders Association, which I am thrilled about. My first pedigree Oxford lambs were born in March 2012. I started with a small flock of 2 breeding ewes, Lottie and Teresa, and a Shearling ewe, Margorie, and my very handsome Ram, Fred. My Oxford Down family has since grown, we now have Annie and Sally and from 2014 Peaches (named after Peaches Geldof as she was born on the day she died) and Diana.
The Oxfords are category 4 on the Rare Breed Survival Trust List so I hope to do my bit to help preserve this breed.
I am also very fond of my chickens , I have a few feral ladies who disappear and then re appear with a clutch of chicks.
My hobbies are my family, which are now adults, but I am still lucky enough to have them at home! and my animals, or as I call them my extended family!
I enjoy all areas of husbandry and enjoy attending sheep courses, run by Eblex and ADAS, to extend my knowledge.
I am also NEARLY a keen gardener, I have a greenhouse, small poly-tunnel and veg plot. I love growing seedlings and tending plants but I don’t like the harvest side of it, strange I know but there it is!
As a family we produce a lots of our own food, Pork, Lamb, Beef,Turkey and chickens. We also enjoy making sausages, chorizo and salami, Hams and Bacon which we now sell to the public and I nearly forgot our range of Jams Chutneys and Jellys which is now stocked in two local shops. No rest for the wicked here!
How our smallholding has moved on since the group started in 2010. I have met so many like minded people who have inspired me/us to do so much more.
Helen Quinnell - Treasurer
Hi I'm Helen the Group Treasurer.
I joined the group in 2010 with my partner Darren. We wanted to keep chickens and thought it best to get some good information before doing so and here we are!
We had started off growing our own vegetables in around 2009 in planters and bags on the patio, moved house in 2010 and started a proper veg patch. Shortly after we acquired an allotment, only a minute’s walk away! As each year comes round we are still very much experimenting with what we grow from how much, to different varieties. It’s always interesting to establish what works for us not just in terms of growing well but how we consume what we grow. It’s important to get the balance right so you don’t end up with two sacks of curly kale that you don’t know what to do with as we did in our first year! Even the chickens had enough of it!!!
So we got our first chickens in 2011........well, what a delight! I cannot think of anything better than watching them roam around the garden on a lovely warm sunny day, with some ‘helping’ in the garden if I’m digging or pruning or others merely sunbathing. Our friends and neighbours put in advance orders for their tasty eggs and love coming to see them when collecting. The eggs have such bright yolks and make my cakes spectacular….we have also diversified into making our own fresh pasta too!
EESG continue to inspire - not just it’s members but the people we meet, either on group visits to local specialist farms or organisations but to everyone we talk to at local shows. This year I am looking forward to learning about cheese making and costal foraging – there is just so much going on! Come and see for yourself!
Danielle Adger
I'm Danni, I have been involved with the group from the very start all the way back in 2010 and was Chairman for three years.
I live on my parents (Vince and Donna) smallholding with my husband Gareth. Our life is smallholding and we do as much as we can. Gareth and I concentrate on the pigs, we raise Oxford Sandy and Blacks which we sell from the farm gate as joints, chops, sausages and hams or as whole/half pigs.
We have a variety of rare breed chickens which produce our eggs and we raise several meat chickens each year for our roast chicken dinners. We also have a small family of heritage pet turkeys, which are wonderful, they make us laugh! As well as these, we produce Bronze turkeys each Christmas to sell at the farm gate.
We also have a small herd of Dexter cattle, Tilly and her daughter Tulip. We currently buy a Dexter steer each year to fatten for the freezer and were lucky enough to be able to offer it to our customers this Christmas who were thrilled with it. We hope in time we will be able to produce our own with two females.
We added two bee hives to our menagerie in 2013 and had honey in 2014. However this was one of our less successful additions. We hope to restock and be better bee keepers in 2015.
I nearly forgot, we have three lovely goats, Esme the Toggenburg, and two kids Myrtle and Edith who are Boer cross British Alpine. We hope to breed from them with the purpose of meat, but I think we are a little soft and we may struggle to eat there offspring!
We have three horses, a lazy Labrador, an energetic Springer Spaniel, a Cocker Spaniel and three cats. Along with Mum and Dad we prepare all our own meat, make sausages, salami's, cure our own hams, bacon and smoke a variety of our own produce. I dabble in a bit of home brew aided by my wonderful Vigo crusher and fruit press.
I also have a spinning wheel and spin the wool from our sheep. In time hopefully everyone will have handmade jumpers!
I love preserving, cooking and growing and being as self sufficient as possible, this has enabled us to create a range of Furzedown preserves that we sell locally.
2015 will be a slightly calmer year for us on the livestock front as I am expecting our first baby in April. We will however continue with smallholding alongside working full time and raising a child, you only get out of life what you put into it!
Darren SewellI'm Danni, I have been involved with the group from the very start all the way back in 2010 and was Chairman for three years.
I live on my parents (Vince and Donna) smallholding with my husband Gareth. Our life is smallholding and we do as much as we can. Gareth and I concentrate on the pigs, we raise Oxford Sandy and Blacks which we sell from the farm gate as joints, chops, sausages and hams or as whole/half pigs.
We have a variety of rare breed chickens which produce our eggs and we raise several meat chickens each year for our roast chicken dinners. We also have a small family of heritage pet turkeys, which are wonderful, they make us laugh! As well as these, we produce Bronze turkeys each Christmas to sell at the farm gate.
We also have a small herd of Dexter cattle, Tilly and her daughter Tulip. We currently buy a Dexter steer each year to fatten for the freezer and were lucky enough to be able to offer it to our customers this Christmas who were thrilled with it. We hope in time we will be able to produce our own with two females.
We added two bee hives to our menagerie in 2013 and had honey in 2014. However this was one of our less successful additions. We hope to restock and be better bee keepers in 2015.
I nearly forgot, we have three lovely goats, Esme the Toggenburg, and two kids Myrtle and Edith who are Boer cross British Alpine. We hope to breed from them with the purpose of meat, but I think we are a little soft and we may struggle to eat there offspring!
We have three horses, a lazy Labrador, an energetic Springer Spaniel, a Cocker Spaniel and three cats. Along with Mum and Dad we prepare all our own meat, make sausages, salami's, cure our own hams, bacon and smoke a variety of our own produce. I dabble in a bit of home brew aided by my wonderful Vigo crusher and fruit press.
I also have a spinning wheel and spin the wool from our sheep. In time hopefully everyone will have handmade jumpers!
I love preserving, cooking and growing and being as self sufficient as possible, this has enabled us to create a range of Furzedown preserves that we sell locally.
2015 will be a slightly calmer year for us on the livestock front as I am expecting our first baby in April. We will however continue with smallholding alongside working full time and raising a child, you only get out of life what you put into it!
I'm
Darren, and I first heard of the group in October 2009 when I stopped by
Furzedown to pick up some manure for the garden veg plot, and got chatting to
the lady of the house, and group Secretary, Donna, about my future plans to
keep chickens when we eventually buy a house.......so I went home to tell Helen
all about it and we decided to attend the January 2010 meeting........and that
was it, we joined the group!
In
2010 we bought our first house, in March 2011 we acquired an allotment, and in
April of the same year we brought our first chickens home having built a full
enclosure and house.
I
like to dabble, a little veg and fruit growing, bread and crumpet making, beer
brewing, hedgerow wine and spirit making, and we've successfully hatched a few
eggs under broody chickens. Mother
nature is amazing to watch, a new mother hen tending to chicks, teaching them a
few tricks.
The
East Essex Smallholders Group are a friendly and welcoming bunch, happy to help
or offer advice, or point you in the right direction, so come along to one of
the regular monthly meetings and find out what the group are up to this year.
See you soon.
I joined EESG in April 2011 after Danni spotted the web site my daughter, Georgina, had written advertising her chickens. We only have a small back garden which is entirely given over to the chickens with a very small space allowed for my quail. My front garden has recently been converted to a vegetable patch which I intend to develop further this year.
Since joining the group I have been fortunate to meet people with more land than I have who are willing to share. As a result, I have been able to raise a couple of pigs annually and allow my geese to free range through the summer ready for Christmas.
My real passion is food! I enjoy making preserves and dabbling in charcuterie. Like minded members are always available to lend a hand, give useful tips and essentially, sample and comment on the final product.
Katie Anderson
Hi, I am Katie and I joined East Essex Smallholders in 2015 when I had dreams of becoming a smallholder but no animals or land to speak of. The support and advice that the group provides has helped me to get to where I am today - the owner of Muddy Boots Farm an educational smallholding based in Burnham on Crouch where I have sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys. I rent several acres of land in the area and am working on growing my native breed/rare breed sheep flock, whilst also venturing into free range meat and egg sales. Being part of this group is great as it allows you to make contacts, learn from others and share your stories (good or bad)!
Hi, I'm Georgina, and I've been part of the smallholders group with my mum Toni for 4 years now.
I started with just a couple of hens in the back garden in 2010, but I soon caught the bug and quickly expanded!
I now breed black Araucanas (they lay blue eggs) and white Wyandottes, and I show them across the country. I have also recently passed a poultry judging exam, so I shall start judging birds in shows in January 2015!
Alongside the chickens I keep and breed quail for meat and eggs, and every spring I hatch out some geese to raise for the table at Christmas.
Being part of the smallholders group has allowed me to meet many new people and share ideas, as well as exhibit the birds at local shows and talk to the public about keeping birds in the garden.