01 Brynbori Farm - an introduction

In spring 2021 I had a phone call from a friend asking if I wanted to buy some old woodland that runs along his land as he knew I was on the lookout for putting my pigs somewhere. I wasn’t particularly in the market and didn’t have the funds, but he said if I found someone else he’d go in 3-ways to make it more affordable. I immediately rang Lizzie (Petallica) who said she wasn’t really keen and I thought that was that.

30 minutes passed and I got a phone call from Lizzie saying she’s in… WHAT! OK, that means i’m the only one not in now… I’m in! I really need to work on my FOMO responses. I didn’t have any money but knew if it was meant to happen - it would happen.

My wife (Beth) and I begged, and borrowed (no stealing) to come up with the funds and in August 2021 we officially completed all the paperwork.

Both Lizzie and I knew we wanted to make a real dent on the local food and flower market as we’re so passionate about the supply of local produce, hopefully this was going to help us make that dent!

First things first - figure out what we’ve purchased and where the boundary is! The land has been untouched for what we estimate to be 30 years - bracken, bramble, holly, blackthorn clasp at each other to create a human barrier from any intruders which made it almost impossible to really see what was in there.

We decided to wait until winter when a lot of the undergrowth had died down and we could make some more plans from old satellite images and maps online.

This was it though, we had our own land, somewhere to be responsible for and somewhere to really expand our vision and grow local produce. It was daunting but I knew after seeing Summit Good grow and flourish how beautiful, productive and abundant the land could be.

It was time to start dreaming.