A Place to Learn and Grow
Who are we?
We are Rebecca & Luke - back in December 2021 we moved to this beautiful 6 acre smallholding on the western edge of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park.​ We’re passionate about all things food - how to produce it, preserve it, and most importantly, how to turn it into delicious meals.​ We’re both mid 30s, and spent the majority of our lives working office jobs in London so this has been a whirlwind learning experience!
Our Vision:
A community inspired by the three ethics of Permaculture - Earth Care, People Care, Fair Shares - that lives in harmony with nature. Filled with people who care for the land, and in return are cared for by the land. Actively working as an integral part of the wider community surrounding us.
What we've done so far...
We’ve set up a 1/3 acre market garden, growing organic, no-dig fruit and vegetables - we’re almost fully self-sufficient in fruit and veg, and share plenty with our neighbours and community.
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We’ve helped kick off community food projects - regular “farm to fork” feasts, community “crop swaps”, and a village potato field that feeds 25 households (including us) with more potatoes than we know what to do with!
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We’ve restored an old orchard, and planted a new one based on "syntropic agroforestry” principles, integrating berries, herbs and beneficial support species.
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We’ve planted thousands of trees - setting fields up for future livestock management following “holistic grazing” techniques, and starting coppices for both firewood and wood crafting.
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We’ve kept pigs, and a flock of chickens mostly raised from eggs we hatched. The chickens provide us with an abundance of eggs, and are integral to our composting systems.
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We’ve started an annual music festival, and built a stage / outdoor shelter out of roundwood timber harvested from a neighbours woodland.
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We've been able to do all of this thanks to the amazing help from our neighbours, friends, WWOOFers, and folks who've stayed here for a week, a year and anything in between!
Our plans for 2026
This year, we're going all in on community food production, in a mission to support local food sovereignty. We'll be launching a "share of harvest" veg box to get amazing healthy food to more people in the community. We're continuing the village potato field, and building a root cellar to store them through the winter. We'll be running weekly crop swaps & monthly farm to fork meals through the growing season. We want to bring more people on to the farm, through volunteer days, and trainings / workshops on food production.
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We’re really keen for this land to support people’s livelihoods going forward, so we’re very open to the idea of people coming here and setting up their own land based businesses. It would need to fit into the overall vision of land stewardship and ethics, but we’d be very excited to chat about any ideas!​
Volunteering / WWOOFing
We're passionate about teaching others and sharing the skills needed to grow food at scale for local communities. We are able to offer up to two places for long-term volunteers (3 months+) to live and work alongside us, as we develop our community food projects.
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Primarily you'd be immersed in growing food in the market garden, learning all about no-dig, regenerative and organic veg production at a scale that feeds 20-30 households. This experience will take up about 20 hours per week across weekdays.
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The areas of focus and learning will vary through the seasons:
Spring: Propagation, seeding, bed preparation
Summer: Transplanting, weeding, harvesting, pest management, fertility management
Autumn: Successional planting, harvesting, crop storage & preservation
Winter: Land management, planning, overwintering veg
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You will also be able to participate in training courses that we run on the site - Luke is a Permaculture teacher, and we will be running a series of courses through the year.
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We will also spend a few hours per week together tending to the land and the wider smallholding, which might entail repairing tools, trimming hedges, looking after chickens, making compost, or a whole bunch of other stuff!
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While here, you'll have a room in the farmhouse or annexe (see below), generally, we'll eat together once a day, and we'll provide amazing local/organic food for you to prepare the rest of your meals. ​​​
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We're really interested in folks who are keen to see a whole growing season through, so if you wanted to stay for a full year that would be exciting!
Housing & living here:
We’ve been working on setting up the large farmhouse as a communal space with private bedrooms so that others can join us here. There’s a big kitchen & utility room, plus dining/living room with a lovely wood burning fireplace
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There are three good sized double rooms of between 11.5-12.5 sqm. A 1 bedroom annexe adjoins the main house, with a private living room, bathroom and patio garden.
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We believe it’s important that everyone has sufficient personal space, so each person moving here will have their own room. If you come as a couple, you would get a room each, or the annexe.
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There may be up to 6 people living on the property at an time (including volunteers).​​​​
Communal living:
As a shared living space, we expect people to be clean, respectful and considerate, as well as bring positive energy to the place. We're keen to have regular meals together, where we each take it in turns to cook.​
Our goal for "Land Ownership"
We never want to see this place treated as an “asset” to be bought and sold. As soon as we are able to, we intend to set up a “Land Trust” to take ownership of the house and the land. In the worst case, this will be once the mortgage is paid off - but we are always looking for options that would make this happen sooner (grant funding, community purchase etc).
Get in touch!
If all of this sounds like it might be a fit for you, then please get in touch! There’s a link to a form below where you can tell us a bit about yourself, and we can take the conversation from there!
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https://forms.gle/zPcRt2c7FPYwabsG7
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Luke & Rebecca​