South Yeo Farm West
Northlew
Okehampton,
Devon
EX20 3PS
01837 810569
Profile:
We are Debbie Kingsley and Andrew Hubbard and we live and farm at South Yeo Farm West. In 2009 we created from scratch the kind of training we wished we’d had access to twenty years previously; practical, realistic, enjoyable, and thoroughly informative. Since then over 2000 of you have joined us. As well as running the farm and the courses with Andrew, Debbie has written regularly for a number of smallholding publications, and lectures on smallholding at Bicton College or on the farm for HighGround, the charity that supports military veterans into land based careers. Commissioned by The Crowood Press to write various books on smallholding and keeping livestock, Keeping Ducks and Geese – A Practical Guide and Keeping Goats – A Practical Guide are now published, and The Complete Guide to Smallholding will be out in 2023. She was a member of the LANTRA working group set up to review the National Occupational Standards for Crofting and Smallholding.
Our courses are designed to be lively, interactive sessions, with lots of time spent outside experiencing it for real on the farm (rain or no rain), so that we combine theory with practice and send you away with a real sense of what you can do next. And because this is a working farm, there won’t be courses during much of March and April – we’re too busy lambing. We keep groups small (eight to twelve people depending on the course) so that you get our full attention. Sitting in the threshing barn or on sunny days out in the farmyard munching our homegrown produce over lunch and a Devon cream tea is the ideal time for dealing with any questions that may not have been answered; recipes and preserving techniques are swapped, life’s dreams discussed, and we find that groups frequently exchange contact details to keep in touch. Our courses include:
- Introduction to Smallholding (2 day)
- Sheep for Beginners (2 day)
- Introduction to Sheep, Cattle & Pigs (2 day)
- Cattle for Beginners (1 day)
- Apple and Cider day (1 day)
- Build your own Cob bread/pizza oven (1 day)
