This is a new book by our partner Sally Morgan of Empire Farm. It’s a comprehensive guide to starting and running your own micro-smallholding. I’ve just received my copy – 225 full-colour pages giving you an overview of everything you need to think about if you’re considering setting up a micro-smallholding – or even if you’re just dreaming about it.

First, here’s a description of the book, then below are instructions on how you can win a copy.

Description

You don’t need a huge parcel of land to start your own mini-farm and live more self-sufficiently. With an acre, or even a half-acre, you can juggle a job,  family, and still grow fruit and veg and even have some chickens, pigs or sheep. Sally Morgan takes the reader through the basics of a starting your own smallholding, including:

• planning and setting up
• growing your own fruit and vegetables
• keeping chickens, pigs and sheep
• all the while making use of sustainable and organic principles.

This inspirational book is perfect for anyone who aspires to take control of their food supply, or who wants to do more with the land they’ve got.

Contents

Part One: Groundwork

1. Planning your plot
2. Know your soil
3. Soil fertility and crop rotations

Part Two: Growing produce

4. The vegetable and flower garden
5. An abundance of fruit
6. Tree crops and forest gardens

Part Three: Keeping livestock

7. Poultry for eggs and meat
8. Pigs for meat
9. Sheep and goats
10. Aquaponics
11. Beekeeping

The author

Sally Morgan is a journalist, author and smallholder. She is currently editor of Organic Farming Magazine, writes for Country Smallholding and runs courses on smallholding and butchery. Having set up and run a number of smallholdings she now has a separate demonstration mini-farm on one acre of land.

How to win a copy

According to the topic introductions on our website, answer the following questions:

1. Good soil should have at least what percentage humus content?
2. The best wool comes from sheep that have not been what?
3. When do you sow half-hardy annual flowers?
4. What are the seven layers generally identified in a forest garden?

Send your answers to [email protected], with your postal address. I’ll number the correct answers in the order that they come in.

We’ll draw two numbers from a hat on Monday, Feb 8, and send those two people a copy of Sally’s book. That’s it.

Good luck!

(NB: the book is released on March 10, 2016)