Building & Renovation in France - Setting Up A Smallholding

If your French home has some land and the idea of growing your own vegetables and raising your own livestock fills you with enthusiasm, then why not rise to the challenge and set up a smallholding?

But before you take the plunge and dash down to the local market to buy your chickens, it’s worth taking a deep breath and giving the practicalities some serious consideration. How will you make the most of your land while managing the workload? What vegetables would you like to grow and what animals would be best for your plot?

Perhaps you would like to grow plentiful supplies of vegetables and herbs, attract wildlife, or grow wood for heating your home? Whatever’s on your wish list, with a little creativity and planning you can create a productive smallholding to provide all this and more.
It is useful to zone your land from the beginning. Plan herbs and vegetables close to the house, and less frequented areas, such as orchards and woods, further away. Think about the natural cycles of water, food and organic matter; how can ‘waste’ from one system can become ‘useful input’ for another, with minimal work?

We have planted Russian comfrey down the slope from our septic tank runoff to absorb nutrients that would otherwise leach away. Comfrey is a real asset on a smallholding, as the leaves of this fast-growing plant are rich in nutrients that can be used to make organic plant feed for tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. It also makes an excellent animal feed, and is a key ingredient in herbal medicine. Another trick is to place water butts uphill from your vegetable patch so that you can connect a hose rather than carrying heavy watering cans.

Before moving to France, I took on a couple of allotments (an eighth of an acre in total) which turned out to be an excellent training ground; I learnt how to cope with a sizeable area with the minimum of work. I also attended weekend courses on permaculture, and on crafts such as pole lathe wood-turning and simple blacksmithing. All of this preparation helped me to become more practical and creative, a far cry from my day job with computers.

My husband Paul and I bought a one hectare smallholding in the Pays d’Auge in Normandy, an area which is known for its cider and cheese. The property came complete with pond, orchard, polytunnel and vegetable garden. We had checked that the boundary, which included many pollarded trees, was included with the property. We were thrilled when the estate agent gave us a certificate for the appelation controlée for the two tonnes of cider apples and pears produced each year!

We both work full-time and are often away from our French home, so we have decided (reluctantly) not to keep animals for the moment, as they would need more attention than we can give but it hasn’t stopped us making headway on the vegetable front.

It simply isn’t practical to use ordinary garden tools to manage a larger area so to clear new ground for cultivation I peg down woven heavy-duty polypropylene (toile de paillage) for at least a year, after which no digging or weeding is needed. You can re-use the polypropylene many times, so it really justifies the investment. While clearing the ground I plant pumpkins around the edge, they spread right over the polypropylene, and if you choose varieties that keep well, you can store them in vegetable net hammocks until as late as April. I then use green manures such as Hungarian grazing rye to over winter any bare ground without a crop, to choke out weeds and improve the quality of the soil.

If you would like to become more self-reliant in energy then generous tax credits, or crédits d’impôts, are available for domestic renewable energy installations if you pay tax in France. Details are available from your department’s Point Info Energie hotline, or www.ademe.fr. We plan to install a wood boiler with solar hot water heating panels. Most of our land was pasture when we moved in, and in the first few years we planted several hundred trees, including biomass willows which we pollard to produce logs for the boiler on a five-year rotation. There are many deer in the area, despite the efforts of local hunters, so the trees are protected by an electric fence. If you plan to plant trees, shop around at nurseries (pepiniéres) – rather than garden centres – for trees and planting accessories, as they can be considerably cheaper.

If you would like a year-round supply of vegetables, try to avoid gluts of vegetables such as courgettes and french beans in the summer and autumn, and prepare most of your ground for crops that will be available during the winter; leeks in the ground, and red cabbage, pumpkins, carrots, beetroot and sweet potatoes stored in an unheated room. The hungry gap of April/May is the hardest period, during which we eat lots of salads of wild greens such as dandelion, sorrel, young hawthorn leaves and ladies’ smock. They are a very welcome sign of the arrival of spring. An asparagus bed provides welcome variation early on. Next year, I plan to experiment with oriental vegetables and other early crops in the polytunnel to tide us over these empty weeks. By mid-May the broad beans herald the start of the new vegetable season and a new cycle begins.

A forest garden is an orchard comprising a wide variety of fruit trees with fruit bushes and perennial vegetables and herbs growing in layers directly below. The key thing is to have a wide variety to mimic a natural ecosystem, but some good ground level plants to start with are sorrel (a novelty in Britain, but an everyday plant in France), borage (which is self seeding rather than perennial) lemon balm, lovage, horseradish and chives. All but the horseradish can be grown from seed, you need root offsets for horseradish.

It takes a few years to plant a forest garden, but once established it is fantastically productive and requires very little maintenance. The tree roots draw up moisture and provide leaf mulch for the other plants, and the ground layer plants get well established in the spring before the buds of the fruit trees and bushes burst. To harvest: simply wander around with a basket picking leaves, fruit and nuts. A few times a year, it is necessary to cut back plants that are out-competing their neighbours, and in the late autumn it is a good idea to lay down thick straw or hay mulch for over wintering.

A heavy duty strimmer or brushcutter (une débrousailleuse) is a practical way to keep brambles and uncultivated areas under control, but they are noisy and I prefer to avoid using petrol-driven tools where possible, so we invested in an Austrian scythe last year. Enthusiasts assure us that they are just as fast as a strimmer. I am still learning the technique, it certainly shows potential, and amuses our neighbours!

We have successfully grown oats, quinoa and wheat on a small scale, though the pigeons did help themselves to quite a bit of the wheat and oats. Paul is considering getting a hunting licence so that we can then eat the pigeons! Quinoa is unattractive to birds as each seed is covered by a soapy layer that is washed off before cooking. It grows at a terrific rate, and is very productive in Normandy. I imported a hand grain mill from the US which is very effective at making wholewheat flour in sufficient quantities to make bread. This year, I am trying the no-till wheat growing techniques of the French farmer Marc Bonfils, who developed his technique in the Beauce plain in the Centre Région.

Use your imagination to make best use of the resources you have available. You might enjoy building a wood-fired clay oven; pieces of wood too small for the hearth are ideal for firing a clay oven to bake delicious pizzas and bread. A carp pond provides a cheap, healthy and delicious source of protein. Try growing bamboo for sturdy poles that can be used for building shelters and trellises. Rather than buying fence posts, why not make your own from wood from your plot (you’ll notice that this is what your farmer neighbours do!)

Above all, do what appeals to you the most, and enjoy your achievements and the fruits of your work. There is always more to do on a smallholding, but then again, there is always something to enjoy too. So go on stick your wellies on, grab a spade and get digging.

For more information see www.futurespace.eu

Spring:

• Prepare vegetable beds and plant seeds
• Lay down polypropylene to clear new beds
• Gather edible wild plants to tide you over the hungry gap
• Plant out comfrey root cuttings
• If you need to buy wood, do so now, it will be cheaper
• Enjoy tender broad beans and asparagus

Summer:

• Make comfrey plant feed for your plentiful tomatoes, peppers and aubergines
• In dry weather, water copiously but occasionally, to encourage strong roots
• Spray your plants with diluted seaweed solution to provide trace minerals
• Cut back invasive plants in the forest garden
• Share the inevitable glut of beans and courgettes with your neighbours
• Eat soft fruits and lie in the sun, glass in hand

Autumn:

• Harvest, process and store crops
• Make cider or wine, according to your region
• Sow green manure on bare soil
• Lay down straw or hay mulch in the forest garden
• Eat, drink and be merry. Enjoy the fat of your land

Winter:

• Plant trees and fruit bushes
• Spread compost around your existing fruit trees
• Carry out repairs and maintenance during the quieter months
• Enjoy planning the next year, and order seeds before the busy spring period
• Cut down and process trees for firewood during the dormant winter season
• Add layers of wood-ash to your compost heap
• Relax! Enjoy the fruits of your year’s work in front of a blazing fire

Tips for potential smallholders

• Learn from what your neighbours do, but do try new ideas too
• Think what to put close to the house, such as herbs and vegetables
• Prepare for an initial period of investment in equipment and plants
• Get experience on smaller plots before taking on a larger area
• Don’t have too big a lawn, as mowing is time-consuming
• Get to know your land – don’t take on too much straight away
• Don’t worry about wild areas as they offer a haven to wildlife
• Use grass cuttings as mulch in the flower and vegetable garden
• Enjoy your successes and learn from your failures
• Celebrate and enjoy each season