Coombe farm environmental policy
Our environmental policy is our commitment to a way of life
We aim:
- to educate our children with our lifestyle at Coombe as they are the planet's future.
- to educate our guests through demonstrating our sustainable way of living at Coombe.
- to be responsible for everything we do, every action we make, to think on a sustainable level, to think how it will effect our earth, our precious environment. We are commited to:
- reducing our carbon footprint by having Solar Panels to heat the Swimming Pool, Photovoltaic panels to supply electricity to our farmhouse. We are committed to a 100% renewable tariff for much of our electricity.
- serving our community wherever possible by supporting local organic producers,restaurants, pubs, clubs, promoting tourist attractions, shops, transport, employing locally and hiring local services. We are also committed to ethical purchasing including fairtrade.
- maintaining our organic certification with the Soil Association, committed to being proper but not prim, proud of what we do but not prissy so as not to put off the general public. All our land is organic including our farm and vegetable/flower gardens. No chemicals, pesticides, inorganic fertilizers are used.
We want to pass on our outlook to our children.
For a quick summary of how we are sustainable, or plan to increase our sustainability look at our categories of Farm, Gardens, Forestry, Cider Barn and Farmhouse to demonstrate it.
How Tim & Angela's sustainable outlook has evolved
Our way of life has naturally evolved through pioneering green issues. Tim has been a journalist, mainly for BBC Radio Four (but also for Red Pepper Magazine and New Statesman Magazine), covering appropriate development in the UK and abroad for some 15 yrs. Tim has also worked closely with Tibet Support Group and Tibet Foundation. Angela set up an alternative therapies health clinic in Ireland when such therapies were unheard of!
We bank with Triodos Bank, the greenest of all banks, and invest in green companies. Tim has always subscribed to a long list of ethical concerns such as Survival, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Red Pepper. Now we are settling down with a young family on the farm here and putting into practice our sustainable values via farming, forestry, organic self catering accommodation combined with Eco weddings /workshops in the Cider Barn.
Envision environmental management training put us in touch with the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) and South West Tourism (SWT). We became members of both. We had felt that we were on our own when we were trying to make Coombe more sustainable but this turned things around. We were invited to the Devon Environmental Business Initiative (DEBI) awards ceremony and realised that there were many other green businesses out there like us (which was great for networking). We saw that there was an existing framework of environmental standards already in place, and there were organisations like SWT and GTBS to help us along the way. Coming into line with the standards meant a lot of paperwork but luckily we had already done most of the groundwork beforehand. We found that this process helped us clarify and develop our environmental policies and also made us feel like we belong to a bigger green movement rather than being out on a limb.
BOTTOM UP APPROACH – What are we doing at Middle Coombe Farm to make a change?
We are members of our local ”Transition Group” called Sustainable Villages to understand more check out -
We have joined this year and we have worked together with our local community and have done the following:
A cider talk - local speaker James Crowden – infamous for food and drink writing – 96 people showed up and we held it on our renovated cider barn the general response was:
“very witty, interesting and great local cider” – “magnificent barn to add.”
A local apple juicing day in our village of Sampford Peverell, people showed up in boats from the nearby Tiverton canal, on bikes, on foot and prams all brimming with apples for pressing. The locals went home with a smile on their faces as they had bottles containing fresh and pastuerised apple juice for free. All the equipment was on loan from Vigo, a marquee was erected and a folk band played all day while people were busy pressing and pastuerising. There wasn’t an apple wasted in the entire area of all our 9 local member villages group.
A Permaculture Course held in the barn at Middle Coombe Farm over a weekend – so successful that a two week residential Permaculture Design Course is planned for next Nov. 2010
A Coombe Community Apple Pressing day again in our Cider Barn – a very historic day as it was the first time in 150 years since the press was used. Mainly neighbours attended to all give a hand and the kids had great fun using the smaller apple press for juicing while the local lads with the historical experience mulled over the cider press and finally got it all working – we produced 100 gallons of cider – all made from local apples and absolutely nothing else added. Prior to this historic event we had several outings of apple picking requesting from farmers and local estate owners permission to use all the unused apples on their land – they gladly consented.
COOMBE COMMUNITY
Presently we are setting up a local group of people who want to be part of what we do at Coombe e.g. we want to grow more of our own vegetables on a larger scale with more like minded people in a permaculture way.
We want to bring our children together to help us do this and have fun while we do it. Combine this growing of plants together with woodland activities and possibly extracting timber for some of our energy uses. Making it all the while we do it a “green gym” for us to get fit while we are working at it.
Adding to our stock of chickens so we can all have enough organic eggs.
Watch this space to see how it all develops.
The Farm
Coombe farm fields.
Was the first step the the sustainable evolution at Coombe:
- Organically certified with the Soil Association
- Organic beef, organic vegetables
- Ecological pasture management - no hay is cut until the birds and mice have finished nesting.
- Crop mixing - sowing undercrop of clover below barley crop to keep weeds in dark means it is not necessary to use herbicide.
- Hemp crop for fibre and to keep weeds in dark then drilling pasture seeds after cutting hemp.
The Gardens
- Organically certified with the Soil Association.
- All the plants are fed with our own Organic Comfrey Plant Feed.
- Are maintained by 2 local gardeners.
- All the flowers for the House are picked fresh from the gardens - planted by Tim's Mother over the last 50 years.
- Sympathic planting is one way of how we plant e.g marigold planting to stop black fly infestation of broad bean crop.
- Willow garden fence weaving onsite.
- Most of the garden tables and benches are made from our own timber from our woods and crafted onsite.
- Tim is now a qualified bee keeper - having installed 3 bee hives producing deliciously healing honey. On each inspection from our local bee keepers association Tim has been reported to have perfectly healthy bees – they are thriving.
Tim is on a bee keeping course.
Snowdrops in the Coombe gardens.
Forestry: Timber / Bridal Paths and Walkways
Our forest at Coombe.
- No chemicals, pesticides, inorganic fertilizers, etc are used in our forest. As yet there is no organic certification for forests. Tim Malyon of Coombe farm sat on the forestry standards committee that establised the standards for organic certification of forests and hopefully, when the certification is passed through, our forest will be certified.
- We have just completed a ten year Woodland Management Plan for the whole forest, with financial assistance from the Forestry Commission, and a Woodland Assessment grant (by Rosie Wibberley also with Forestry Commission support) studying all areas which are or used to be ancient woodland - there is a link to the report on our woodlands page. So we now have some idea of the flora and fauna of the woodland. Our forestry practice is designed to avoid any clear felling of timber and instead promotes constant cover management - good for the woodlands and all who use them. We are also encouraging broadleaf trees, oak, ash, some beech, some sycamore, especially near watercourses. In all of this we are trying to maintain and develop the work carried out by Tim Malyon’s father, Brian, who founded a forestry contracting company and was the recipient of many prizes for his small wood management.
- Will use assessment report to start nature diary for guests to update when they see animals,plants, butterflies etc.
- Helped form a machinery collective - 1st purchase a woodmizer portable sawmill.Setting up collective local timber retailing operation and milling timber for our own use.
- 9 kilometers of bridleways and paths free to use, set up in collaboration with DEFRA Countryside Stewardship scheme.
- 131 old variety apple trees planted, for cider, apple juice and eating with DEFRA assistance.
- Hedges laid in traditional style with noticeable benefit to wildlife.
The Cider Barn
- Listed barn renovated by local craftsmen and builders.
- Materials sourced from the farm/woods - clay from the fields to make the cob, timber from the woods to make the barn doors.
- Triticali long-stem wheat grown locally specially for thatch.
- Ancient cider press repaired by a local engineer.
- Bat slits built in specially for the preservation of the local bat population.
- Compost Eco loo for the toilet facilities to the barn - designed and built by local forester Dave Woods.
- Eco weddings, workshops, mental & physical health trainings are being hosted in the barn.
- Cider Barn now used for pressing apples with renovated cider press.
The Swimming Pool
- Solar Panels heating the outdoor pool also doubling up to heat hot water in farmhouse.
- Floatron Pool cleaners to reduce chemical use.
- 2 new eco showers newly built onsite with all our own wood at the pool side.
The Grade II listed Farmhouse
- Electricity - photovoltaic 5.5kwh generator installed.
- Change to Ecotricity supplier within the next two weeks.
- All electrical appliances when they need replacement are being replaced with top rating efficiency.
- Furniture - policy to purchase second hand locally from Tiverton.
- Enjo organic cleaning products are used by our cleaning team.
- Recycling all glass, aluminium, tetras, plastic milk bottles, newspapers, used batteries, failed flourescent tube lighting. Can crusher provided to condense tins. Compost bin.
- Waste Cooking Oil container.
- Ecoballs for the washing machine and Dryer balls for the dryer, we provide a cloths line.
- All doorways and most windows have extra quilted curtains as draught curbers.
- Own timber for firewood in the fire of the house and backyard outdoor fire.
- Stones placed in the cisterns to reduce water flush.
- Local cook can be booked in to prepare meals in the house and make food for our Picnic baskets which we provide.
- Purchase fairtrade, organic products where possible e.g. toilet paper - Suma, teas, coffees and sugar fairtrade, we use Ethical Consumer magazine as a source of education and reference for purchasing.
- Listings of all local pubs and restaurants.
- Alternative therapies available on site.
- Listings for guests of green days on/off our farm and woodlands.
