Birch Cottage has a new website of its own
Visit the Birch Cottage website to bookWelcome to Lackan Cottage Farm
We’re Steve and Claire Golemboski-Byrne, we live here off grid with our daughter, our dog, cats and horses. We make all our own energy using wind and solar, grow as much of our own food as we can (it varies widely) and have used permaculture design principles to help us create a great place to live.
Here on the website you’ll find stories about the projects we’ve undertaken – what works, what doesn’t. You can come stay in our guest cottage – Birch Cottage and we will show you round, or maybe you just want to find out how to do some of this stuff. Either way, welcome.
Hanging strawberries
Last year we grew all our strawberries in beds at ground level, but a fair amount were eaten by something (probably slugs), so this time, encouraged by the amazing results we saw in Danny Kowalsky's tunnel, where he grows strawberries in lots of hanging baskets, we...
First fruit
We can barely keep up with the growth down in the polytunnels and growing field, and flowers such as these marigolds are attracting huge numbers of beneficial insects and pollinators. Borage has seeded and is growing around the pond, and is great for attracting bees,...
A day at Balmoral
The biggest agricultural show in Northern Ireland is Balmoral, and we make an annual pilgrimage to go and inspect the amazing variety of sheep, cows, pigs, goats and fowl, as well as sample the amazing local produce that is becoming ever more prevalent. Sheep of the...
Hen party
After years of making do with a camera phone, we finally bit the bullet and got ourselves a decent camera. I have to say that the results were worth it, and our chickens have been obligingly posing for me. f
Less really is more..
We love our hens, and I can't imagine a time when we wouldn't have them here - after all, what smallholding doesn't have hens roaming around? Although ours have lived at times in a contained area, they love to free range around the place, but this comes with a...
Open Source Seed Initiative
The Open Source Seed Initiative seeks to make seeds perpetually available without the danger of them being patented, and thus guarding against the takeover of our seed stock by corporations. Today, only three companies (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta) account for about...