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Living the Good Life Growing your own food and keeping livestock has become trendy! It’s been on the increase for a few years now, driven by increased public awareness of food health issues, interest in food provenance and a desire to ‘downshift’ and improve work-life balance, but the recession has really boosted the trend. Anne and Kieron McGrath have been living the good life for real since Barbara and Tom amused us with their self-sufficiency efforts on the BBC in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The McGraths quit London for their 3-acre smallholding, the Bell and Birdtable, near Wellington and started to experiment with crops and livestock. The only clue to the glamorous days of the fashion buying world was a Liberty’s coffee mug, which surprisingly looked totally at home in their welcoming farmhouse kitchen. Over the years Anne has worked and experimented and thought hard about what she’s doing to secure better and better results, whilst Kieron has helped fund the smallholding through his own love, telescopes and astro photography. In particular, Anne has become known far and wide for her love of tomatoes. I spent a morning at The Bell & Birdtable to find out more about what makes Anne tick and to pick up some tips on tomato growing. Everything the McGraths grow and raise is organic, but Anne makes a key point that is often overlooked, “Just because something is organic it doesn’t mean it will taste good. A bland hydroponic tomato will still taste like a bland hydroponic tomato whether it’s grown organically or not, but it will be preferable because it won’t have been exposed to pesticides and herbicides.” “Before we started, we asked ourselves ‘what do we want?’ and the first answer was good old fashioned pork with proper crackling. We experimented with different breeds of pig, we tried saddle back, but found it had to be fed just right, or the layer of fat would become too thick. After a few years we settled for Oxford Sandy and Blacks – a finer textured meat than old spots, with the perfect crackling we craved.” The pigs are free-range, farrow in their own nest and wean their piglets by choice. They are allowed to fatten for a minimum of six months, necessary to allow for good muscle, tissue and skin build up, to produce tasty meat and good crackling. Anne and Kieron’s dinner guests appreciated the pork just as much as they did and asked where they had bought it. Inevitably this led to the first sales of pork and subsequently to a fully-fledged business, which Anne has wound down in latter years to “enjoy myself not kill myself!” I ask if she would like to stop selling altogether? “I couldn’t” she says, “I’ve become an essential part of my customers’ lives! But our quantities are limited and today much of what we produce is pre-booked by our regular customers.” The smallholding is divided into paddocks and managed carefully so that all areas remain fertile and healthy. Each paddock reflects Anne’s love of experimenting; her hens are Lavender Aracuanas and Marans. The Aracuanas are originally from South America, are a gentle grey colour and lay beautiful blue eggs that delighted my daughters. The Marans lay deep brown eggs, a perfect contrast when packed with the blue eggs. Another example is courgettes. Anne wanted crisp, Greek style zucchini, not the soft supermarket variety and experimented until she found the perfect variety. I stopped to admire the ‘purple sprouting’ only to be told that in fact it was an unusual variety of cauliflower that Anne found produces tasty purple florets when allowed to go slightly over. In what seemed to be becoming a theme I showed my ignorance again when I asked what they did with the wool from the Wiltshire Horned Sheep, only to be told that they do not have a fleece, but instead moult their wool, perfect for Anne as they therefore don’t need shearing. Anne’s overriding passion is for tomatoes; she grows up to 50 varieties each season and even holds speciality tastings that can be compared to those for wine connoisseurs. The tomatoes are started from seeds sourced from around the world in an indoor planting room, with UV light, before being moved to her large greenhouse to be brought on. About a third of the varieties will be new in any year, being trialled for flavour, shape and texture, with some making it onto the permanent list the next year. If you’ve ever thought of growing tomatoes, here are some of Anne’s varieties worth an individual mention: Red Pear – a big pear-shaped tomato, perfect for breakfast frying I chose a seedling Whippersnapper and a Brasero for my children to grow themselves, so far they’re doing really well and avoiding the temptation to water them 3 times a day. It took the wisdom of a 3 year old to reinforce what Anne had been telling me all along "Mummy the tomatoes are coming, I can smell them in the leaves!" Anne and Kieron McGrath The Bell and Birdtable Runnington Wellington TA21 0QW 01823 663080
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