Jo Bradshaw's Page

Suburb

Dabovo

I am a...

Smallholder

I can offer

Gardening advice, Garden sitting, Poultry sitting, to be a gardening buddy, Food from my garden, Preserving

Food Growing Skill Level

Moderate

Experience and Qualifications

Permaculture Experience, WWOOFer, Lots of years in the garden

I am interested in...

Buying Local Food, Selling Local Grown Food, Bartering Local Food, Community Gardens, Learning, Preserving, Helping Others, WWOOFA Hosting, WWOOFA Working, Seed Savers

Tell us about your garden and what you're growing

We are a New Zealand/UK family and we have a smallholding in rural Bulgaria, which is where we hang out most of the time, in between trips back to the UK and NZ (Wairarapa). Our village is old time, full of donkeys and carts, wooden pitchforks, and everybody has a basement stacked full of preserved produce. We are learning, little by little, mixing up the old ways with our own studies into permaculture, grow biointensive and biodynamics. Graeme is a winemaker and we hope to establish our own vineyards and extended mixed plantings, as well as build a sustainable building here (and raise our two daughters, and make ends meet, so just a few wee goals there!

My expertise is in communication and design, and I'm following with interest the NZ Food Bill debate. I'm here to connect and learn from other more experienced growers - hopefully we'll get to meet some of you next time we're back in NZ. We do our own printing, drying and packaging of garlic and spices, and we're experimenting with natural body lotions and balms, and hopefully herbal teas. We've been selling things online, but we've just developed a new model - we call it 'microfarmerpatronage' which we are hoping to spread as a tool to empower small producers to build networks and make a sustainable living. Instead of selling ad hoc produce, we've set up a readership, one level of which also gets the subscriber access to some of our artisan food (but they are not paying for the food per se, they're paying for the writing and digital resources.)
Check out our site www.tearsoforpheus.com to find out more - you can also sign up to our free newsletter to be kept in the loop.