A national tapestry is within reach.
May 03, 2026
Our Beltane celebration was yesterday, and I'm still feeling it.
It was the first time we've all properly come back to the land together since the autumn. The fire, the headdresses, the shared lunch, the gong bath, the music as the sun lowered. Faces I haven't seen in months. People I was meeting for the first time. The whole farm felt warm and welcoming and properly alive.
I want to say something about how the day actually happened.
This time last year, when we launched the woodland farm shop, I spent the whole day running. From one logistical fire to another, ten different jobs at once, never quite landing in any conversation. I loved it but I missed most of it.
Yesterday was different. The team and the community planned it together. People showed up early. People stayed late. Stalls were dressed, the fire was lit, food was prepared, the music came together, the welcome was warm. I didn't have to hold the day. The day was held.
I want to be honest about what that means to me.
The last few years of building My Little Farm have taken more out of me, and out of my family, than I've often let on. There have been long stretches that have been genuinely lonely. Holding a vision that doesn't fit into any of the existing boxes, while also trying to produce food and pay wages and keep the lights on, is hard in a way that's difficult to describe. We've kept going because we believed it was worth it. But there have been weeks I wasn't sure we'd get through.
What I'm feeling now, properly for the first time, is the support coming through. The right people are stepping up to take responsibility for different parts of this. The team is finding its shape. The community is finding its hands. Yesterday was the first day I really felt I'm not carrying it on my own anymore. That's a profound shift, and it changes what's possible from here.
So this is, more than anything, a thank you. To the team, to everyone who's been on the farm these last few weeks getting it ready, to everyone who showed up yesterday with a job in their hands and got on with it. It mattered. Quietly and completely. Really, thank you.
Now to what's next.
I held back yesterday from saying too much about what's coming. I wanted yesterday to be about being together, not about announcements. But I do want to share with you, properly, where my head is, because the year ahead is the most exciting one yet.
The journey to our next estate is clear now. A beautiful 100 acre farm where we can bring the full vision of My Little Farm to life. A working farm with the depth of community we've built here, plus the things this 15 acres can't quite hold. Stays. Gathering. Living. The kind of place that has what I'd call a natural luxury. Not opulence. Real craft, considered detail, the dignity of things made well. The kind of place that lifts the spirits when you arrive. That farm becomes our flagship. The fullest expression of what this can be.
The journey to the wider network is clear too. We carry on nurturing our first little farm in Streat, and we let it become exactly what it was always going to be. The blueprint. The first of many. Now we know how to build a little farm like this, we can guide others around the country to establish them too. New community-owned farms coming online not as one-off projects, but as a network growing in real time.
When I picture this fully, what I see is a national tapestry. Real, working, community-owned farms across the country, producing real food for households, and providing places where people can step out of the noise and back into something true. Hubs for connection. Hubs for meaningful lives. A whole different shape for how the country feeds itself.
In the supermarket supply chain, a typical farmer keeps as little as 9 pence of every pound you spend on food. The rest disappears between the field and the plate. The model we're building inverts that. Up to 90 pence in the pound, by structure, going directly to the farmer and the land. That inversion would be completely transformative for the lives of the farming community at large.
This is genuinely within reach. Not a vague hope. We have a clear path. Hundreds of farms. Hundreds of thousands of households. Imagine that. The country feeding itself in a completely different way.
And we don't need to go into battle. We simply keep building the alternative. In time, the supermarket system will either dissolve, or it will have to change its ways and honour farmers with the respect they deserve.
As I said yesterday, none of this is new. It's not radical. It's remembering how we naturally want to live. Knowing where our food comes from. Belonging to the land. Eating with the people we love. Being part of something we can stand on and feel.
We just abandoned all of it inside a couple of generations. My Little Farm is the return.
This is the beginning. Genuinely. After everything we've come through to get here, it's only now that the real work starts to feel possible.
Which brings me to one ask.
Before we go further, we want to understand more about you. What brought you to My Little Farm. What matters most to you. Whether the farm is meeting you where you are. What we could do, as we grow, to make this the best possible version of itself for you.
We've put together a short survey to ask exactly that, and you can keep it anonymous if you'd prefer.
Eight respondents will be invited to a longer conversation, and each will receive a free Smallholders Box as a thank you for the time.
If you came yesterday, thank you for being there. If you couldn't make it, you were missed, and there will be more soon.
