Our stance on sustainability at Coombe began before environmentalism became the new fad. Nowadays most people understand the meaning of words like sustainability, environmentalism, and conservation, but back then these were specialist interests. We continually try to improve our practices and encourage you to do the same.
Our environmental policy is our commitment to a way of life!
We aim:
- to educate our children about our lifestyle at Coombe as they are the planet’s future.
- to educate our guests by 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 affect our earth, and our precious environment.
We are committed to:
- reducing our carbon footprint by having Solar Panels to heat the Swimming Pool, Photovoltaic panels to supply electricity to our farmhouse. We installed in 2011 an 80 khw gasifying wood boiler to replace 95% of all heating oil, and gas for all our buildings on-site. 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, and 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.
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 was 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 a true pioneer!
We bank with Triodos Bank, the greenest of all banks, and they 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.
Committed to Excellence – business course has been undertaken by Angela Malyon and we have attained the first level in 2011 at the awards ceremony in Exeter. Putting this learning into practice with various work projects and generally running the business more efficiently it has been an invaluable course. We often play host and act as ambassadors for the G.B.T.S. to members of this group and our local community self-catering competitors to come and view us and learn from us especially in respect of our renewable energies. Businesses in the same trade really need to see renewables in action and we are willing to show them.
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 – transitionculture.org and an excellent example of a well-established town in action is www.transiotiontowntotnes.org
We have joined 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 weekend Permaculture Course held in the barn at Middle Coombe Farm.
A weekend Cider Making Course bringing back the traditional methods of cider making and keeping it simple
Tim has 2 x very healthy bee colonies well established providing delicious honey with fantastic support from Jackie and Sue our local beekeepers
We have our organic chickens eggs fulfilling our breakfast desires and we offer our guests to come and collect the eggs for the farm experience and of course enjoyment of proper golden eggs!
Coombe Community
We now have a local group of volunteers working our own organic veggie garden as a long-term permaculture plan.This brings the children from all involved into the veggie garden so they can learn and experience seeding, planting, watering, and best of all harvesting whereby eating instantly from earth to mouth – what an experience for them and the future of our planet…..
A Coombe Community Apple Pressing day is now an annual event in our Cider Barn – using the reclaimed 150 year old press for the cider making. Mainly neighbours attend to give a hand and the kids had great fun using the smaller apple press for juicing, while the local lads with the historical experience mull over the cider press and finally get 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 have several outings of apple picking requesting permission from farmers and local estate owners to use all the unused apples on their land – they gladly consent. In 2011, we had a wonderful abundance of apples from our first ever crop inour own replanted orchard, and we produced four barrels of cider from them.
Wildlife at the farm and woods is now very clearly seen, with a map and species listing set up in strategic places throughout the property. Click here to see the related page.
The Farm
Coombe farm fields
Was the first step to 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 the dark means it is not necessary to use herbicide.
- Hemp crop for fibre and to keep weeds in the dark, then drilling pasture seeds after cutting the 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.
- Sympathetic 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 on site.
- Most of the garden tables and benches are made from our own timber from our woods and crafted on site.
- Tim is now a qualified beekeeper – 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. Unfortunately, due to the 2010/11 harsh winter one of the hives didn’t survive, but then another colony of bees was found in a nearby field, so we’re back up to 3.
Forestry – Traditional Barn Building, Timber, Seasoned Fire Logs, Bridal Paths and Walkways, Wooden Carvings at the oak tree – ceremonial glade
We have two fine wooden barns designed by local craftsmen constructed from larch trees grown in our own woodlands. Now complete the barns are full with dried fire logs which are available for sale to our local community. One of the barns is specially designed to let through draughts from all angles thus drying from all angles and obviating the need for costly electric kilns.
In Feb 2011, we thinned the larch trees adjacent to the ceremonial glade. We converted the larch trees into benches for seating for the guests who attend “handfasting ceremonies” at the old tree. This replaced the need for the tractor to drive in and set up hay bales for the guests. We used the skills of one of our loggers Sam Ellis who is a chainsaw pirate, and he created magnificent carvings sculptured from the larch tree stumps surrounding the oak tree – see our facebook page (follow the link from the top of our site pages) and Coombe Blog for pictures.
Tim Malyon of Coombe Farm has previously sat on the Soil Association forestry organic standards committee; no chemicals, pesticides nor in-organic fertilizers are used in our forest.
So we now have some idea of the flora and fauna of the woodland. To add to that we had a Nature Survey completed by ‘Wild Devon’ in 2011, which is posted up in our woodlands so when walking you can identify various species and flora, making it far more interesting. Our forestry practice is designed to avoid any clear felling of timber and ind instead promotes constant cover management – good for the woodlnads and all who use them. However, most recently we hae been forced to complete a small clear-fell of larch trees in our woodlands, due to the disease ‘Phytophora Ranorum’, in order to keep this disease at bay; it was more of a precautionary measure as we presently do not have this disease. The advantages to the clear-fell are that it encourages natural regeneration of broadleaf trees – oak, ash, some beech, wild cherry, some sycamore – especially near watercourses. We have found a major benefit to the wildlife diversification, especially with the amount of birds in this area. In all of this, we are trying to maintain and develop the work carried out by Tim Malyon’s father, Brian, whom founded a forestry contracting company and was the recipient of many prizes for his ‘Small Woodland Management’.
Below are a number of other activities which we have implemented over the past few years in our woods & farm:
- Helped form a machinery collective – First purchased a Wood-Mizer portable sawmill, then setup a collective local timber retailing operation and mill 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 following is in the plan for the next five years to do in the woods:
- Continue replanting
- Log processing for fire logs
- Harvesting trees
- Brashing
- the removal of the lower branches of a tree to stop young branches from interlocking as they get bigger, and also allows the tree to be thoroughly inspected for any signs of disease or pests.
- First thinings of young trees
- Major track maintenance.
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 ‘Thunderbox’ Eco loo for the toilet facilities to the barn – designed and built by local forester Dave Woods.
- Eco weddings, Yoga Teacher Training 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 showers built onsite with all our own wood at the pool side.
- Installation of the most energy efficient Hot Tub at the pool area
The Grade II listed Farmhouse
- Electricity – photovoltaic 5.5kwh generator installed.
- Ecotricity & Good Energy supply us.
- All electrical appliances when they need replacement are being replaced with top rating efficiency.
- Heating and hot water is provided with the 80wh wood boiler.
- Furniture – policy to purchase second hand locally from Tiverton.
- Enjo organic cleaning products are used by our cleaning team.
- Recycling all glass, aluminium, metals, tetras, plastic milk bottles, newspapers, used batteries, failed flourescent tube lighting. 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 are booked in to prepare meals in the house and make food for celebration dinners with guests.
- Our residential yoga groups use our local cook to provide all their food whilst they are in residence.
- 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.