Bob and Ann Paton thought they were just moving to their dream country home – until they had the idea to turn its six acres into a small farm
e didn’t intend to be farmers,” Bob Paton says. In their 50s, he and his wife, Ann, envisaged “one more move”. They lived in Newcastle upon Tyne and had a checklist for their dream house: “Northumberland, stone-built, a bit of character and a reasonable garden,” Bob says.
The next two years were a struggle. The four fields were badly fenced and waterlogged. The soil was poor. Growing vegetables was “not a common thing to do in this cold, wet and windy area of Northumberland”, says Bob, 65. Ann’s father worked for ICI, the chemical company, and took “two or three jobs just to keep us all going”. Her mother was a seamstress and keen gardener. “We both come from very hard-working socialist families,” she says.
The turning point on the farm came in summer 2018, when an adviser from the Soil Association told the couple: “You’re making fantastic progress.” It was “a fillip we needed,” Bob says. They were advised to stop digging, to preserve the soil structure. “Overnight, our produce became amazing,” Bob says. “It was transformational.” In the months that followed, the Patons could say with confidence: “We’re farmers.
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