Inside East Durham's hidden vegan farm and off-grid retreat with founder Jenny Connor

Transcript

00:00So Jenny, we're down here at Dalton Moor Farm. For those who haven't been here

00:03before, can you talk us through what the concept of the farm is?

00:06Yeah, sure. Dalton Moor Farm is a regenerative vegan fruit farm, kind of wild food

00:15forest type model of farming. So we regenerate the natural environment and

00:20look after our wildlife and we grow our crops, mainly apples, fruits and some wild

00:27herbs and some cultivated herbs as well, some berry fruits and currants as well.

00:32And from our fruits and herbs we make our products, which are preserves, fruit

00:39juices, cider, apple cider vinegar and herbal teas. And we also have the School

00:46of Sustainable Living and Wellbeing on the site, which is all about helping

00:50people to reconnect with themselves, reconnect with nature, rediscover our

00:56place within nature itself and learn about traditional skills and crafts and

01:04learn things like foraging, self-reliance, so foraging, how to make

01:09our own personal care products, home care products, how to weave with willow and

01:15other natural materials, how to connect with nature, so well-being, events and

01:21sessions, forest bathing, mindfulness, meditation. We celebrate the full moon

01:29every month and we celebrate the festivals on the Wheel of the Year, which

01:34is about every six weeks, so things like the equinoxes and solstices and the

01:38festivals in between those, May Day and Lammas and all sorts of others you'll

01:46see, which is Halloween nowadays. So we do all of those and we also wassail the

01:53orchards in January every year, which is lovely. What else we do? We have school

01:59visits coming to the farm, so any school within about an hour's travel can come

02:04here for the day. The visits themselves are mostly funded, so the school only

02:09needs to find the funding for the transport, which can be a bit of

02:14an issue for them, and we do all sorts of lovely activities with kids, which they

02:19have a lot of time. We've just actually made, kind of developed a relationship

02:23with the Houghton Community Nursery School and they've been several times

02:27already and they're going to keep coming back through the year as the children

02:31grow a little bit older and learn more about being outside, which is absolutely

02:36wonderful. And then we have three wooden teepees, which were actually reclaimed,

02:42they're second hand, and we re-erected those, so they're available now for

02:46accommodation, retreats, escapes, just staying overnight on the farm after an

02:51event perhaps. And we're also open for weddings and festivals and larger events

02:56and they come under the banner of Nature's Embrace. And I'm also available

03:02to support anybody who needs my support with whole food plant-based nutrition

03:09coaching, lifestyle coaching, root cause lifestyle medicine coaching too.

03:15There's lots going on!