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ROWAN TREE FARM
OUR STORY
Hi! We're Jack and Becky - a husband and wife team
running a small regenerative farm in the parish of St Pierre du Bois
on the beautiful island of Guernsey.
Where it all began
Jack's love of plants dates back to his very earliest years, helping his Grandad in his garden.
Following school, Jack studied Horticulture and Garden Design in London, before starting a landscaping Company - Auburn Gardens - which he ran for ten years.
Becky, while definitely NOT green fingered, shares Jack's love of nature and the outdoors, having grown up in the Hertfordshire countryside with her own little flock of Black Hebridean sheep.
Together, we always dreamed of a self-sufficient future on a farm, surrounded by children and animals and happy chaos.
Where it all changed
The future we dreamed of became a reality shortly after the birth of our first Son, Rowan.
After ten years of landscaping, with ten staff on his payroll, Jack realised that his work now revolved far more around his computer than around his true passion - growing things. On top of that, the birth of Rowan had given us renewed vigor to leave the world in better shape for him, in whatever small way that we could.
So, Jack decided to close the door on his wonderfully profitable career as a landscaper, in pursuit of the notoriously un-profitable career as a grower!
We found a small parcel of land in the depths of Torteval and were about to buy it when Jack took our gorgeous dog, Bo, on a walk around the plot. Tragically, Bo ate something on that field and died of acute kidney failure one week later.
His death really knocked us. We went away to the UK for a bit of space and both agreed that we couldn't go ahead with the land purchase.
But we decided not to lose sight of the dream, and decided that we should look for a house with land instead. We accepted that finding the right place would take time. We weren't expecting to log on to the Swoffers website and fall in love with the first place we saw...but that's exactly what happened.
Where it all got expensive
We had found the absolute dream spot for our farm - a historic vinery site, now super overgrown but totally magical, with a lovely old Guernsey cottage on site. The only problem was, it was about fifteen times more than we could afford!
But the fire in our bellies seemed to ignite a fire in other people's too. To our huge surprise, several banks got excited by our vision and agreed to lend us money. Jack's parents agreed to put their home up as collateral. The only catch was we had to somehow find a small fortune every quarter to service the loan, otherwise Jack's parents could lose their home.
But the pressure and risk felt worth it, and we decided that we would somehow make it work, between renting out our house in St Peter Port, continuing to work our day jobs, and selling a s*** ton of lettuce...!
We signed on the dotted line....and one week later, discovered, much to our surprise, that I was pregnant again.
Where we are now
So, here we are!
Two years later, two little farmhands keeping us busy, as well as a very excitable pup, cat, pigs, chickens and geese thrown into the mix.
Very tired, but very happy. And with huge dreams for the future.
Stage one is complete. We've created a super productive market garden and a little farm shop.
Stage two is afoot. Market garden 2.0 is in creation and should be up and running by spring, along with a further 150 chickens incoming.
Stage three to ten are already mapped out in our minds. And we couldn't be more excited for all that is to come.
To those who have followed our journey for a while - thank you. Your support for what we are building means absolutely everything. To those who have just joined us - welcome. We are so happy to have you on board!
Follow along with the latest on our socials - @rowantreefarmguernsey - and sign up to our mailing list for access to our newsletter and pre-sales of our produce and events.
