smallholding
Cornwall
A beautiful 12 acre smallholding on the Roseland Peninsula. On the outskirts of a small village 2 miles from the sea. Our land slopes down through orchards, past ponds & polytunnels to a camping field with yurts & 4 acres of woodland. We have polytunnels, veg gardens & we follow a no-dig approach. We grow for people staying on-site & specialise in salad leaves which we sell locally. We try to be sustainable as possible - with a wind turbine, solar panels & managed woodland. We also have posh compost loos. Accommodation is in a caravan and there is a large kitchen & communal space in our straw-bale barn. We are big foodies & eat excellent veggie food, which we are happy to advise on, making sourdough bread, chutneys, pesto, jams, vinegars etc. Dave is a has great gardening & plant knowledge & Sara a very good cook!
2021 We are starting to unlock again, so in need of gardening help. We are always looking for people with some practical and carpentry skills to help landscape and infrastructure. These are usually creative projects using greenwood from our site and various recycled materials.
Well, what is life like here at Cotna? It's a beautiful place that people can fall in love with. It's peaceful and life takes on its own Cotna rhythm. We work according to the seasons, longer hours in the summer than the winter; we don't generally start work at the crack of dawn but there are always regular daily tasks to get on with if you are an early riser! Work is based around the gardens & polytunnels; sowing, planting, weeding, picking - and there is always the picking & bagging up of salad leaves. Spring it's all hands to the gardens & getting up to speed with sowing, planting etc and preparing for summer guests. In summer it's more watering, harvesting, maintaining, as well as Yurt changeovers which we need help with. Winter tends to be based around woodland work & getting the gardens ready for next season, in Autumn we harvest, make preserves, cider etc. There is always maintenance & small building projects around the place so anyone with carpentry & building skills is always greatly appreciated! And in summer there is
Cotna is a friendly, fairly sociable space but people have their own time and space too. We eat great food, and we love the international feel to the place with wwoofers from all around the world, Indian Yoga teachers, food based on local ingredients but multi cultural recipes. We do rent out part of the straw-bale barn and Yurts to people on quiet holidays and on retreat, so we need to be sensitive to the need for silence when needed. As well as people there are happy chickens and friendly cats & dogs. There is a good local pub in the village & we are near the beautiful Cornish coastal path & beaches.
Generally we do look for wwoofers who either have specific carpentry & DIY skills and / or gardening experience, but really the most important thing for us is that you have tons of energy & enthusiasm to learn and help! And we always like to host couples who have complementary skills.
Accommodation is generally in 2 caravans or camping in the summer when we have more space for volunteers. In terms of facilities, there are outdoor compost loos, an outdoor shower block and a kitchen available in the barn. So you can be independent at times and we eat & socialise together when it suits us all.
We hope that gives you all the information we need, but any further questions or need for more information can be dealt with by email or phone.
Organic methods: All organic land management, composting, organic seeds, seeds, compost loos & pest control. We try and plant by the moon using the biodynamic calendar. We follow the no-dig method following Charles Dowding and loosely use a permaculture approach.
Certifications: We are too small to be officially certified organic, though we do operate entirely organically. using our own compost, organic seeds, eat organic food etc.
Current projects: Weeding, eco building projects eg a new polytunnel, additional sheds. We always love carpenters & people with practical skills, as well as general suport with the land, gardens & animals.
Internet access available
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Learning opportunities
Vegetable farming
Fruit or nut farming
Poultry farming
Forestry
Vegetable or fruit preservation
Beer, cider, wine, or juice making
Bakery
Green Building
Renewable energy production
Food justice / sovereignty
Methods or systems
No-till farming
Permaculture
Host type
Self-sufficiency property
4.9
Hectares
|
12
Acres
Sara
Member since 2010
Languages spoken:
English, French, Spanish
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Mon
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Response rate: 41%
Response time: typically within 6 days
Cornwall
Train to St Austell then bus 524/525 from outside the station to Lost Gardens of Heligan / Gorran. We can pick you up from Heligan if there is not a direct bus.
My past WWOOFers
Iris
May 2023
•
Girona, Spain
Reviews
Linda
Germany
•
June 2021
Sarah and Dave are amazing people, we worked mostly with Dave and learnt a lot from him.
Their lifestyle is also interesting and we hope more people will follow it in the near future. The tasks vary and the main thing is to get involved into what is needed, for us it was the garden.
Best of luck Linda and Santi.
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Kerstin
March 2016
We arrived at Cotna with the vague plan to stay for one month and ended up staying for 10 weeks. It's a very peaceful place, in it's own little valley, inhabited by 2 kind hosts, 2 mostly kind horses, several chicken, 3 ducks, 2 very different cats and the 2 most amazing dogs in the world. We learned a lot at Cotna - Dave is a very patient, knowledgeable character who taught us a lot about gardening, composting, wood working...Sara knows a lot about food and cooks fantastic dinners and we're still travelling around with her superb sourdough starter, eating fantastic bread. Due to the remote location of the place you must be happy to entertain yourself, but if you're looking for quietness, learning a lot about gardening and staying in a beautiful location embedded in nature, this is the place to be. Thank you again, Sara and Dave! x Kerstin and Matthew
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