Irene’s small holding in the south of France is fueling my inspiration to make my own six acres in Massachusetts the beautiful productive garden and romantic place I know it can be.   I first saw Irene’s garden over at Fennel and Fern but have since been following her at her own blog La Ferme Du Sourrou.

I find the whole place in it’s rambling, rustic, informal-ness to be just the kind of reminder I need that perhaps sometimes design, and it’s tendency to become contrived, can be taken too far and just letting things go a bit can be romantic and utterly inviting.

Irene practices permaculture and organic gardening and rears hens, pigs, goats and sheep.  My husband has decided that we should have goats…I am not so sure, but seeing her Angora goats, their charming faces and their beautiful curly hair, I am slowing coming around to the idea…Angora’s only dear.

From Fennel and Fern: “Irene’s gardening practices are as free-range as her chickens. She feeds hungry plants using a ’soup’ of comfrey, nettles and garden weeds; she builds new raised beds using the hugelkultur system, where dead wood from trees supplies the nutrients, fertility and organisms essential for a successful harvest; and the old bedding from her goat sheds becomes a mulch for the vegetables.”

Irene runs courses on off-grid living, self-sufficiency, foraging and smallholding.  You can find out more about them at La Ferme de Sourrou.