Our sustainable working croft
Fruit and vegetables
We grow almost all our own fruit and vegetables and we are happy to pass on our experiences in grappling with self-sufficiency.
Since moving onto the croft in June 2004 we have created a large 20 x 30 metres) vegetable patch, a 50 ft poly tunnel, a small greenhouse and lots of raised beds.
Each successive year sees the production of good crops of vegetables and plenty of soft fruit in the summer/autumn, all of which we are happy to share with our guests.
Poultry
Chickens, ducks and geese provide all our eggs and and some meat, we rear a special breed of fat chicken that weighs up to 4.5 kg when killed - you are welcome to order one.
We regularly use an incubator for hatching batches of chicks - it never ceases to amaze us (and visitors) how a helpless, damp hatchling transforms in a few hours to a fluffy, scampering, independent and very vocal chick.
Trampoline with a view! Help in the garden from Harry weeding the strawberries.
Lucy our eight year old black lab. And with one of her accidental puppies - note the white toe!
Life changes
Some of our guests enjoy our real eggs or freshly picked salad leaves so much they can no longer put up with shop bought.
On the right are Joshua and George, children of guests who collected their first eggs while staying with us. Now the family have their own hens.
Meeting Daisy and baby chicks!
Pigs
A steady succession of pigs provide us with hams, bacon and sausages that is now available for guests to enjoy (see the Good Food pages) with the pig meat being quite dark and exceptionally tasty.
So be warned - taste our pig meat and you may never be able to buy 'ordinary' pork or bacon again.
Our croft
You don’t have to pull on boots and get your hands dirty when you stay with us.
However, many of our visitors return year after year because they and their children enjoy experiencing life on a working croft where you can do as much or as little as you like.
Daisy, our Jersey cow, is milked every day, never too early in the morning. The pigs always need feeding (and scratching!). And there are almost always eggs to collect from our many chickens, ducks and geese.
Wildlife
Birds
The croft, though small, has a wide range of habitats that attracts plenty of wildlife, particularly birds.
So far we have seen house martins, wrens, robins, swallows, great, coal and blue tits, sparrows, starlings, sedge warblers, blackbird, pied wagtail and yellow hammers nesting on the croft. Blackcock regularly fly-over and land in the common grazing where we see them while looking for our cows above the croft. It’s a wonderful place to walk the dog (kept under control).
Rarer visitors have included waxwing and blackcap. We have also seen a whinchat on the nuts, which although not rare is an unusual sighting.
Siskins, on the other hand, are always about unless the peanuts run out or the sparrow hawk is on patrol. And just how many siskins can you get on one feeder?
Flowers
If you are interested in wild flowers we suggest you visit in June.
There have been over a thousand (yes!) orchids on the top half of the croft, mostly of the varieties shown here, which range in colour from very pale pink through to very dark purple and the more unusual Lesser Butterfly Orchid on the right.
Photos taken around the croft
Bluebell Croft, 15 Anaheilt, Strontian, Ardnamurchan, Scotland UK PH36 4JA Tel 01967 402226
