Our approach at Ragmans

Our approach is focused on increased system health by improving soil and plant fertility.  We encourage life and diversity from the micro-level (microbes and minerals) up to macro-level (people!) creating more sustainable farming practices. Much of our thinking at Ragmans has been developed by Juanfran Lopez (left) who has studied and taught in Europe and South America. These techniques were originally introduced by Jairo Restrepo (right), who continues his relationship with Ragmans, teaching here every summer. Our video - Harvesting the Sun introduces Jairo and his thinking. This article also explains our approach in more detail. 

Our goal is to measure the effectiveness of these biological techniques on system biology and mineral balance on plant and soil health.

In addition to this we are developing a high quality range of preparations and techniques such as biofertilisers, bokashi, aerobic teas, mineral chelations, mychorriza, chromatography, lactic acid bacteria, and native microbe reproduction among others methods…. We wish to offer a service tweaking these techniques into specific land situations with local farmers.

This section of our website is a bit complex. We have put some of the tools that we use in the section below. We have also gone into detail with our fertilisation plan for the orchards as it shows how we actually apply these tools. We would welcome comments!


Our Approach to Soil Fertility and System Health ~ by Matt Dunwell

Added: February 15th 2017, Ragmans Farm

Ragmans Farm is a 60 acre organic farm in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. We use farming practices that regenerate the land, using permaculture as a guiding design principle. Between the three main enterprises at the farm – Ragmans Lane Farm, the Willow Bank and Ragmans Market Garden, we provide emplo... read more

 


Added: May 13th 2016, Ragmans Farm

Aerobic or Anaerobic? By Juanfran Lopez Microbes  - Drawn by Miriam, age 4   I would like to introduce this thought with a simple and easy question comparing two different well known similar tools, but with different final purposes, just to put this article in context... it would be something like th... read more

 


An interview with Jairo Restrepo

Added: June 23rd 2015, Ragmans Farm

Columbian champion of Organic Farming and for the rights of small holder farmers. "my dream is to construct a being, an ideal state of a being, so that I shall not be the ideal being of the State". Jairo Restrepo is a passionate educator and activist in the field of sustainable agriculture and food s... read more

 


Added: March 23rd 2015, Ragmans Farm

A Wonderful Time at Ragmans by Yanthe Oosthoek - Student Summer 2014 Being back in Holland made me realise how amazing my time at Ragmans had been. While cycling through the Dutch landscape (which is not very impressive compared to the beautiful Wye Valley Ragmans is surrounded by) I notice myself pointing out diff... read more

 


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