The Beginnings of

Oxton Organics... 

It all began back in 1986. After seeing 5 acres of good land come up for sale in a local newspaper, farm founders Jayne Arnold & Julian Eldridge decided to start producing quality organic vegetables for the local community. They bought an old 1964 Ford Super Dexta, a plough, a few seeds and got stuck in. A few years, a few more acres and a couple of kids later they were running one of the first organic vegetable box schemes in the country, delivering fresh and healthy produce to local households.

​

33 years on, what was a bare field is now a thriving and productive farm. With wildflower rich pastures, no-dig vegetable gardens, orchards and tall hedgerows full of birdsong, Oxton Organics has become a haven for wildlife and people alike. Most recently, Jayne & Julian's son Jake has returned to the farm that raised him, bringing a wealth of new ideas and strategies to keep the farm growing for another generation.

​

Although the methods may have changed, the fundamental idea, that food can and should be produced in a way that nourishes human and non-human life alike, has remained the same, and the Super Dexta is still running.

Our 3 Guiding Principles

To make sure we always leave things better than we found them, we use 3 guiding principles to guide all our decision making. These are patterns that we see as integral to all healthy ecosystems and that, if followed, will mean our farm will continue to provide harvests and habitats for generations to come. 

We all depend on soil. If we feed the soil, the soil will feed us, so we only farm in ways that builds soil holistically and promotes long term soil fertility.

Biodiversity is nature's immune system. It's what stops pest and disease running amok through ecosystems. By providing plenty of diverse habitat and never using harmful biocides we can build natural resilience into our farms.

'Ecological succession' is a pattern that describes the succession between different communities of plants and microbes. Most of our food crops are annual plants, which tend to express themselves earlier in this succession, but generally ecosystems are trying to push themselves further along towards diverse communities of mostly perennial plants which are much more resilient and stable.

​

By encouraging this process and basing our fertility on perennial plants & trees we can grow food regeneratively with less dependence on disruptive machinery and fossil fuels.