Cynefin Kitchen
For us, community starts around the kitchen table. Everything we produce through Cynefin Kitchen is about cultivating a healthy culture, which means a creating a healthy ecology within ourselves, with each other and with the living world.
Cynefin Kitchen encompasses our 4 main micro-enterprises here at Bryn Cynefin - Field, Forage, Forest and Community. The name places us geographically in the borderlands between Monmouthshire and Herefordshire.
All of our products will be grown, hand-crafted and picked onsite using closed loop systems - designed to build soil fertility, store carbon, minimise waste and increase biodiversity.
We are using regenerative, small-scale, pesticide-free farming practices, to develop a rich foraging landscape consisting of woodland, native (new and ancient) hedgerow, a heritage orchard, perennial forest garden, polytunnel and cultivated herb garden.
You will be able to buy our products through our shop, or JOIN our Community Supported Agriculture membership scheme, or come and find us at your local event or market.
Forage
small batch herbal teas/tonics/condiments/balms
At Bryn Cynefin, we actively manage and nurture the site's wild ecosystems through sustainable land management. We aim to foster a mutually beneficial relationship where human interaction increases the diversity, abundance, and health of our wild plant populations. Our foraged produce is harvested in a way that respects the plant and other lifeforms who may rely on it. We do this by correlating our foraged produce according to season and abundance.
Forest
furniture/green crafts/mushrooms/biochar
Our wood products are completely sustainable and are part of a waste-free system - every tree felled, off-cut, and byproduct has a purpose — from handcrafted kitchen and furniture pieces, to gourmet mushroom logs, to biochar that returns nutrients and carbon to the soil. Nothing is wasted.
Field
cultivated herbs/fermented foods/silvopasture eggs/winter salads
We have a wonderful large polytunnel where we will grow our herbs and winter salads into the colder months. This is also where we will grow veg for our ferments. Everything is grown organically.
Our chickens will roam free as part of our rotational grazing system, following our sheep around the site, feasting on what they leave behind! Their varied diet and outdoor lifestyle will provide us (and you!) with super-tasty nutritious eggs.
Community
seasonal events/skill sharing/courses/volunteering
Bryn Cynefin is not just a self-sufficiency project, but an interdependency project — building reciprocal relationships between local people, the local economy, and our local eco systems.
We offer small workshops, courses and volunteer days to support learning and skill-sharing around subjects such as foraging, herb propagation and growing, mushroom growing, regenerative land management, green woodwork and off-grid living systems. Collaborations welcome!
Access to practical and educational resources/ a space for adults and children to learn about low impact development and explore areas of interest relating to Permaculture design, building, farming and how food is grown in Wales using regenerative, no-dig methods.
Membership/ become a member of our community-supported agriculture scheme and enjoy seasonal boxes, priority booking and discounts to our courses and gatherings.
Seasonal gatherings/ Celebration of local food growing and local seasonal events.
Volunteering and open days/ come along to meet likeminded folk, share skills and spend time outdoors
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Produce
CSA membership/farmer's markets/community events/retail outlets
Support us by buying our produce:
Join us/ Cynefin Kitchen CSA - growing our core community of members through a community-supported agriculture scheme rooted in seasonal produce. Quarterly boxes will showcase our Forest, Field and Forage produce. Boxes will vary according to the season.
Find us/ at the Cynefin Kitchen Hwb - find us at local weekly and seasonal markets
Buy wholesale/ we supply local restaurants and caterers
Collaborate/ we work with other local CSA’s, box schemes and other grower’s outlets
Come along/ our community events provide opportunities to try and buy our produce