About us

We’re Chris and Annabelle — two people who share a love for good food, open landscapes, and the quiet rhythm of rural life.

Chris was born and raised in South Africa, where he partly grew up on a family farm. He later moved to the Netherlands, where he now works as an electronic engineer. Annabelle is Dutch, born in the Netherlands, and spent time in South Africa while finishing her master’s in cultural anthropology as an exchange student. Somewhere between those two worlds — the Dutch meadows and the South African bush — we found each other and built a shared dream.

In the Netherlands, we bought a small one-acre farm, once part of a much larger estate. It became our weekend laboratory for biological growing and permaculture — experimenting with vegetables, raising chickens, and nurturing a fruit forest of walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, apples, pears, quinces, and cherries. It’s where we learned the joy of working with the land and the patience it asks for.

Chris has always dreamt of having his own farm — a dream rooted in his childhood and the search started in northern Spain because of his Basque ancestry. Our search for land began in the Basque Country, but our hearts were captured by central Catalonia, especially Les Garrigues. The landscape felt instantly familiar — the dry air, the olive trees, the soft hills — so much like the Karoo in South Africa. It felt like coming home to both our worlds at once.

Today, our farm in Les Garrigues is a work in progress — olive trees, almonds, pistachios, and wild land where nature still runs free. For now, we manage it from the Netherlands, while our daughter finishes school. Our dream is to one day move there permanently and bring the project fully to life.

We want this to be more than a farm. We see it as a place where ecology, tradition, and community meet — where visitors can experience rural Catalonia through eco-tourism and responsible rural travel. In time, we hope to collaborate with other farmers and local businesses to help breathe new life into this beautiful but often quiet region. If we can create opportunities for young people to stay, work, and raise their families here, we’ll feel we’ve truly succeeded.

Back in the Netherlands, we also run a small side business making sausages and charcuterie for South African expats— a way of keeping flavours from home alive. That business has taught us a lot about building a brand, creating community, and bringing people together — lessons we’ll carry with us into this next chapter.

For us, the farm is more than a project — it’s a bridge between cultures, climates, and generations. It’s a place to grow roots, share stories, and live a little closer to the earth.