Organic livery yard owner

Susi Anderson, who runs an organic livery yard in Kent, on planting tens of thousands of trees and encouraging baby steps towards sustainability

- Susi Anderson

I started life as a ballet dancer, later becoming a veterinary nurse in a London vet hospital.

But we didn’t want to raise children there, so eventually we moved to this lovely corner of Kent.

We started with a house, half an acre of garden and five acres around the stable block.

Over the years neighbouring farmers sold us land, and our facilities now include nine brick boxes, a round pen, horse-walker, outdoor school (and an indoor under construction). In all, we have 85 acres with excellent off-road hacking.

Some of our land was used previously for commercial turf farming; the downside being that the topsoil is stripped off with the turf, and the soil here is heavy clay. We farmed it traditionally with the help of contractors while considering what to do, and hit on the idea of organic livery, to make us distinct.