co farm at the ulster folk museum

Visit the Holywood Co Farm at the Ballydugan Field in the Ulster Folk Museum

Co Farm at Ulster folk museum in Ballydugan Field

Holywood Co Farm at the Ulster Folk Museum.

Holywood Co Farm logo

Year 2

In 2026, CoFarm has continued to blossom. With regular volunteer sessions in the Weaver’s Field, they’ve grown an extraordinary range of produce: leeks, shallots, orangetti, pumpkins, courgettes, beetroot, chard, celeriac, sweetcorn, parsnips, carrots, onions, lettuce, spinach, French beans, potatoes, cauliflower, kale and cabbage.  They share this produce with food banks and in the local community.

Alongside the vegetables, they grow colourful green manures that attract pollinators, fix nitrogen in the soil and are used to make compost. To store their tools and provide some shelter, they’ve built a shed that blends with the farm buildings.  

In the growing season, they’re usually around to chat to visitors on Saturday afternoons and on special days like Traditional Skills and Harvest. 

They welcome new volunteers. 

If you’d like to join them, check out their website holywoodcofarm.org

What's growing at the Co Farm?

Onions
Freshly Grown
Hands holding freshly pulled green grass
Hands-on
A mans hand holding the end of a scythe
Holywood Co Farm at the Ballydugan field in the Ulster Folk Museum!
Onions
Freshly Grown

Year 1 

Holywood CoFarm - a volunteer-led community project – came on site in the spring of 2025. They laid out beds and paths with the help of a vintage Ferguson tractor and spread lime, a traditional way of reducing soil acidity.

There are echoes of tradition in how they work and what they grow, but also some things you wouldn’t have seen on a farm here a century ago, such as, Swiss chard and squashes.

 

 

At the Folk Museum, we support partnerships that make a difference for the environment and heritage. Our Cofarmers are taking their own small steps in promoting health and wellbeing and protecting our environment by growing and sharing food locally, growing community, and showing how regenerative agriculture can work.
Holywood CoFarm is written in red text and underneath it is a line in green text saying Growing Together. The image above all the text is a red and green coloured vegetable, like a turnip, coloured to tie in with the rest of the logo.

Find out more about the Holywood Co Farm

Holywood Co Farm is a community-led food project run by volunteers. You can sign up to volunteer with the Co Farm on their website.

The Holywood CoFarmers work together to produce fruit and vegetables for sharing within the Holywood area.

The Holywood CoFarmers believe that how we currently grow food, and what food we eat, have contributed to nature and climate emergencies, resulting in poor health for people. Through the Co Farm, they aim to bring people together, support a fair local food system, promote health and wellbeing and take a step towards the radical changes needed to tackle the climate crisis.