About Bernard Neeson

Bernard Neeson farms Creeve Cottage, a 30-acre smallholding in the Sperrin Mountains of Co. Tyrone. The land was inherited from Bernard’s father, and over the past six years the family has transformed it into a thriving regenerative farm, combining a diverse market garden with field-scale vegetables, haylage, and compost production.

Bernard’s approach is rooted in resilience through diversity, stacking enterprises across the farm and building cooperative relationships with neighbouring growers. Creeve Cottage produces biologically enriched mushroom compost and also propagates comfrey for swale systems that help protect local watercourses, he designs nature based solutions for filtering farm dirty water on farms.

A keen innovator, Bernard has developed a spring-water-powered heating system for the farm’s greenhouse, allowing year-round growing even through the depths of the Sperrin winter.

Bernard’s talk “Designing & Building Nutrient Catchments,” will dive into the technical detail of designing a natural filtering system like comfrey-powered swales or underground trenches to clean dirty yard run off.