🌾 A Week at Ballymaloe

I first saw a glimpse of Ballymaloe on TikTok about a year ago: A culinary school on a one-hundred-acre organic farm… in Ireland? It felt too good to be true.

Both my parents were born in Ireland, so the idea of this place pulled at my heart instantly. It didn’t just look beautiful, it felt like a call home.

Then one morning in January, my friend Lauren texted me:

“Have you ever heard of Ballymaloe? We should go.”

Ten months later, our bags were packed for a week of Practical Homesteading at Ballymaloe Cookery School. We wanted to dip our toes in before committing to the full culinary program: and a week in the fall felt perfect.

When we arrived, it was everything we’d imagined and more. The air was fresh, the grass impossibly green, the kitchens alive with clinking pans and quiet focus. Chickens wandered through the gardens, students moved with purpose, and the gravel crunched beneath our boots like a soundtrack.

That first morning, I remember thinking: this was already worth every penny.

🐓 The Course: A Week of Practical Homesteading

Ballymaloe is best known as a cookery school: but recently, they’ve expanded into an Organic Farm School, and that’s where our course lived. Practical Homesteading sits right at the intersection of both worlds: part hands-on farming, part old-world kitchen wisdom.

Our week focused on what it means to grow and live sustainably. We learned how to build healthy soil, what good compost actually looks like, how to create a living microbiome, and how to bring depleted earth back to life. We talked about balance, worms, and moisture levels like they were ingredients in a recipe.

We spent mornings learning the rhythm of the farm: checking on cows, pigs, and chickens, understanding what it takes to raise them for milk, eggs, or meat. Afternoons often led us into the kitchen, where lessons shifted from the field to the stove. We made everything from scratch: pies, jams, biscuits, rolls, and the fluffiest loaves of white bread and sourdough.

Fermentation became one of the most fascinating parts of the week. We learned how to make milk kefir, water kefir, kombucha, and sauerkraut, each bubbling away with its own tiny ecosystem of life. Every jar and bottle felt alive; transforming simple ingredients into something rich with probiotics and flavor. It was a reminder that food doesn’t just feed us; it teaches patience, chemistry, and care. Watching milk turn to kefir or cabbage turn to sauerkraut felt almost magical. (I felt like I was at Hogwarts) a quiet science that connects us to centuries of preservation and nourishment.

One day was entirely devoted to the chicken: how to joint it properly, how to cook each part, and how to use the whole bird without waste. We made chicken tenders, liver pâté, stew, and chicken stock that simmered until the air smelled like Sunday dinner.

By the end of the week, I realized Ballymaloe wasn’t just teaching us how to cook or grow: it was teaching us how to pay attention. To soil, to flavor, to time.

The most important thing I learned all week? Soil Health

The most important thing I learned this week was simple: everything begins with the soil. Our health depends on it. When the soil is alive and organic, (free of pesticides and hormones) it grows vibrant, nutrient-rich crops and herbs. Those crops feed healthy animals, and in turn, we eat food that truly nourishes us. But when the soil is treated with chemicals, that imbalance travels upward into the plants, the animals, and eventually, into us. It’s all connected. Standing in those fields at Ballymaloe, I realized that caring for the soil isn’t just farming, it’s caring for ourselves.

Where did we stay?

During our stay, we checked into the beautiful Ballymaloe House, a six-minute drive from the Cookery School and owned by the same family. Once the home of Myrtle Allen, the founder of Ballymaloe, it now carries her legacy under the care of her daughter-in-law, Darina Allen, who runs everything at the school today.

We were lucky enough to experience three different rooms throughout the week. Partly by chance, since the hotel was nearly full, and each one felt like stepping into a storybook. Think farmhouse cottage meets dollhouse perfection: pink wallpaper, sage-green beds, soft lighting from antique sconces, and that signature Ballymaloe scent (homemade organic lavender soap) that seems to follow you through the halls. No overhead lights, no harsh tones… just warmth, texture, and the kind of quiet elegance that makes you slow down.

It was the kind of place that doesn’t try too hard, it just is. Perfect in its simplicity, and somehow, exactly what you’d imagine a farmhouse in Ireland to be.

What the hotel offers:

• Breakfast is included everyday (the most delicious hotel breakfast i’ve ever had)

• There is a pool for the summer months

• Tennis courts

• A restaurant with a 5-course dinner (residents can order à la carte)

• The food they serve remains organic harvesting from their own garden, and the garden at the school

• The most amazing customer service ever (I mean truly, we had to leave our first B&B and needed a new hotel in a pinch, Ballymaloe house made it work and we felt right at home)

• Hotel gift shop (open to the public)

One of my favorite things about this hotel is that everyone knows each other and the community is what makes this place feel so different from any other luxury hotel I have ever stayed at. For example, Billy who taught us all about the cows on his farm has a brother named Gerard who works with the hotel to be a taxi driver. Its the small connections that make you smile and appreciate community more than ever.

We also learned that every Christmas, the Allen family gets the hotel back for the holiday, and all of the grandkids run into the kitchen, grab silver trays and slide down the stairs at the hotel and out the front door. Think of the Princess Diary scene for a visual. I’ve never been more jealous of a Christmas tradition.

How much did everything cost?

To be honest an experience like this is priceless, but unfortunately nothing in life is free so let’s break it down.

The cost of the hotel for 7 nights: $1,300 per person (Lauren and I shared a room), total: $2,600

Transportation: Getting to and from the airport $170 total - originally our first B&B was in walking distance to the school, so we did not rent a car. We were lucky enough to get a ride everyday to school from the other students staying at the Ballymaloe house, if I were to do it again, I would rent a car