Planting by hand due to gravel like soil
A huge cabbage about to go to the piggies after being infested by caterpillars
Old tractor looking on...as much use as ?? add your own caption
More lettuce, this time showing the wind break we are trialling. if it works and produces better results we'll give it a go around all of the beds.The brilliant Bridgitte has been staying with us for a week now and is fitting in like of the family. It's always a worry that a new guest may not appreciate our lack of modern living, with no t.v. and only a shower for hot water it may seem a little odd these days. Couple that with dirty dogs and cats jumping around every where you try to sit down and a rather full compost toilet on the farm and it probably isn't the nicest place to stay!
We firmly believe in taking a relaxed attitude to living and bridgette seems to have similar thoughts, sharing our love of food and being outdoors makes things easy to organise. A trip to the beach at Alnmouth was a good excuse to get away from the planting for a few hours and have a dip in the good old North Sea.
The fam is going nicely, more hands made light work with our dedicated planting team (box scheme customers and now stiff legged friends Gary and Michelle) of around 3000 lettuce yesterday but with another 10,000 plus plants of variuos types yet to go in the work is far from over, but with bridgette staying for another two weeks we should be finished in no time.
We still need to get sheep in for shearing and need to source some turkeys to get ready for christmas, we are already too late if we can't find organic poults as conventional birds need 26 weeks of rearing to organic standards before being slaughtered and labelled organic.
Our annual review with the bank manager this morning confirmed we are still in need of extra customers but with the vegetable harvest looking promising we should have a better financial outlook this year. On the subject of finances while listening to the radio the other day I heard a women complaining about lack of resources given to people who couldn't find work. How hard it was to struggle by on £1500 per month, after paying her bills she was only left with £500 per month to pay for food for herself and her two children. She had been in this position for seven years and saw no way of ever getting a job and increasing her income. I think its great that we can all know that there is some kind of fall back if needed but is earning less than £30,000 per household really the poverty line. We earned £8,000 last year and this is probably larger than some farms as we have a retail aspect which helps prop up the other less profitable enterprises. Although we do little other than work and all food/social/travel tends to come under this banner we never feel any where near poverty stricken. Surely poverty is not knowing where your next meal is coming from or how your going to pay for an urgent life saving operation not deciding how your going to spend a tax free hand out of £1500 each month.
We firmly believe in taking a relaxed attitude to living and bridgette seems to have similar thoughts, sharing our love of food and being outdoors makes things easy to organise. A trip to the beach at Alnmouth was a good excuse to get away from the planting for a few hours and have a dip in the good old North Sea.
The fam is going nicely, more hands made light work with our dedicated planting team (box scheme customers and now stiff legged friends Gary and Michelle) of around 3000 lettuce yesterday but with another 10,000 plus plants of variuos types yet to go in the work is far from over, but with bridgette staying for another two weeks we should be finished in no time.
We still need to get sheep in for shearing and need to source some turkeys to get ready for christmas, we are already too late if we can't find organic poults as conventional birds need 26 weeks of rearing to organic standards before being slaughtered and labelled organic.
Our annual review with the bank manager this morning confirmed we are still in need of extra customers but with the vegetable harvest looking promising we should have a better financial outlook this year. On the subject of finances while listening to the radio the other day I heard a women complaining about lack of resources given to people who couldn't find work. How hard it was to struggle by on £1500 per month, after paying her bills she was only left with £500 per month to pay for food for herself and her two children. She had been in this position for seven years and saw no way of ever getting a job and increasing her income. I think its great that we can all know that there is some kind of fall back if needed but is earning less than £30,000 per household really the poverty line. We earned £8,000 last year and this is probably larger than some farms as we have a retail aspect which helps prop up the other less profitable enterprises. Although we do little other than work and all food/social/travel tends to come under this banner we never feel any where near poverty stricken. Surely poverty is not knowing where your next meal is coming from or how your going to pay for an urgent life saving operation not deciding how your going to spend a tax free hand out of £1500 each month.
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