The containers and assorted bits and bobs to be replaced by the new sheds.
Our potatoes looking good with a range of salad to jacket in size!
The new and improved garden with gravel and paving slabs, never throw any slabs, roof tiles or any othe potential building material out without contacting us. Most of the garden has been build with stuff that would have gone into a skip.
The outdoor kitchen space ready for catering for hungry potato digging volunteers, just waiting for some volunteers now.
The makeshift area before the outdoor kitchen was ready!
Rows of lettuce, fighting the weeds as best they can. Most have been taken and the ground is ready the pigs now.
En route to the outdoor kitchen
The black pig is the new guy in town, but needs to grow a little before meeting the old girls.
The value of our tractor was doubled this month when we finally replaced an arm that had been welded about eight times before!
Sorry, a bad pic of warkworth castle..we took the wwoofers for a morning off on a sunny day.
Alexander, father of the german wwoof family drawing the short straw or should that be grass. Cutting the grass around the orchard.
Feeding the wwoofers could be a bit of an uphill battle somedays! Its always nice eating with good eaters who like honest food.
Half gravelled garden area
Not sure??
At last, two years in we finally have a sign on the gate.
The past couple of months have been great, things are growing brilliantly in the 'walled' garden and we've had at least two crops from each bed for the boxes now, with lots of Brussels, Kohl Rabi, leeks, cauliflowers, fennel, beet and kale to come. The lambs are pretty much all ready to go and even the field scale veg is doing well.
We've been digging potatoes for the boxes and it looks like a good crop to come so we'll be taking them all up in the next few weeks, out of the lettuces in the field it seems like we've got two for every one we've planted, unbelievable after a really poor show from the salad crops last year. In the field leeks, celery, artichokes, carrots and more salads are showing promise and the cabbages and broccoli are looking healthy but not really growing enough. As always the weeds are doing the best by far and we may have trouble harvesting leeks and carrots unless we get onto the weeds with a gas burner soon.
The new boar and gilt are settling in and out on the area that was cropped for peas and beans, enjoying the greens.The old sows have been moved onto new grass to bring a bit more land into veg production. We've ordered 100 hens which will arrive in November which should produce all the eggs we need for the box scheme and are searching for some organic geese to run up the drive and the orchard to keep the grass down.
We've been digging potatoes for the boxes and it looks like a good crop to come so we'll be taking them all up in the next few weeks, out of the lettuces in the field it seems like we've got two for every one we've planted, unbelievable after a really poor show from the salad crops last year. In the field leeks, celery, artichokes, carrots and more salads are showing promise and the cabbages and broccoli are looking healthy but not really growing enough. As always the weeds are doing the best by far and we may have trouble harvesting leeks and carrots unless we get onto the weeds with a gas burner soon.
The new boar and gilt are settling in and out on the area that was cropped for peas and beans, enjoying the greens.The old sows have been moved onto new grass to bring a bit more land into veg production. We've ordered 100 hens which will arrive in November which should produce all the eggs we need for the box scheme and are searching for some organic geese to run up the drive and the orchard to keep the grass down.
We've had quit a few people camping over the summer, all have really enjoyed the experience of getting back to basics. We are going to continue with camping all year round and will try to get set up as a certified location with the camping and caravan clubs. This should send a few more people down the drive and will give us more potential customers for the box scheme.
The main projects at the moment are getting our new packing shed up and I'm writing this during a wet weather break, we've got three posts up so only another seven to go which we should have done before stopping to do the box packing later on tomorrow. Once the shed is complete we'll get back to doing all of our own butchery work too, which means more odd cuts going into the meat packs for customers and we hope to do more cured meats..hams, chorizo and bacon in many different guises. An office too which will help to get us a bit more organised and professional rather scribbling notes on the back of diesel receipts in the van when we get a phone call from a customer! The whole 'business' side of G and S needs a bit of care and attention as soon as the sheds up and we get everything in its place.
We managed to get a sign on the gateway to the farm without any complaints to the parish council which should make it a little easier for people to find us and a little less annoying for our neighbours who constantly have people going down the drive looking for us.
We celebrated the naming of Christmas Farm with a trading standards inspection to go through our animal movements paperwork and I was extremely impressed with a government organisation that were helpful and actually showed us ways of doing things easier than I had been. I really expected the big bad wolf to be coming to stir up a load of trouble for us but the inspector gave us loads of advice on both the legal side of things and the practical side too. A pleasant surprise...
A not so pleasant surprise was having a Northumberland County Council asset manager turn up at the coffee shop this week to tell us that they have had formal complaints about the coffee shop entrance invading the councils property. This is true of course, unfortunately as part of our planning application to the aforementioned council we had to build a walkway suitable for disabled access which meant going onto the village green by twenty centimetres but as all the plans had been approved by the council we just went ahead and did as instructed. Due to the formal nature of the complaints the council now have to draw up a lease agreement to let us occupy the strip of grass without having to close the shop due to not having disabled access. All this will no doubt come at a cost to the residents as tax payers of thousands of pounds which is a little sad but will hopefully resolve the problem. Unfortunately it is not the only visit we've had from the council. A different complaint about our signs on the coffee shop meant another council officer had to come out and check the size and stature of signage which was followed up by a highways inspector coming out to check everything was ok. Again with the following reports and necessary paperwork has probably cost the council another couple of hundred pounds which with a little common sense could have been saved.
Is it a British trait that makes some people think that if your in business your making loads of money, exploiting everybody and flouting laws. Because the truth is that we want to make a difference to our environment, make the best use of our own produce and create employment in an area where there are very little employment opportunities. If we both had real jobs we would be a lot better off financially, in fact if we didn't work at all we would still be better off but if everybody thought like that there wouldn't be any jobs to get because no business would thrive and employ people.
Whilst I'm on the bad side of things, it was sad to have to get the local deadstock collection man to come and put down a lamb that had been mauled by someones dog this morning. Why some people think its fine to just let your dog run round in somebody else's field attacking sheep is beyond my comprehension, but to then just leave the animal lying in the field is something else.
Our visit from the local W.I. group went well last night, it was great sight to see the group leaving with lettuces and fennel like a bunch of flowers. We all agreed to make it an annual event in order to benchmark our progress.
Things to look forward to are the eagerly anticipated 'big tunnel'. 100' x 40' of undercover growing space that should see us providing veg for the boxes through out the year providing we can get through the planning application unscathed. (Although we are not sure if need planning either? it seems there are arguments for both so any ideas or previous experience would be helpful) It would help to keep costs down by not going to far down the planning route but I'd hate to have to take it down again too.
Beth's and some friends have got some bee based plans coming together, I have to say I'm not hugely excited by the extra work but love the idea of honey for the boxes and the pollination help around the farm.
Rather than put a months worth of stuff up I've been pointed in the direction of twitter which will hopefully mean more regular blogs coming up as one line every day sounds like the time I can spare. I've put a load of pics up which will show what we've been up to too (if that makes sense)
We managed to get a sign on the gateway to the farm without any complaints to the parish council which should make it a little easier for people to find us and a little less annoying for our neighbours who constantly have people going down the drive looking for us.
We celebrated the naming of Christmas Farm with a trading standards inspection to go through our animal movements paperwork and I was extremely impressed with a government organisation that were helpful and actually showed us ways of doing things easier than I had been. I really expected the big bad wolf to be coming to stir up a load of trouble for us but the inspector gave us loads of advice on both the legal side of things and the practical side too. A pleasant surprise...
A not so pleasant surprise was having a Northumberland County Council asset manager turn up at the coffee shop this week to tell us that they have had formal complaints about the coffee shop entrance invading the councils property. This is true of course, unfortunately as part of our planning application to the aforementioned council we had to build a walkway suitable for disabled access which meant going onto the village green by twenty centimetres but as all the plans had been approved by the council we just went ahead and did as instructed. Due to the formal nature of the complaints the council now have to draw up a lease agreement to let us occupy the strip of grass without having to close the shop due to not having disabled access. All this will no doubt come at a cost to the residents as tax payers of thousands of pounds which is a little sad but will hopefully resolve the problem. Unfortunately it is not the only visit we've had from the council. A different complaint about our signs on the coffee shop meant another council officer had to come out and check the size and stature of signage which was followed up by a highways inspector coming out to check everything was ok. Again with the following reports and necessary paperwork has probably cost the council another couple of hundred pounds which with a little common sense could have been saved.
Is it a British trait that makes some people think that if your in business your making loads of money, exploiting everybody and flouting laws. Because the truth is that we want to make a difference to our environment, make the best use of our own produce and create employment in an area where there are very little employment opportunities. If we both had real jobs we would be a lot better off financially, in fact if we didn't work at all we would still be better off but if everybody thought like that there wouldn't be any jobs to get because no business would thrive and employ people.
Whilst I'm on the bad side of things, it was sad to have to get the local deadstock collection man to come and put down a lamb that had been mauled by someones dog this morning. Why some people think its fine to just let your dog run round in somebody else's field attacking sheep is beyond my comprehension, but to then just leave the animal lying in the field is something else.
Our visit from the local W.I. group went well last night, it was great sight to see the group leaving with lettuces and fennel like a bunch of flowers. We all agreed to make it an annual event in order to benchmark our progress.
Things to look forward to are the eagerly anticipated 'big tunnel'. 100' x 40' of undercover growing space that should see us providing veg for the boxes through out the year providing we can get through the planning application unscathed. (Although we are not sure if need planning either? it seems there are arguments for both so any ideas or previous experience would be helpful) It would help to keep costs down by not going to far down the planning route but I'd hate to have to take it down again too.
Beth's and some friends have got some bee based plans coming together, I have to say I'm not hugely excited by the extra work but love the idea of honey for the boxes and the pollination help around the farm.
Rather than put a months worth of stuff up I've been pointed in the direction of twitter which will hopefully mean more regular blogs coming up as one line every day sounds like the time I can spare. I've put a load of pics up which will show what we've been up to too (if that makes sense)
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