I’ll try not to sound too much like this post is the G and S Organics New Year message, but being the first blog of 2012 we are full of vigour and excitement about what the year holds and have had a few days off with little to talk about but the future. A future which is looking ever brighter since Beth accepted my proposal of marriage on Christmas day. We are planning on a summer wedding party in the kitchen garden, so I have a firm deadline to get the garden looking acceptable!
Reflecting on the year gone by, we are pleased to be through it and remaining in good mental health. It’s been our hardest year since starting the business in 2005. The recession, crazy weather patterns, running the coffee shop longer than we should have and moving house have all taken their toll and it’s great to be on the other side. Closing the coffee shop means the farm gets Beth back full time which will have a dramatic impact on our veg production and having less customers means it should be truly achievable to produce most of the produce going in the boxes through the whole year.
Production in 2012
I’m going to list the rough plan for what we want to grow and produce here so you have an idea where we are heading but this is the basics and we would welcome any requests for specific veg or meat that you would like to see in the boxes. You’ll see that there are some obvious omissions like maincrop potatoes, onions, celery, parsnips and cauliflower. These are things we cannot grow profitably (if at all) or like maincrop potatoes, get from top quality growers locally and easily so will use the space for other things. It won’t stop us growing our own earlies and different varieties like pink fir apples etc. It just doesn’t make sense for us to turn half the garden over to potatoes. We will do lots of one off veg varieties to keep things interesting but the following will form the bulk of the what we grow this year:
- Red Cabbage
- Savoy Cabbage
- Spring Cabbage
- Spinach
- Chard
- Salad Bags
- Garlic
- Herbs Mixed
- Courgettes
- Kohl Rabi
- Chillies
- Radish
- Artichokes Jerslm
- Artichokes Globe
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Spring Onions
- Beetroot
- Fennel
- Turnips
- Swede
- Leeks
- Sprouts
- Romanesco
- Broad Beans
- Runner Beans
- Peas
- Rhubarb
- Strawberries
- Currants
On the meat side of things we aim to do more of the same with a mix of our pork, lamb, Dexter or Angus/Dexter beef but we are also aiming to grow more poultry. We’d like a large enough flock of hens to produce all the eggs for the boxes throughout the year which means three times the hen houses too. Alongside the hens we’ll be producing chickens for the table probably 8 times per year, ducks and geese once or twice and turkeys and geese for Christmas which means you’ll get poultry from March and every month onwards in your boxes. I’m dreaming of getting an old dairy cow to try and raise some organic rose veal but this is in the same dream as Beth allowing me to get some Highland cattle so it may be wishful thinking. Georges ducks will hopefully come onto lay in the spring so there will be the odd box of duck eggs too.
As part of the poultry enterprise we would like to hatch eggs ourselves rather than buying in day old chicks, this means we can try small batches of different breeds. However most incubators need power 24 hours a day for 28 days which may be difficult being off grid. We are looking for alternatives but in the meantime if anyone would like to try their hand at hatching eggs and have space (about the size of a microwave) let us know. The incubators are fully automatic so it’s just a case of keeping an eye on the little eggs until the big day.
Projects
We have two major products that need progressing urgently. The cattle need housing in case the weather gets really bad in the next few months so I’m trying to get this finished before the months out. The Dexter’s don’t need much in the way of luxuries, just a dry bed of straw to sleep on if they’ve been out in the rain and wind all day along with plenty of feed and water of course.
The other construction is going to be an undercover outside kitchen, demo and dining area in the garden that will make hosting the farm focus dinners a little less stressful and a lot more professional (not to mention dryer!) Once this infrastructure is in place we should be able to invite some schools to bring pupils for educational visits too, which is a long held desire. The idea of planting, harvesting, cooking and eating; all in the garden with children helping in every stage is truly what we are about here and it’s going to be great to share it with more people in 2012. Not sure the kids will enjoy the compost loo as much though. We’ll have to move the small polytunnel to accommodate this, which is a good opportunity to re sheet and fix up the damage that we had in the storms last year. Re-sheeting the big polytunnel may be on the cards but a small lottery win is needed before this becomes a certainty. If nothing else it will provide a good sheltered growing area benefiting from some of the pigs being in there over winter turning straw and feed residues into the soil.
Those that came to the tree planting day will see change in the form of a track going through this area which will make it easy to turn around without going into the farmyard and provide a bit more parking for the open days.
Box Scheme
The box scheme deliveries will be carrying on as previously arranged but we would like to change the packaging of both the meat and the veg boxes. We are trying to source some uniform boxes so we can squeeze all the boxes onto the van neatly and make them easier for you to handle. We would like to replace the cool bags with the customer leaving a cool box or bag out for us too put the meat packs in. This will ensure that the meat keeps perfectly chilled in the summer months as you can drop your own ice pack in the box before you put it out on the evening. We’ll possibly look into bulk buying a load of cool boxes and then hand them out closer to the warmer weather approaching. Whatever happens we’ll keep in touch and give you plenty of notice.
Another change that we may make is to swap the bread in the boxes for more veg, fruit or another box of eggs. We have done this with the Wednesday deliveries quite a while ago and it has worked well, but we’d like some feedback before making any changes to those who receive there boxes on Thursdays. If you have an opinion on this please let us know. It’s really in the interest of us producing more of the box ourselves so ideally we would make up the value with an additional box of eggs or extra veg.
Events
We have an event taking place on the farm every month, the details of these will go onto the facebook page and the website so do keep looking for more info.
Best wishes for 2012,
Lee and Beth
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