G and S organics

The pork pie recipe

2012-01-12T04:06:00.003-08:00

Guide for the Pork Pie mix in this week's box

I can only describe this as massive treat. A home-made pork pie is something you can’t compare to the inferior offering you find in the supermarket. Hot water pastry, which you use to encase the moist, tasty, and fabulously meaty mixture in the packs, has rather a mystery and perceived difficulty that people steer away from.

Well don’t go telling your friends, because I still like to produce the pork pie to "woos and aaahs" and lots of praise as to how skilled and amazing I am, but hot water pastry really is child's play. In fact if you still feel a little shaky about it let the kids make it, they have no such fear!

To make a pork pie...

We have made up the mixture of pork meat, which you simply pack into the pastry case you are about to make. Remember raised or hot water pastry is super easy and very forgiving. The mix is made from diced pork leg meat and a sage and sausagemeat stuffing.

If you feel short of time pop the mix in the freezer to go back to later, or you can just bake it in a loaf tin like a meat loaf or terrine. If you do make one, please pop a picture on our facebook page and we can all enjoy each other’s handiwork!!! Just search for G and S Organics if you haven’t found us yet.

If you want to make one "with me", I will be making mine on Friday and tweeting the instructions as I go, along with pictures, so join in by following @Organicbeth and @gandsorganics

You will need:

Your pork pie meat

For the hot water crust:

50g lard, diced
50g butter or another 50g of lard if you would prefer (I like the flavour of the butter!)
100ml of water
275g of plain flour
½ teaspoon of salt
1 medium egg, beaten plus some more beaten egg to glaze
175ml of good stock that will set to jelly, this is not essential but adds the traditional jelly round the pie.

Make the pastry first. Put the lard and butter in a large pan with the water. Heat gently until it has all melted, don’t let it boil as you don’t want the water to evaporate. Put the flour and salt in a large, mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the beaten egg, stir gently with a knife to half mix them together. Pour in the melted fat and water and mix together until you form a soft dough. If you feel the dough is a little dry add a little extra warm water. Knead gently, add more flour if the dough is sticky. Wrap in grease proof or clingfilm for ½ an hour and leave to one side.

To make the pie:

Reserve ¼ of the pastry for the lid.
On a floured surface roll out the remaining pastry to make a circle approx. 1cm thick, to form the case for your filling.
Gently use this to line a small, greased cake tin approx. 10inch diameter. A spring form tin is easiest but not essential. Push the pastry into the corners and flatten the pastry up the sides
Fill with the pork mixture
Roll out the pastry for the lid into a circle the size of the tin, brush the pastry in the tin with a little beaten egg and place the lid in the top. Crimp the to pastry edges together to seal in the porky goodness. Cut a 1cm "steam" hole in the centre of the lid
Bake the pie in a moderate oven (gas mark 8 or 180c) for 20 minutes then turn down the heat to 160c or gas mark 3 for a further hour. If you have a loose sided spring form tin carefully remove the tin sides and glaze the top and sides of the pie with the beaten egg, return the pie to the oven for 10 minutes to set the glaze. Alternatively just glaze the top.
Take the pie from the oven and allow to cool a little
Once cool pour the warmed jellied stock in through your steam hole in the centre of the pie, if you are using it. Allow it to settle in and fill any gaps inside the pie. You may find a small funnel rather useful here. I like to tilt the pie a little this way and that to encourage the stock to settle in. stop when the stock starts to come out of the hole.
Leave the pie to completely cool and refrigerate.

The pie will keep for up to 10 days and will serve a host of hungry mouths. Serve with winter salads like coleslaw made with the green cabbage, mustardy potato salad and pickles.

Events Diary

2012-01-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

Heres the potted view of our events diary, click the link to the facebook page for more info, or drop us an email.

The G and S Organics Events Calendar 2012

“Put your wellies on!”

Your family and friends are always welcome to come and join in the fun. Keep in touch with our G&S Organics Facebook page for event updates, photographs, recipe ideas, news from the farm and more.

Booking is essential for the events

Date	Event	Price
21^st January 10am for bacon butties for workers 4pm burns supper	Work party and Burns Night supper Help Build the Potting Shed – wear something tartan!	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
4^th February 12pm start	Farm focus dinner Woodland and Game lunch party with a walk to the woods	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
3^rd March 3.30pm 5.30pm dinner	Farm focus dinner Come and see newborn lambs, learn about lambing on the farm and enjoy a tasty vegetarian lunch	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
17^th March 10am for bacon butties for workers 4pm dinner	Work party planting day and St. Patrick’s Day lunch with Irish Stew	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
7^th April 3.30pm 5.30pm dinner	Farm focus dinner Poultry Come and join in the Great Easter Egg hunt, see the newborn chicks and learn about poultry farming.	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
5^th May 3.30pm 5.30pm dinner	Farm focus dinner Pork May Day Weekend – a pork supper, farm walk and butchery demonstration	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
2^nd June 12pm start	The G&S Diamond Jubilee Party – Bring your picnic blanket and come and enjoy a traditional afternoon tea with Beth’s home baking	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
7^th July 3.30pm 5.30pm dinner	Farm focus dinner Lamb A lamb spit roast dinner and farm tour	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
28^th July tba	Ship ahoy! A mackerel fishing trip from the Fish Quay in North Shields	£35 a head for Box Scheme members only (numbers strictly limited to 10 people)
4^th August 3.30pm 5.30pm dinner	Farm focus dinner summer The G &S Summer Barbecue and farm tour and talk	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
18^th August 3.30pm 5.30pm dinner	The G&S Camping weekend for kids (and their grown ups!) with a campfire supper cooked by the kids	£15 per adult, £5 per child – tea and bacon butties on Sunday morning will be available for £5 a head
1^st September	Farm Focus Dinner Beef – Beef butchery and cookery demo, farm tour and supper	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
6^th October Shooters at 2pm Dinner at 4pm	Farm Focus dinner Game Clay pigeon shooting event and game supper	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members plus £10 each if you would like to shoot
3^rd November 10am bacon butties for workers 4pm bonfire and dinner	Work party Tree planting and Bonfire Night party with a Hog Roast	£15 a head£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
17^th November 12pm – 4pm	Charcuterie Demonstration with produce sale	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members
1^st December More info to follow	Christmas Lunch, make your own Christmas wreath and Christmas tree sale	£15 a head for Box Scheme members £20 for non- scheme members

New Year Message

2012-01-06T09:01:00.001-08:00

Happy 2012!

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

Pork Butchery

2011-05-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

I only had one pig to do in the butchery today so had a bit of time to do a few pics to show what goes on when turning pig to pork.

Butchery is something I really enjoy, but it's a rare thing indeed to have as much time as I would like to try out new things and experiment with different charcuterie techniques and recipes. And the pig is of course, the butchers best friend with nothing but the squeek going in the bin traditionally!

With pork, as with any meat the first thing we need to know is how the animal is reared; this along with how it died will have the biggest impact on what comes to the butcher and if these two pre requisites were not satisfactory the butcher will be fighting a losing battle. I'll talk more about these things in another blog but what we do is try to give the animal a happy life and our local small abattoir gives them a professional, compassionate death.

Some of the photos below may seem a bit much but I think everybody who eats meat should see the stages that the meat has gone through before ending up on the plate. If you would like to know or see more please get in touch.

So for this post the basics are:-

1. The carcass comes back to us-we check paperwork is correct and the pig has our organic stamp on it,then assess the fat level and confirmation to get an idea how the animal has performed. This gives us information about our breeding, feeding and husbandry of the animal. Too much fat indicates the diet needs adjusting, a run of pigs with huge shoulders but small legs may be a sign of a bad breeding programme etc.

The size, fat level and confirmation also give me clues as to how best to butcher the animal..I prefer to have no pre conceived cutting lists until I see the animal on the cutting table. Its seem silly to cut a leg into joints if it would make a perfect ham or to cut chops out of a loin that would be great bacon.

2.So once we have the cutting list in our head it's time to remove the head and trotters and sort through the offal. Beth normally likes some of these for stock and making potted meat, pate and terrines for the house.

3.Then breaking the carcass down into primal cuts..shoulers, legs and saddle. From here as todays pig was quite small and really suitable for joints and chops, I take out the bones from the shoulder and leg and roll these tying with twine after scoring the skin.

4. From here it's just a simple case of portioning according to needs, so cutting chops from the loin removing any excess fat and trimming the bone if needed, slicing joints into 1-1.5kg and slicing belly pork.

It really is that simple with a small pig, I'll do a post when we do a large pig for processing into variuos sauages, burgers, bacon and hams to give you an inside view of what goes on at the farm.

A quick word on the tools of the trade..four things i wouldn't be without are my 5" boning knife, large chopper, steel and butchers saw. All are cheap from butchers suppliers, give years of service and are extremely useful bits of kit to have in the kitchen too.

I'd love to hear if your interested in seeing more of this kind of info on the blog so do please comment or get in touch.

Barry's Last Stand

2011-05-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we weaned the piglets from our welsh cross sow and moved her back into the serving paddock in a bid to keep our boar 'Barry' in his rightful place. He's been absolutely impossible to keep in despite having eveything a man could dream (apart from a lady friend)for the past three months.

After only a few hours together he was back out in the fields having smashed his way through a fence again. Obviously love was not in the air.

Unfortunately at this time of the year when much needed grass, veg and fruit are grwoing we can ill afford a rampant boar on the loose so for the sanity of all concerned tomorrow 'Barry' is going to the great unfenced pig paddock in the sky..

RIP Barry

A New Dawn, A New Diary

2011-05-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

So after a few weeks of struggling by with an ever slower laptop things finally came to an abrupt end last week when after 2 hours of photo editing and writing the newsletter the laptop died completely losing the work I'd just done.

Normally we'd just calmly find a solution but this particular day it just happened that everything else had also gone wrong and it coincided with a delivery day which means a silly o'clock start and up to an 18 hour shift at work so the laptop was promptly slammed shut smashing the screen!

With no possible chance of recovery, the only choice was to replace the old girl with a newer and hopefully more reliable beast. And that's why I'm back to blogging, having a new laptop brings renewed vigour for using this resource a lot more.

So the plan is to do a few lines each day, more as a farm and business diary for us (and you if your interested) to see what went on during the year. Which brings us here.

9/5/2011
3 Pigs back from abattoir. Probe depth 14,14, and 19mm. From the pure Berkshires, note reduced back fat and intramuscular marbling compared to last weeks draw of Berkshire/welsh/saddleback cross of same feeding regime. Under 50kg seems to be optimum carcass weight.

Beth planted approx 50 raspberries from runners in garden.

Extremely hot, temperatures up to 23.More rain.

Last ewe still to lamb.

Check us out on twitter

2011-01-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Keep bang up to date with what's going on at the farm by following us on twitter @gandsorganics.com

2010-07-12T03:22:00.000-07:00

Getting round to the blog after such a long break it feels like there is a lot to write about..some crops have been and gone through the 'garden' since the last blog with lots of salads, some spring onions, broad beans, baby turnips, radishes, garlic, mange tout all doing well. we had a great salad last night which consisted of everything in the garden so all of the above plus beetroot the flavours were amazing but the best it was the fusion of all the colours..why is that baby versions of sliced winter veg like turnip and beetroot look so good and in winter look so unappetizing?

The garden and polytunnel have faired better in the driest spring and early summer we have had in the region for over 80 years than the field crops. After two of the wettest summers on record we decided to grow the field veg on ridges this year, which has been a complete disaster.

I got a bit of a shock when I went to water the polytunnel and found piglets sleeping in amongst the tomatoes, squash and cucumber plants. They got a shock too and tried to bash out of the sides of tunnel ripping the plastic and loosening the sheet further. Beth has had to chase geese of the kids early potatoes and her own beans a few times too. This particular batch of pigs have caused a regular headache as they seem unwilling to stopped by electric fences, I assume that the ground is just too dry for them to get a good contact to earth as all the sow's still get a shock and are rarely spotted outside there own paddocks. Strawberries have proved a particular delight and those that were not chopped of by the plastic mulch flapping in the wind have now all been eaten by them, luckily the blackcurrants aren't quite as tempting for them.

We have an acre of what should be secong early potatoes that we should be harvesting in about two weeks time which are no where near ready, some having not shown any growth and all still far of flowering. An acre of carrots will mostly have to be written off, a few leaves are showing but even if it rained heavily and the temperatures maintained this level it would still be too late. The broad beans and parsnips have been a total failure with about 3% germination. We have some hope for the onions, greens and turnips as these were later going in and have had some rain but still they should be up and away by now and are nowhere near. It's amazing the difference water and wind protection makes..some of the seeds like the beans were sown in the field the same time as the garden but in the garden the plants have grown, been cropped and are now being replaced compared to maybe an inch at most of growth in the field. We can see that it's not impossible to grow veg up here provided we break the wind, improve the organic matter of the soil to retain moisture and add irrigation. Nothing a few hundred thousand quid wouldn't sort out anyway!

Speaking of cash it's the worst time of year financially for us at Christmas Farm. We have yet to get any of this year's lambs finished for the box scheme as the grass just is not growing as we would expect. We've paid for the turkey's, duck's and geese for Christmas and they'll be eating us out of house and home for another five month's before they meet there demise and we get some cash back. So order your turkey or goose now and you can come on Beth's Christmas prep courses free..the crops in the field being a write off will cause us more financial hardship as we normally rely on these providing staples like carrots, beans and lettuce for a large part of the year and whilst the garden crops keep us going for boxes during the summer they will not provide much to store for winter.

To try to get some cash in Beth's been doing evening meals the first saturday evening of every month which have been incredibly popular but I do feel sorry for her after being stuck in the shop all day and then coming back to do it all again on a night. I've also been trying to add to the farming fund by doing some fencing and building jobs locally, which is taking us both away from progressing the building work on the farm that we had hoped to get done this summer. It's a difficult time of year recruiting new members for the box scheme too, as a lot of people are growing there own or away on hols and don't want to commit to regular deliveries. Still as we always remind ourselves 'we eat well for peasants'.

We'll get an open day organised as soon as we can get the place tidy enough not to be embarrased soon but we may see you on our Steak night on August 7th. Check the website or call in the shop for details.

2010-03-22T04:47:00.000-07:00

Hello
my name is Sarah. I am a WWOOF from Germany working with Beth and Lee for the past 4 weeks. To be honest, it's quite hard work, especially getting up very early in the morning. But to see all the animals being happy, makes it all worth it. And that is my main task on the farm. Make sure that everybody has enough water and feed. That includes the sheep which are now having their lambs, the pigs and their piglets (which are nice and fat now), the hens and chickens, the horses and the cattle. Apart from that, there are always quite many things to do. Yesterday, we got all the posts for 2 new fences sorted out, so that we can start putting up the fences very soon. It's to separate the horses, some sheep and two pigs from each other and make them move into another field, so we can broadcast seeds for having nice and rich grass for the animals this summer.
Today, we had a new lamb. It was the first time ever for the ewe having a lamb and in the beginning she didn't really know what to do with it. So, it was up to us to keep the lamb warm, milk the mother to give the lamb its first drink, which is very important because of the colostrum and make sure that the she doesn't abandom its lamb.
Last weekend we caught some black lambs from last year, measuered the weight and moved them into another field. It was quite difficult to get them all together and catch them. If you have ever seen a sheep running away from you, you defintely know it's hard work to be quicker and grab them. Sometimes, it even seems impossible. So, instead of being quicker, we just thought of being smarter: we put up some hurdles to make a small path which had on either end the weight scale. We waited till the sheep went it. It all went very quickly as we just had to move a little closer to them to make them go in. As soon as their were all in, we took another hurdle and closed the construcion which made it appear as a little shed. One by one, we wrote down their weights and numbers and released them into the new field.
What is really fabulous about working on a farm is all the machinery we have to use to get things done. Beth and Lee let me use their quad bike e.g. to take posts to where the fence is going to be, to take new and fresh straw down to the pigs stables and hens house to make nice and cosy beds or just to carry heavy things from one end to another.
As now the weahter is getting better day to day, it even makes more fun to stay all day outside and get things started.

Lambing starts

2010-03-09T03:27:00.000-08:00

Heavily in pig Welsh sow in her favourite position

In-lamb ewes, making the most of the excellent red clover silage we managed to get hold of this year. We would have suffered a shortage of forage without the help of a fellow local organic farmer to keep us topped up.

Frozen veg can still be fresh veg?

Triplets up and about within 10 minutes of being born.

The new hen house. Pleased it wasn't too windy when I erected it, as my arms weren't quite long enough in the first place.

Ginger, a few weeks off farrowing.

The packing shed progress.

Pleased it's 4x4 - snow mobiles would have been used if available!

When the lady loves good hay.

Sunrise, out delivering one morning.

A few memories of summer to cheer us up.

Fearnley helping prepare for our annual organic inspection

Spring has definitely sprung here at Christmas Farm - we've had clear skies and fair weather for at least a week now. It's amazing how cold it must have been when you start to think 3 degrees is a good opportunity to work in a T-shirt.

The slightly better weather has coincided with the first lambs being born, and it's going well so far with only one single in the flock, and a set of strong triplets has made up for that. Piglets are all doing well and are desperate to be out of the farrowing shelters they have been in for nearly four weeks now. It's the first time we've housed pigs inside for farrowing at Christmas Farm, which says something for the lousy weather we've had. To keep in with organic standards the finished pigs can only be kept inside for a fifth of thier lifetime, so we need to get them out as soon as the ground dries up.

The cattle are going through a frustrating time watching the ewes get the best silage, nuts and high energy lick blocks, whilst they have some straw and crushed barley. The smaller ones have worked out that with a little limbo'ing they can get underneath the creep bar that should be keeping them out, and once the bigger ones see this they just jump over the fence anyway.

Winnie is coming up to foaling time and is being fed like a dairy cow, again this must be frustrating for her welsh pony companion, who is on basic rations but stands and watches closely at feeding time.

New stock arrivals have been kept to a minimum with lambing coming up, but we did manage to get a new batch of table chickens put into the newly fenced off orchard, which should help us keep the grass down this year. It feels like I spent ages last summer just keeping the grass down, so this year we are trying to maximise the under-utilised areas for stock, which will not only keep the grass down but also fertilise and condition the soil.

Jobs we've been busy with:

Fencing off the orchard and veg beds

Lambing

Attempting to tidy up

Moving the little polytunnel

Digging ditches

Planting garlic, beans, and radish

Putting black membrane onto beds in the kitchen garden, ready for planting

Building a new hen house that we can pull around the field to clear up after the veggies have been harvested

Planting trees for a windbreak

Having our organic inspection

Delivering boxes, feeding the animals etc

Jobs we should have been busy with and need to get done before April:

Building the big polytunnel

Planting the 1000 strawberry plants, 200 blackcurrants, and 100 raspberry canes that have been waiting for the ground to thaw

More ditching, and scraping out a duck pond

Filling in the bare patches in the hedgerows

Cleaning all the mud off the entrance track, and filling the winter's pot holes

Getting the old tractor fired up after sitting out all winter (fingers crossed)

Laying the rest of the concrete for the new packing shed base

Finding some more customers for the box scheme (any ideas?)

Pruning fruit trees and bushes, and trying to get the veg beds sub-soiled and mucked by a contractor

It feels like we've still got a winters worth of work ahead of us, and only a few weeks to go before we need to start planting this season's veg. The plan for this year is to use more WWOOFers at the busiest times for planting and harvesting. They can be a lifeline for getting jobs done that we otherwise wouldn't have time for, and our current volunteer (Sarah, from Germany) is saving us a lot of time with the feeding and bedding duties each day, although the 5:45am start is six hours ahead of her usual wake up call, she says!

It would be nice to get some volunteers from the UK through the scheme, as nearly all come from Europe and need a reasonable length of stay to make it viable. Most also want to use it as a summer break too, which is the time not much is going on other than weeding and harvesting. As a host, it would also be good to be able to call on people for a weekend for jobs that need lots of hands for a short period, like re-sheeting polytunnels, or digging potatoes.

Farm update

2009-11-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

Wow, nearly ten weeks since the last Blog..It wouldn't feel too bad if I was reporting a load of progress but as usual things haven't gone according to plan although the wet weather did hold off longer than we thought, it's now here to stay. I won't whinge too much given the worst it's been for us is the clay has turned to sludge and is sticking to everything whilst in Cumbria people have been flooded out of there homes or worse. A trend seems to be developing with these late, mild but very wet winters. Hopefully Christmas won't make a bad situation all the worse for those affected by the floods.

On a more positive note we have some new additions to the farm. The 'Christmas Herd' has been established with us buying ten head of dexter cattle. Some from a rare breed sale in York and others from another local, organic smallholding. They have settled in nicely, getting on with the various mixes of horses, sheep and pigs without problems. We hope to halter train a few of the cows, making it easier if we decide to show them as our cattle skills develop. We have got two finished dexter's coming ready for Christmas too..hung for nearly four weeks this will be the best beef we have had and the thought of a nice thick steak and some quick fried greens on Christmas Eve has got me salivating more than the following Turkey! We still have a few turkeys left, so if your leaving it late to get your order in now is the time. Order online before 1st Dec to save any disappointment.

Another addition to the menagerie are the hundred hens that arrived a few weeks ago. They came as sixteen week old point of lay pullets which should be laying an egg a day after in the new year. They are working there way through the organic pellets we are feeding them at a vast rate but seem to spend most of the energy provided jumping over the fences to rake around in dirty puddles!

The building work has slowed, but with help from a few committed volunteers we've managed to get a field shelter up to use for winnie foaling and getting 'Big Daddy' the naughty escaping sow trained to not go back to her piglets. She's been inside for nearly two weeks and still shouts for them if she hears any small pig like grunts. Another few day's and we'll shift her in with the others on the potato field and see what happens.

Work on the big shed must resume over the weekend as the concrete man is booked for Tuesday, just need to book the dry weather and we'll be ready. Beth's been drafted away from the coffee shop for a day on the other end of a concrete tamp, multi-talented doesn't come into it.

We had yet another complaint put into the local planning office, this time complaining about our 'summerhouse' on the farm which we use for getting out of the rain when it's hammering down. It's essential to have somewhere to wash the dirt off and have a hot cuppa sometimes but we'll have to move or lose it by the sound of things. A shame considering that you can barely see it from about fifty metres away, never mind the roadside which is at least three hundred. The inspection with the planning team went well though and resulted in another route being pursued..watch this space.

Beth's getting excited about decorating the coffee shop with the Christmas stuff, more of which we accumulate every year. December's menu is replacing all other options with turkey, so any guest will be forced into the festive season whether they like it or not. Do pop in and have a sneaky early Christmas lunch if your passing.

My thoughts are also turning to pigs, (nothing unlawful of course) as we've added a thirty acre block of mixed woodland to our organic license thanks to a trusting neighbour who would like the patch rejuvenated. I'm sure our mix of Tamworth's and Saddleback's will love it and really thrive in the sheltered and entertaining environment. We are currently shopping for a big electric fence ticker to keep any strays wandering to close to the perimeter fence. It's a great way of keeping pigs in provided they are trained from youngster's, the first time you leave a battery to go flat and the fence not working all the pigs will get out and never be scared of the wire again. If they get a good shock the first time it's hard enough trying to get them out of the field again they are so scared of the boundary.

The woods need a little clearing to get in for fencing and we need to make up some arcs but we hope to get this sorted out ready for stocking in the new year. All that's left is to argue about the recipes we'll use for our home made chorizo's and salami's, but i'll wait until Beth's finished with that concrete tamp first!

2009-09-14T06:13:00.000-07:00

we did get a tiny crop of the plum trees this year but only one apple from 70+ trees was a bad crop even if they had only been planted as three year old trees in the winter.

pleased that mums gone

mums back!

the new pig paddock, loads of space, grass, potatoes and feed should keep them happy over winter

Big daddies in the house (and she's found a potato, and another, and another)

After spending most of the day yesterday setting up a new paddock for the pigs it was a bit dissappointing to wake up to noise of Big Daddy snoring outside her previous residence next to her babies. Somehow through the night she has gone through one electric fence, two steel gates and one pig netted stock fence in order to be back with the nine week old piglets that she was so desperate to get away from only hours before. The piglets didn't really notice that she was missing and had been happy to have the extra free space at the feeder for all nine to get in at the same time. We reluctantly let her back in with the youngsters and will have another attempt at weaning her soon.

The other sows and the new boar were all very happy in the new quarters as its a while since they have been in a bigger social group and the fact that we left some of the potatoes in the field for them to dig and munch made the transition a little smoother than usual. They gorged on the tatties so much that I couldn't wake any of them this morning to see how they were settling in.

The shed progress has ceased due to lack of tools and power but will commence as soon as we get some time (and cash) to go generator shopping! Instead we have spent some time making up a small field shelter for the old ewes which we can also use to house lambs overnight before trips to the abattoir hopefully making chasing sheep round the field in heavy rain just a memory. Winnies also getting a similar home built on skids so we can move it round the farm so she can follow the best grass.

Lambs are now all ready and we are looking for some stores that will finish what grass we have before heading into winter.

I collected our 'new' big poly tunnel last week and we're all hugely excited about the possibilities of growing for the boxes right through the year although Beth's developing romantic notions of fig and peach trees the truth will be more like early pots and carrots, spring onions and pak choi, and a good amount of space to give to cucumbers and tomatoes. The tunnel has come from Harry at Cheviot trees as he isn't taking the oldest tunnels when he moves site. I'm pleased to be buying it from a seemingly very patient person as I'm sure a few phone calls will be made during the re assembling stages. It looks like we've just bought a load of bent scaffolding tubes at the moment.

Speaking of veggies I was amazed at the weekend to be awarded quite a few prizes in the vegetable classes of our first village show. It was quite daunting going into the show hall with some fantastic veg laid out on display, some of the entrants obviously take it very seriously rather than just running round on the morning of the show grabbing a few things from the field. This time two years ago we had objections from the village parish council who said we would never be able to grow anything on our land and were not a genuine organic business. Who would have thought that some of those same objectors would have possibly judged our leeks, potatoes, fennel, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, chillies and courgettes to be good enough to get prizes. Some may have even eaten there words as the vegetables were all auctioned off at the end of the day.

Having just ordered garlic, broad beans and onions it will be back to planting shortly. It should put us in good stead for next season and will be the first year we have tried to overwinter any crop. Learning slowly seems to be the way forward, along with the gradual introduction of drainage and another 1200 trees we've just collected from Harry to plant out this week should see us having better years as they roll by.

To celebrate organic fortnight Beth's cooking a three course meal with all the ingredients (exempt the home made ice cream) coming from the farm in the coffee shop this Friday night and we still have a few spaces left if you would like to come and try the best in low carbon, low food miles food do give us a call asap to book places.

Monthly Update

2009-08-18T05:34:00.000-07:00

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 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)

Soph & Scott - the first Aussie additions to G&S Organics

2009-07-18T04:41:00.000-07:00

Being our first time Wwoofing, we weren't quite sure what to expect. Two Australians from the city of Melbourne looking for a change in the English countryside. Were we going to be running around herding the sheep ourselves or havesting 500kg of vegetables each day? It was hard to be sure! However after the first couple of hours with Lee and Beth we were more than certain that the next five weeks were going to be a great load of fun and an amazing experience that we would remember for the rest of our lives.

So far I've learnt that you cannot rely on English weather. The week started well and harvesting, weeding and cleaning was enjoyable in the sunny, mild weather. Waking up on Friday morning to a bleak and grey day, described as 'horrible' by the locals, only reminded me of what my fellow friends and family back in Melbourne would be witnessing most days at this time of year.

We quickly had to get used to having four four-legged friends constantly around us after having no animal interaction for the past two months. Two black labs, a nutty Jack Russell and Sidney the new, not so intelligent, addition to the family have kept us entertained, annoyed and smelly since our arrival. Farm cat Fernley - probably the friendliest cat in the world - reminds me of my feline friends at home whom I miss so much. There is also Winnie the thoroughbred mare, the cocky cockeral (who we discovered to be the mastermind behind the kale harvesting), the lambs and ewes, and the pigs who of course, will eat anything.

The line 'we love good food and wine and we hope that you do too' in the G&S Organics Wwoofers advertisement probably caught our attention the most. After knowing this, the cooking had a lot to live up to! But I couldn't say a single negative thing about Beth or Lee's cooking - they have cooked us fresh, tasty and satisfying food each and every meal since we arrived. From fresh fennel to potatoes, lamb to sausages, and sourdough to breadworms on the open fire, we have throughly enjoyed every ounce of foods to hit our tastebuds. Having opened the 'Village Coffee House' eight weeks ago, Beth is busy baking and making coffees non-stop. I have eaten more cake this week than I had in 2009 so far! We painted the shop bathroom yesterday and have to say that the chosen shade of 'magnolia' and our Australian paintwork skills have come up an absolute treat!

We look forward to week two on the farm and hope the weather clears up enough so that we can spend a bit more time out on the farm. I have all faith that week two will be just as eventful and exciting as week one and hope to learn some new skills.

Skills learnt for week one:
coffee machine (now a master barista)
advanced painting skills (have been compared to Michelangelo)

A wwoofers eye view

2009-06-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

My name is Brigitte, I`m from Switzerland and I have been wwoofing on the G & S Farm since one week now. It is the first time that I`m doing this and I`m really lucky, because Beth and Lee are very nice people and so are the boys Billy and Gerorge.
Beside work there is lots of time to talk, eat, have a glass of wine or stay alone for a while as well.
I`m sleeping in a nice room in the cottage, but it is also possible to sleep in the caravan on the farm.
I like the work on the farm, till now I have been planting, watering, helping with the box scheme and some other small works. They have got four pigs, lots of sheep, three dogs, a cockeral and a horse.
I came to England in order to improve my English and I think therefore it was a good choice to come here, because we converse and they would also ask me whether I`m fine or take me with them to the sea or to another place - today we are going to visit a castle.
So I can definitely recommend this place for wwoofing!

A Wwoofing hosts view

2009-06-29T05:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Looking good

2009-06-08T03:04:00.000-07:00

lettuces after planting..note how stony the ground looks!

Our ancient planter..not quite horsedrawn but close

the polytunnel a few weeks ago, i'll take some more pics to show how quick the basil comes on.

Gary's grade 1. I'm sure your meant to do a real bad job and then you don't get asked to do it again!

This weeks lettuce from the pretendy 'walled' garden, coming to boxes near you on Thursday.

Things have been going reasonably well both on the farm and in the shop. The shop being reasonably busy from its first day of opening which is a great relief as it could have gone the other way quite easily. Putting our faith into the hands of the locals has paid off and there support has been consistent.

We now have leeks in the field and the garden, the lettuces we planted what seems like only a few weeks ago will be going in to the boxes this week and hopefully most weeks after that. The difference across the range of planting areas is quite amazing. We have the polytunnel lettuce which are pretty much ready now, the lettuce in the raised beds of the 'walled' garden are maybe a week behind, the lettuce in the lower beds of the walled garden are probably two weeks behind that, with the lettuce in the open field probably at least six weeks away from any thought of being cut.

Carrots are just poking through after the little splash of rain. Chillies are being moved from propagating trays into there resting places in the polytunnel, replacing salad leaves that are coming to an end. Beans are looking good now but the peas are still being hammered by the birds and we really need to get some mesh rolled out to protect them. However the old digger is out of action at the moment so we can't move the nets anywhere, frustrating when the net is about fifty feet from the top of the bed. But i suppose about 150kgs is heavy no matter how far you need to carry it!

The fennel is racing away with so much vigour it's even managed to turn up in another bed. Not sowing on windy days would be advantageous but i don't think we could do all of our sowing in such a short time. Radishes have been and gone, but will go in again a bit later in the season. We managed to start shearing the ewes yesterday with a much needed hand from a friend who came up not knowing what was on the cards. Gary then proceeded to put me to shame with the skills of a barber despite never doing anything like this before, his fleece coming off in one nice, neat and usable piece and mine coming off in many uneven lumps leaving the sheep with the appearance of being attacked by a fox rather than a John Gerrard stylist. My only consolation can be taken from knowing how his back will be feeling this morning. I'll try to get the rest finished today before the damp and warm weather that's being predicted comes.

Of the farm things are hectic too. The vans developed a rather painful noise coming from somewhere that sounds expensive but we've managed to replace the old estate car with a pickup truck that the kids are much happier travelling in. As will the lambs be when the time comes for the trip to the abattoir.

A much needed night out was had on Friday. After hearing a lot of recommendations we went off to Barn Asia in Newcastle to see what all the fuss was about. We let the owner choose our dishes for us hoping to get the best of the offerings. The food, decor, atmosphere and host were all great the only downfall being the lack of ingredients provenance. It would have been the icing on the cake to know the chicken used was free range and the beef British. Surely it takes a huge effort to run a restaurant like this, especially in the recession. Would it really be too much to source meat, fish and poultry that has been produced locally to a high welfare standard?

My other task for today is too secure a new post box, the last one being stolen from our road end. I wonder if its illegal to put our electric fence charger on the box each night after the posty has been. I'm surprised with the amount of invoices in the box lately the thief didn't bring it back with a £5 contribution added out of pity. Still it must have made someone who is down on there luck pretty happy now they know it could be worse!

The Village Coffee House opens

2009-05-04T05:14:00.000-07:00

Lambs are growing aswell as the grass, and starting to venture off in little gangs looking for fun games to play. The later lambs are just starting now, with a pair of strong looking twins coming yesterday morning. Hopefully the young hoggs will fair better than the old girls in the milder weather.

Finally after much work, some tears and a little swearing we opened our coffee shop in the village. Its been a long time coming after much wrangling with the usual suspects.

We haven't said much about whats being going for fear of being stopped before we got started but have been working on the idea and the building for six months now. Its such a great business to run alongside the farm and the box scheme as we already have excellent food around us and its seems a shame not to be able to go full circle and prvide it on a plate aswell as a box.

The locals have been very supportive luckily as Longfram is a very tightly knit community..maybe the hard work in the shop has changed peoples perceptions of us 'organic types' or maybe its just the anticipation of B's cup cakes.

Things are going slowly on the farm after a little excitement last week when the rain came and the seeds turned to seedlings, with broad beans, peas, celeriac, romanesco's, fennel, artichokes, horseradish and brussel sprouts all making a little progress which has now stopped as the temp has dropped to averages of 10 degrees daily..i seem to remember this happening last year but the rain never stopped from April right through. The long range forecast is that we are all in for a really hot year though so fingers crossed.

We still need to get all the potatoes in, along with carrots, turnips and parnips and I was hoping to have had all the beds worked ready for the cabbages, leeks and lettuce plugs which arrive next Monday but the new tractor is now dead. Replacing some worn blades on or power harrow with nice new ones has made the tractor work too hard and its unwilling to start again. Lesson learned and the last time I replace old parts with new..sometimes older really is better.

B's horses went away yesterday. Mr. Lovage being sold but mum and his big sister had to go along for the ride so he would go in the trailer, I hoping they won't come back but instead be replaced by some cattle but B's got ideas of a putting Winnie to a heavier smaller horse so we can have a foal that we will be of some use pulling a trailer or roller round the fields. Sounds like lots of work to me but then the horse will never get stuck or break down which would obviuosly prove handy at the moment.

2009-04-08T03:29:00.000-07:00

View of the orchard and some of the veggie beds from on high

1 ton of seed ptoatoes arrives - 6 months in the soil and they will hopefully multiply by 7

rhubarb bed coming along nicely

as is the pond digging..

2009-04-08T03:16:00.000-07:00

Broad beans and peas finally sown.. lambs starting to come on strong too

Leah the canadian wwoofer busy weeding apple trees.

the 'new' tractor replaces our last old but untrustworthy beast! She may not be a looker but does the job fine...no need for nothing fancy honestly.

the road finally in right through the farm upto our steading area which means an end to wheel barrow commuting.

Even had chance to take the wwoofers to see Embleton Beach and the lovely dunstanburgh?? castle. A good chance to get the dogs in the sea too welcome after shedding there winter coats I imagine.

Some pics..hope they tell a thousand words as we are a bit too busy at the moment

2009-03-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

We've been away from the blog for ages largely due to an unexpected early spring. The weather has been great for this time of year and is a much needed tonic after the winter of discontent!
The biggest jobs are under way with the road finally getting started today...this has been 18months in the planing, waiting and saving so when the big shiny digger turned up on Saturday morning it wasn't just digger envy i was feeling but an overwhelming mixture of anticipation, excitement and satisfaction that things are finally coming together.

Its been a long slog since we first bought the land back in sept 07 and some days i don't feel like we have made any impact at all, but what a difference when the sun comes out. The pond is underway and took no time at all to fill itself, we have cut into an existing clay field drain which should been we get a constant flow of water helping to keep the pond clean which is essential if we ever stock it with something for the pot.

Our first live lambs arrived this morning, two happy things which are straight up jumping around. Quite a contrast to the first arrival of aborted twins last weekend. Despite getting plenty to eat the older ewes seem to be losing condition quickly and we can only hope the situation improves once lambing really gets going. 2 out of 4 really doesn't stack up commercially or morally and the decision has already been made that the oldest will go to the pasture in the sky once the lambs are reared.

We have all of our seeds in place but are yet to make any significant sowings. Beth has got garlic, rhubarb and peas coming away nicely and we have been kept in greens from the tunnel but not sadly not enough for our box scheme just yet. I tried working the soil today but its still a litle too wet for us and i have certainly learned from last season that it just causes more damage to the soil and my mental health to try to get things moving too early. I think the site of bigger farmers out in the fields working the land makes me think that we should be doing something but this really is detrimental to the condition of the soil and is only made possible by the use of massive machines with 4wd systems. I have heard a lot of old farmers tales like not planting till wimbledon starts or not working the soil until the ground is warm on your bare backside and can't help but think we may have lost some ground in the name of progress.

We have had lots of help recently from friends, customers and also from our first wwoofers Rob and Leah. The wwoof system works on the host farmer offering accomadation and food in exchange for a fair amount of labour. Its a great way to get an insight into other cultures and is what introduced me to the farming way of life when i spent 3 months wwoofing in Australia years ago. We've got volunteers staying with us pretty much right through the summer and are looking forward to meeting new people with open minds that are doing such a great thing with there time. Wwoofing is open to pretty much anyone and we've got people of all ages some bringing children and dogs etc from all other the world coming to join in. The wwoofers first day has been spent sowing chillies in the tunnel and helping move the pigs onto a new bed which should keep them content for a few weeks. Pigs love grass, which was a surprise to me...you alsways see apples and barley and that type of thing in images of pigs but they do love nice fresh grass to graze too.

Planning permission has at last been granted on the coffee shop for the village so while Beth work out her menus of organic goodies I'm working out how to get out of fitting the laminate flooring! I'm more an outside job person. There is loads of work to do yet but we hope to be open to catch the last easter weekend and get the opening underway when there are lots of people around.

Things are at last looking up for us and whats going to be the best season for us both is about to get underway...the gut wrenching feeling of excitement can only be compared with the night before christmas but the day never comes..

New research published

2009-02-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

Horticulture Week
20 February 2009

Home deliveries of fresh produce may be better for the environment than shopping locally, according to new research by the University of Exeter.

Researchers compared carbon emissions generated from trips to a farm shop with deliveries of organic vegetable boxes. They found that if the average car journey was a round trip of around four miles (6.4km) or more, home delivery accounted for fewer emissions, even if the farm shop used no lighting, heating or chilling.

Researcher David Coley said that while food miles had been useful to get people to think about the issues around carbon emissions and food transport, the many factors that lie behind putting food on the table needed to be looked at "before we can say what is better or worse for the environment".

Self suffiency for all?

2009-02-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

The recent snow has got me thinking about self suffiency and the ways of modern life. I was wondering how long we would survive as a nation if we were shut down completely by something like freak snowstorms or such.
Not that long I would imagine...how would we live without shipped in food, electricity, commmunications via internet and phone, no gas or oil? Of course we are not set up for this but should we be? And could we if we needed too?

It might be fine for people like us with a little land to prepare for this eventuality but not everybody has some land to grow food, wood for heating and harness wind, water or solar energy. I would like to know if there would be enough room for each family to live in a self sufficient way, and if not then how many families could this island support.

Could we even make smaller changes like no electricity for one day each week or would this be unbearable. Being able to stop the torture simply by the flick of a switch may be too much temptation. What if we used only a little grid supplied heat and power only in the 'off-season' of late autumn and winter and then focussed our energies through the summer to grow, harvest and preserve enough food, heat sources and power sources to keep us. Surely in the summer we would all be to busy to need television, heating and elaborate meals. Would this mean more people could enjoy the pleasure of this life we have today? Would we be prepared to do it even if it meant the earth and its resources as we know them would last twice as long?

Personally I'm a both a wishful consumer and dreaming self supporter. The dream for me has both sides. I would like to grow enough fruit and vegetable to keep our family and friends generously for 365 days a year but wouldn't want to have to pay the mortgage aswell. I'd love to build my own house from materials gathered from the land..hand hewn timber beams, strawbales, sheep fleece and clay are available locally, but I still have a dream of owning a Range Rover one day!

Maybe as a generation we've grown up confused about what we should be doing. The marketing men have done a fantastic job of telling us we can't live without the latest fashion or gadget and we believe them but we also believe that we should be doing more to cut our energy use or fuel consumption. I'm sure there is a growing movement of people out there starting out on the road to self suffiency but if you look in magazines like Smallholder its full of adverts telling you that you need a fancy hand built poultry shed costing hundreds of pounds to keep a few hens or that people are living on a smallholding on weekends and the husband spends the week in the city earning the cash that pays for it all.

So basically my thoughts are that we could do it, we have before and I'm sure we'll do it again before long.

Just a thought...

Snow, snow and more snow..

2009-02-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

Old bessy stuck in the mud again! I've asked for a four
wheel drive version for my birthday but don't think anybody
was listening.

Silly hat season..

Fantastic views but I couldn't see a foot in front of me on

Saturday morning. Thick skinned pigs don't seem to mind

though as long as there's food on the 'table'

A great week for the kids but not really condusive to on farm progress, but it does give you a bit of a lift being out in the bright sunshine after being in the dark for what seems like ages. A bit of a contradiction I know but it seems like its been dark permanently for the past 3 months but when the sun comes out an dthe days start to get longer its as if the summer wasn't that long ago..maybe its the promise of spring that brings the positivity out.

Anyway nothing really to report on this week. Growth in the polytunnel has stopped due to snow blocking out the light and the sub zero temperatures, not helped when a cheeky robin thought that the relative warmth of the polytunnel seemed a good place to nest. All would have been well had he then not decided to go out a few times during the day..unfortunately putting some holes in the plastic skin on each attempt.

The fruit trees are starting to bud up and we are hoping they don't come too soon to be killed by the heavy frost that we usually get in April. The hares have started to annihilate the christmas trees we planted last year as these are an easy source of food sticking above the snow. Must get some mesh guards made up before they eat the lot!

The sheep are getting some of the older hay that we made 2yrs ago to tide them over until the snow melts and the piggies are eating everything they can get hold of now the grounds too solid to root the carrots up. The carrot bed has been well turned over by them and will benefit from the deep frost getting down to a good level and aerating the soil.

Ketchup comparisons

2009-02-03T04:49:00.000-08:00

Our thanks go to a customer who recently pointed out the difference in ingredients between the organic ketchup we sell and heinz organic ketchup..with all we read these days about food labelling and understanding whats going into our food it still surprises me what gets into some food products.

A lot of our customers are buying 'organic' for health reasons but may not look further than the initial organic label. Organic may have connotations of health and a less processed product but this may not always be the case now that the big corporations are also selling organic lines. you really must check the small print, the labels placed on products being sold by supermarkets may give you the wrong impression.

We are seeing more labels with photos of farmers outside in the fields yet the animals that produce the packed meat may have never seen those fields. I don't believe this should be allowed and it should not be up to the consumer to arm themselves with the finer details of the food standards agency guidelines for labels when popping out to get a chicken for dinner!

The traceability of a product can help to understand what has or has not gone into the food your buying and also give you an idea of how the animals have been raised. The best choice is surely to buy from a local producer who can tell you or even show you how your food is being produced without any spin like 'traditionally reared beef' or 'Scottish smoked', which may mean beef that has been produced in an American intensive feed lot as it has been 'traditionally' or salmon that has been intensively farmed in Scandinavia and then frozen, shipped to a factory in Scotland where it can be chemically smoked and become 'Scottish smoked salmon'. These statements are based on the truth but it doesn't give a fair representation.

By asking a local producer or retailer how and where it has been produced not only will you get the information you need to make an educated decision regarding your purchase but also send a message that 'you' the consumer is looking for good quality, local produce and understand what this means.

Labelling can provoke some discussion regarding businesses like ours that sell local produce but also sell items such as bananas, mango etc. Do we need to state 'not local' on our organic bananas or should we take it for granted that customers understand this? What about locally sourced? if we buy the bananas from a local wholesaler is that a fair statement? We could buy them cheaper from a national wholesaler with a centralised distribution system as the supermarkets may do and not support any local jobs but that is not what we choose to do. Where should a local box scheme draw the line when sourcing produce 10 miles? 50miles? What if the seasons don't accommodate local growers and we need to go further away? Should we stop trading until we can source or grow more produce? And then where do our customers go? To someone who is not concerned with these issues?

Its difficult for us to know what to do sometimes but we are guided by our customers, our own ethics and what 'feels' right. This may not seem good enough for some and may be too picky for others...as a consumer its your decision that makes the world go round and there are many problems that could be solved by consumers making more educated decisions.

As the blind date guy used to say..the choice is yours!

Inspection complete

2009-01-28T01:02:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce our soil association inspection went well yesterday, all records present and correct!
Its the third year in a row we have had this particular inspector so will have a change next year to ensure impartiality, which i think just goes to show the integrity of the soil association and those that work within it.
We were please to hear how wet she thought the farm was especially as she is out inspecting farms all over the north every day. We seem to have picked the worst year to move onto such wet land and the year after has been just as bad. Although the average air temp seems to be picking up.

Beth and I are feeling a bit of a 'food hangover' this morning. We took the kids ice skating in times square again last night with me being forced to be on the ice as a a guardian for George. Not sure who was more fearful but he ended up doing laps with me hanging on to the side watching and getting in the way of all the other unsafe parents waddling round the barrier. We finished the evening with in a chinese on stowell street as a special request for Billys birthday and ended up eating the usual noodles coated in greasy salty sources and even more unforgiveable the pork ribs. I can see how this may be contradictory to what we believe in and for the most part we make ethical decisions but occasionally our resolve is weakened. I'd like to think that the intensively farmed pork and chicken that is sold into this industry isn't kept going by our few visits each year. Does anyone know of a good asian restuarant with an ethical sourcing policy?? We love asian food and would love to eat out without the guilt that comes with it.

We once had a butcher who worked for a local butchers shop before coming to us who liked to tell us about the barrels of red sweet and sour chinese source they used to make the 'value' suasages a 'good' colour! Needless to say he didn't last long.

Christmas Part 2

2009-01-27T01:19:00.000-08:00

the fruit bushes bordering the 'walled' garden

some more bushes - blackcurrant, whitecurrant, redcurrant and jostaberry.

odd mushrooms growing in the polytunnel!

salad coming through..

in 3- 4 weeks we'll be cutting this for your salad bags!

the new fencing back under water

We hope to put a rather large duck pond in to use the excess water for meat although we may end up with norths wild duck population coming to stay and don't fancy paying for all the organic feed that i'm sure they would help us get through.

a pic of the long gone turkeys, have to say they look a lot nicer on the table!

Its been a fanatstic weekend here at G and S with Beths brother and family returning from an extended stay in Australia. This was the perfect excuse for Christmas dinner II.

We boned and rolled 2 big fat turkeys that we had frozen before christmas, stuffed them with a mix of pork mince, sage, lots of crushed garlic, oats and some cooked chestnuts. Topped off with plenty of streaky bacon. We cooked it under foil for a couple of hours and then crisped the bacon with the foil off...it was the most succulant and tasty turkey i've tasted and was so easy to carve. In fact we are still carving our way through it! We'll be offering this as a service this year i think although it is a bit time consuming when we have the least time.

All the rain and snow from last week has left us underwater again, the good news is that it has loosened the soil round the carrots that had previuosly been frozen in which means the pigs got through them in no time. we moved them further down the carrot bed yesterday so they are happy again. The bed they have left will then be rotavated as soon as the weather allows or we may try just running our discs over and then harrowing to create a seed bed. Needless to say whatever goes in that bed will get a good start to its life.

More good news is that the first sowings of lettuce/salads are showing themselves...its amazing to think with the lack of daylight hours and low temperatures that thay are willing to make a show of it so eagerly. They were sown on new years day and have een pretty much ignored since in the polytunnel. (which the winds are taking there toll on now, we'll have to get the duct tape out soon)

The ewes have pretty much finished the grass and will be fed hay, or haylage from now until we get some new growth in spring. We will start feeding them with some barley and beans around end of feb early march to make sure there lambs have plenty of nutrients during the early stage s of growth. Hopefully we will have some good weather for lambing this year..pleased we only have 23 ewes to do..some of the locals will have upto 1000 ewes to work with!

2009-01-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

Greetings From the G and S Farm!

First of all, a belated Happy New Year to you all from the team here at G and S. We Hope you enjoyed the festive season.
As this is the first post of the new year, it's time to let you know our plans for the year, and for the next few years. Yes, we are that organised!
Currently the pigs are enjoying clearing out the old carrot beds ready for sowing in the spring. When the beds are clear, we can start our new crop rotation pattern.

Crop rotation is essential for preserving the quality of the soil. Here are some details of what we are planning, and why we are doing it. We hope this interests you, because it will directly affect the food you get in your boxes of the coming months, and even years.

Our seven year crop rotation plans are now ready to be posted on the website.
Seven years is the recommended rotation for many reasons, the main ones being:

· To allow the ground to recover from hungry crops like Brassicas.
· To ensure a break between crops, hindering some of the crop pests and diseases.
· To restore and feed the soil.
· To incorporate farm yard manures as fertilisers.
· To inhibit weeds.
· To create clean grazing.
· To give us a wide variety of crops for your boxes.

Our fields will be divided up into several plots, and here we will plant our "field scale" (industry term...!) crops. In the walled garden we will also be planting more attention-seeking crops such as salad leaves.
In any one of our field scale plots, the following crop rotation will be running, starting from a different point on the cycle in each plot to maximize variety. an example of a rotation scheme for a single plot is as follows:

2009- Potatoes - Orla and Milva varieties - planted in May for harvest in October.

09-10 Pigs/Poultry - to remove the leftover potato plants and prepare the ground for the next crop. October to March

2010- Broad beans, sowed in April for harvest on August

10-11 Sprouting Broccoli. Both Purple and White, Sowed in August for harvest in May

2011 Salads. Celery, Chard, Lettuce and others, planted on May for October Harvest.

11-12 The Pigs and Poultry are back to finish off what's left. October to April

2012 Squash/Courgettes. Butternut and large hallowe'en types (such as crown prince). Planted in April for harvest in September/October.

12-13 Guess who're back? that's right, those all purpose waste disposal units, the pigs and poultry, from November to March

13-14 Root crops, such as Chanteray Carrots, Parsnips, Beetroot, turnip and Swede. Planted starting in March and continuing through the year, these will be harvested from October through to March, with the pigs following as the early crops are finished until there is nothing left.

14-15 Brassicas, such as Red, white, green, savoy and even winter cabbage! Planted starting in march and continuing to plant over the following weeks, and harvested from August onward until tehy are gone.

14-16 Following the cabbages, grass will be planted as an Organic soil improver. This will be in for up to a season and a half, taking us up to March of the 7th year in the cycle. Manure will be dug in in June to add fertility and organic matter, and the whole cycle will start again.

Well, I hope that wasn't too long and in depth, and that you found it interesting to know what we are up to now and in the future.

See you all Next time!

2008-12-18T06:41:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a while since we posted anything, so here's the last update of 2008 from the G and S farm!

All the stress of Christmas will hopefully soon be behind us, as Christmas deliveries go out next week, on Monday and Tuesday. Only the non-farm related stress of the day itself left to survive!

Our turkeys put up a fight this week, in a last ditch attempt to avoid the christmas dinner tables of the north east, but thankfully everything is now under control. Until the next thing goes wrong that is...!
On that subject, it looks, from my window at least, as if the Longfram village christmas tree is on the verge of falling over, probably taking our electricity/wall with it!

Thanks to all our customers for your business over the last year, and we look forward to seeing you all in the new year. We will be back delivering on the 7th of January.

See you all then,
Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year,

Lee, Beth, Sue, Steven, Katie, John
The G and S Organics Team

2008-11-28T01:43:00.000-08:00

Well another week over as we march closer to the Christmas holidays. We hope you are all looking forward to the holiday and New Year as much as we are.
Lots of planning going on at G and S. Lee is spending hours agonizing over seed catalogues and muttering about heads of cabbage per acre!
The whole team - well, nearly the whole team - was out in force on Monday planting fruit trees. Thank you to all who volunteered to help. Just be grateful you didn’t have to play out. We had every kind of weather on Monday: Weak sun, heavy hail and driving rain. A fantastic day, however; all the trees planted. We have staked, composted and mulched them in, so look out in spring for beautiful fruit blossom and hopefully no late frost to kill off the fruit.

no trees...

Trees!

The turkeys are all looking happy and healthy, enjoying running around the farm. The weather doesn’t seem to bother them. In fact, we have to call and call them for teatime and bed.

Some great cook-ahead ideas this week to get you in the Christmas spirit and reduce the stress on the day.
By the Way, Check the website for special offers, we are doing our best to help all our customers tailor deliveries to better suit their needs.

Let us know what you are planning for Christmas and when you will want your delivery. Please note Christmas orders close this weekend. To book a delivery slot tel.07894622256.

Deliveries will be as normal on the 18th and 19th of December. Christmas orders will be delivered on the 22nd and 23rd. No deliveries at all on the 1st and 2nd of January, then we are back to normal on the 8th and 9th of January 2009.
So stock up now!

2008-10-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

Well what a change in the weather we have seen this week! We actually had a little snow in the village, quite rare for this time of year. We don’t normally see any until the new year. All the puddles and the drinking butts for the animals have been frozen over in the mornings for last few days. going around and breaking the ice so the animals can drink is just another job to add to an already long list!

Here is a view of Lee's brand new(!) digger.

We are currently digging trenches to border our fields. this is part of our long term plan to improve the quality of our heavy clay soil. The trenches should help drainage and make the soil lighter. We will eventually dig a grid of channels accross the fields, to improve water and air circulation. these will drain into our stream, which in turn feeds our pond.

At this time of year, much of our time on the farm is spent preparing for next year. Anything that doesn’t move needs to be painted, and anything that does needs to be greased.
We have been putting beds into the walled garden, mixing in compost to improve the soil, and mulching to suppress weeds, ready for planting in the spring.

I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know that Rufus, the Labrador who injured himself on the new fences, has now made a full recovery, and is ready to injure himself again as soon as he gets the chance! Hopefully he will resist the temptation, even though we know he loved all the attention it got him, as the vet’s costs are astronomical!

We are looking to put the Tup in with our ewes next week. This should give us lambs in April of next year. We will keep you up to date on their progress each week in the newsletter.

Oh, and don’t forget to get your Christmas order in on the website, as the deadline is December 1st. It may seem a long way off, but it will be upon you before you know it!

2008-10-22T04:32:00.000-07:00

Shopping for Sheep...

2008-10-09T06:32:00.000-07:00

This week we have been checking out a group of mature ewes with the aim to adding them to our flock. We went to Overgrass Organics, just up the road from our own farm, where we met six ewes and gave them a quick once over. We are hoping to get them purchased and onto the farm next month, after they have been visited by the tup. They will lamb in April.

When they get here they will join our flock of a dozen young ewes. Our ewes will be lambing in April too, their first, and they will be able to learn from the new, older ewes how to look after and feed their lambs.

The older ewes are also used to human contact, and will help to keep their younger companions calm at feeding time, sheering, and when the vet comes to check on them.

Here are some photos from our visit to Overgrass Organics:

the new sheep

2008-10-08T07:12:00.000-07:00

From the newsletter this week:

What a week! Several things have gone badly this week, and that doesn't include the weather! Today I filled my diesel car with petrol... I felt like such an idiot; just too many things on my mind in one go and, Wham! I go and do something extra dippy to cap off a difficult few days. Lee and John came to my rescue on the side of the road. Thanks Boys!

One of our old sows died, a bad and sad day all round. It rained. On a lighter note, Lee and I fell out over getting the tractor stuck. As a result I wasn't speaking to Lee when i got my feet stuck in the mud and had to call him to come and physically pull me out! He came up from the bottom field laughing and took a photo. We both started laughing at the situation, and just like that, my mood was cleared. So you see: three feet of mud is good for something!

Thanks to all who have given or promised ground cover materials, it is all useful and much appreciated. Progress is definitely being made in the walled garden, raised beds and borders for perennial vegetables such as artichokes and asparagus. We are even talking about a cascade of strawberries for next summer. I may even sneak in some flowers...

There is loads to be getting on with, even in this awful weather, including construction and groundwork; and lots of carrots still to be harvested and stored for the winter.

Latest news from the G and S farm:

Here are some photos from the farm this week, showing the work that's in progress, and what we are currently harvesting:

Composting toilet. A work in progress...

walled garden: building in progress

A selection of fruit and veg from the farm

Unripe Squash

Autumn is pumpkin time!

2008-10-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

News from the farm this week:
We have been super busy this week. Planting, fencing, topping the paddocks, planning where the cattle shed should be sited for the planners. Working out the dates to put the tup (ram) to go to the ewes for the lambing.
The new “walled” garden, at the top of the big vegetable field, makes me grin every time I look at it. The raised beds are just what I want and the extra shelter will allow us to grow some more fruit and vegetable varieties that need more care and attention. So if there is anything weird and wonderful you might remember from childhood that you would like us to have a go at let us know as soon as possible.
This week we have had some lovely meals made out of very little, a sort of use everything up week. The colder weather helps to make this happen because more substantial meals are ,I think, easier to prepare and adapt to what you have.
We have had a lovely meaty lamb and potato stew with lots of mint in the gravy served in big fluffy Yorkshire puddings with some quick cooked greens.

This weekend, we were at the Taste of the Tyne Festival. It was good for us to meet other local suppliers, and we look forward to adding Beckleberry's Organic Ice cream and Steve Oldale's Northumberland Mussels from Holy Island to our own kitchen as well as yours! Both of these suppliers are as committed as we are to supplying great quality local produce.

Some Photos from the farm this week:

Whinnie the mare and Mr Lovage, who was born in June:
Carrots fresh from the groud:
Taste of the Tyne Festival:

2008-09-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

Great news: Tree planting has well and truly begun and the fencer has arrived.

New fencing is in process of being installed, this is a great investment in the farm and should hopefully last 15 to 20 years. We have warned May that her days will be numbered if she decides to smash her way through these new fences just to take herself off for a little walk and a sleep in the depleted courgette bed! The picture belows shows the new fencing, both strong wire fencing, and an electric fence too.

So smiles all round at home this week.

Another 650 Christmas trees were planted on Tuesday with more plum, pear and apple trees arriving next month.

The walled garden is marked out and taking shape, although we desperately need weed suppressing materials (old carpets and dust sheets are ideal, if anyone has an of these type of things going spare, please get in touch: info@gandsorganics.com).
I think I may even have glimpsed the sun at the weekend.
The shooting season is well under way and to take advantage of this we have been eating a bit of the Duke of Northumberlands game, and very nice it was too. We hope to put some of Northumberland estate’s game in the boxes in the coming weeks and months, with lots of recipes and ideas on how to cook and use it. For those who haven’t eaten game before, don’t be nervous, we haven't met anyone yet who hasn’t really enjoyed it once they have all the “how to” information.
If anyone is really set against the whole game idea, please let us know and we will make sure you don’t get any nasty surprises in your box. However, there is nothing to stop you giving it a go before making up your mind.
Northumberland estate game is all reared and shot on the hills, heather and woodland around the market town of Alnwick, wild and free range. It is not organic.

2008-09-18T04:59:00.000-07:00

From this week's newsletter:
The beginning of this week found us in the fields planting Christmas trees, partly as shelter belts, partly as a crop, which would have been more enjoyable if the heavens hadn’t opened! Despite getting soaked, it’s very satisfying to know that in three or five years we will have a lovely crop of trees for sale. You will be able to come up and select your tree, and pick your vegetables and collect your Christmas turkey.
We’ll all be pleased to hear that the forecast for the weekend is good. We are still harvesting carrots, squash, beetroot, courgettes, and hope to dig the last of our potatoes. Beth is very excited about the new raised beds going in for next spring/summer’s soft fruits.
Autumn is approaching faster than we’d like, and this weeks recipes should be warming and help make the box go further.
If anybody has any paving materials going spare for wheelbarrow paths, also any old carpets for mulching and weed suppression in the beds (planting beds, not the sleeping sort!), these would be much appreciated. Please contact us via the email address at the end of this newsletter, or by phone
Check the website, www.gandsorganics.com for more news from the farm, and new products.

News from the farm:
Despite the very wet weather, the carrots seem to have survived, and are looking good.
The same cannot be said for the potatoes. They are looking poor, and we would like to apologise to all customers for this, however noone is able to supply good quality potatoes now as a result of the bad weather.
We are also coming to the end of the courgette harvest. There are only a few small ones left, which have been attacked by slugs. We have some photos of the destruction, which we will upload soon.
On top of this, numerous pig escapes have ruined the potential pumpkin harvest. Thankfully, the fencer arrived this week, and started putting the defences in place to prevent this happening again.
Update: here are the photos of the terrible weather and damaged and slug eaten produce:

2008-09-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

Spring finally springs?

2008-07-24T00:17:00.000-07:00

At last we have some fantastic weather. After what seems like non-stop rain for the whole of last week we had a fantastic sunny weekend and this week too seems to be going well.

Its been enough to finally get the veggies into action with our long suffering tomatoes turning from green to red after hanging around for a few months waiting for some sun to ripen them up.
We have had our first berry crop this week so some may have berries in the boxes others will get them in the next week or two.

We've been enjoying cooking outside mostly and had the best leg of lamb I have ever tasted last night. B slow cooking it on an open fire, spiked with garlic and some of our berries and then dowsed with all manner of lotions (mushroom ketchup, soy sauce, brown sauce) we ate this with fresh new potatoes boiled in a wok(?) and salad from the garden with a home made mustard.
The lamb was the same as went in the boxes last week and had the benefit of a weeks hanging in the chiller as the rest but then we hung it for a further week to really bring out the flavour, it was fantastic.

The puppies are up and about now, they are wanting our constant attention. First to be let out, then to be let back in, then back out. They just can't seem to decide where is more fun! Attacking laces and trouser legs seems to be the order of the day. We have earmarked half with new owners but still have five to go. Do tell your friends...if they don't go soon B will start hatching plans to keep them all, which will destroy my plans for another terrier.

We also managed to get out and do some much needed leafleting in our local areas, we have been neglecting the new business side of things whilst setting up the farm but now things are coming out of the soil rather than just going in all the time, we can concentrate on getting some more lovely customers. We've added a lot more products to the website in the hope that we can help people find the good organic things they need and make it more convenient to get them. Although adding excellent Italian wines was an expensive idea with us drinking to selling at a 6:1 ratio! Check out the site at http://www.gandsorganics.com/ and register with the site to receive event information, offers, news and other nice stuff that may be handy.

We also had a reminder of how obsessed we've become with the box scheme when last night George climbed into a box and started telling us he wanted to be delivered...so if theres any interest......

The family grows

2008-07-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

What a month June has been. We've been run off our feet with the various tasks associated with running a food/agricultural business.

We started the month with a good head of steam getting all the paths and paved areas in, ready for our open day. The open day was a great push to get all the unneccessary jobs done that bring the farm together like painting steel containers green, putting nice bark chippings around the polytunnel and hardening off areas, paving round the cold frames and the 'field kitchen'. Steve and Kate spent an afternoon erecting our marquees for Steves organic wine tasting and only to be left a bit deflated when 20 minutes later we were jumping on there bent, unturned frames trying to hold them down in the forthcoming gails!

We have spent a day going through our first vat inspection which went surprisingly well, don't believe the hype when it comes to the inspectors. We found ours very approachable and helpful.
Add to this a environmental health inspection and over a day spent on the phone trying to sort our new herd and flock marks with variuos councils and government agencies and you get an idea of whats been keeping us away from the blog.

The good news has been flooding in from all directions throughout the month, with the slowest soil in Northumberland gradually starting to wake up..we will be harvesting our strawberries, rhubarb and various berries and currants very shortly albeit in very small quantities this year.

Lettuce and salads are doing well, as are the tomatoes despite the polytunnel being completely under water at one end. We have lost a few plants but nothing major. We have lots of flowers coming on the courgettes, squashes and melons promising a healthy crop. We managed to get all the brussell sprout plugs planted along with our romanesco brocolli.

The bad side of all the growth is that the rabbits are now our constant companions but we will start working our way through these when they are nice and fat!

New additions to the family this month have been Mr. Lovage the foal, who is huge but very friendly and surprisingly easy to handle. Treacle finally gave birth to a litter of ten strong, fat puppies. So we are now looking for homes for five lovely chocolate labs and five sleek black labs of both sexes. Do let us know via the website http://www.gandsorganics.com/ if you would like to come and have a look at them. We'll add some pics as soon as they open there eyes and are settled in.

Hugh and fearnley the pussy cats have also taken up residence in B's garden store, and love to venture out when the dogs are running around outside. Although Pip, our jack russell has taken to taking them around in his mouth. I'm sure the cats will get there own back when they get a little older with those nasty claws that cats seem so happy to deploy on interested doggies noses.

The county show, more planting and some other excuses..

2008-06-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry we have been away from the blog for over a week, things are starting to get extremely busy for us.
We had a great day at the county show catching up with customers old and new, even getting chance to watch a bit of the show ring happenings. Its a great event for people to get an insight into farming in Northumberland although it seems a divide is growing between the farmers present and 'punters'. The blame does not lie with any party alone, with the organises needing to appeal to a massive market to keep the show financially viable and this means adding attractions that are more suitable to the mass market. So we end up with more people in the crowd outside the waitrose freebie tent than watching the cattle judging??

As usual it was disappointing to see all the franchise style catering vans selling outstandingly overpriced rubbish, most of them coming from outside the county and some even having the nerve to sell meat that wasn't reared in the UK. As is the norm these days the same farmers who complain about the price they get paid were queuing at the stands with the cheapest burgers or shortest ques not the stands advertising local or British and thereby supporting the intensive, substandard farmers that they would otherwise criticise.

On a lighter note things have been moving on with the vegetable activity, we now have 600 pumpkin plugs planted out and a further 400 seeds in the ground. We have 1000 courgette plugs desperate to get out of the tunnel and into the field and with all the watering they get, we want them out too. B's now up to 20 mins at a time in the tunnel watering, which would have me on my knees. We have carried on with the last of the carrots and peas all but finished.

Looking ahead we have ordered our turkey chicks to get ready for Christmas, we will take delivery of them in July. The brussel sprouts we sowed in the tunnel a few weeks ago are being pricked out into plug trays and will hopefully go into the field in the next few weeks. We are trying to clear space in the tunnel so we end up with space for the cabbage plugs we need to get on with and give the tomatoes, peppers and chillis room to grow.

Away from the farm we have been awaiting the exciting news on a planning decision to allow us to get on with the roads and putting our packing shed up, only to find that the council have rejected the plans and want another full planning application and so we must go up to another 8 weeks before work can commence. We rather naively thought that keeping four people employed, developing a locally biased sustainable business that generates thousands of pounds for the local economy and providing a service to local people that otherwise wouldn't be there would help our application but these things seem to have no bearing on the ever important decision makers that seemingly wish to grind this country to halt. We'll keep you posted with whats happening and may try to set up some sort of online petition to show support of our business.

It was a sad day on Friday due to our beloved Landrover being sold. We had a nice drive up to Edinburgh and handed her over to a great guy who seemed really pleased with her. The train journey home was reflective and quiet as we had planned to keep her till she passed away but we just couldn't justify the horrendous mpg any more without the vast amount of pigs and other stock we used to move around we just didn't use her enough. B's not relishing the thought of another van as the family transport, although I've promised seats for everyone in the next one. The boys never complained about sitting on the spare wheel in the back with the three dogs in the little van but I did feel guilty, and could see the horror on B's face.

Speaking of dogs, treacle the black lab is a few weeks of having her first litter of puppies. She has calmed down a lot lately and tends to spend most of her time sleeping, which though not unusual for Labrador's is very unusual for this particularly sprightly doggy.

The pigs are still disappointed with there new living arrangements and not a day goes by when one doesn't have to be ushered back into the pen we have for them. A bigger battery for the electric fence is added to the ever expanding wish list!

The great escape....

2008-05-23T04:10:00.001-07:00

After many escape attempts over the past week, we decided to move our 6 sows.

The past few mornings have been made a little busier due to finding the odd pig raking around the farm, looking in the poly tunnel and going in the sheds! They haven't caused any damage but it is rather unsettling to think of the devastation they could have caused.

Despite having food, water and plenty of straw and hay to sleep/chomp on they seem to have decided that the grass is greener. We thought it might be nice to set up the new paddock down by the little beck that supposedly drains our top field so when they piggies get hot and bothered they can get in the cool wet sludge and roll around to cool off and protect themselves from sunburn.

All these considerate thoughts were contradicted when we went down to check them after the first night in the new place to find that 2 of them had returned to the old paddock crossing electric fence, over the beck and under the old pig netting and barb wire in the process. We moved them back only to find the next morning the 2 had become 4!

We have pushed them all back in the paddock once again and hope the wanderlust dies down sometime soon...

The shopping channel

2008-05-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

South charlton pre school, where the boys used to go. Were having a fund raising cookery gadget demo, and I was only to glad to attend.

After quite a productive planting day I rushed to school to pick up the boys. Dashed home made wheat and gluten free chocolate chip cookies and a quickie tea of pasta. Through the boys in the bath and chucked on some clean jeans.
Left the boys in front of a dvd with the baby sitter. (We don't do television normally)
Well with a little make up and some smelly I looked and more to the point, smelt better than usual.

On getting into the landrover I noticed fat tummy was with me and no amount of persuasion would ensure it stayed at home. Then hag hands thought they should also be invited, well if hag hands were going gardeners nails were coming too.
So off we set, fat tummy, hag hands, gardeners nails and me, looking absolutely fabulous darling.

The cookery demo was rather more like the shopping channel, but with no remote.
Some fantastic gadgets that the demonstrator simply couldn't live without, but you would need a kitchen the size of the local swimming pool to display them all to your friends, then cupboards space similar to the tower of London to condemn them to when they go out of favour.
But I have to say, all in all a very enjoyable night out. Thank you little acorns pre school committee.

Sunday steaks

2008-05-12T02:53:00.000-07:00

Had another great hot and dry day yesterday. Managed to drive upto the farm steading area for the first time since back in September!

Spent some time arguing with B over bedding plant locations around the shed and summerhouse/kitchen, B's love of people means she would be quite happy having our own 'personal garden' right next to the commercial side of the business leaving me nowhere to hide on open days. I disagreed on locations and took to the summerhouse roof with hammer and nails to make some noise, B took to the firepit and made us a lovely steak and salad lunch. Obviously I agreed she was correct about the locations and got stuck in to the steak.(served on makeshift tin foil plates)

Taking shape

2008-05-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

We have had some back breaking days on the farm this week, but really feel we have turned the corner. Lots of jobs to be ticked off the to do list.
Polytunnel sheeted, tomatoes planted amongst other things. Really gearing up to have you all over for the open day on the 15th of June. The summer house, which will be our commercial kitchen, is coming on with only the roof to go on before we can get inside with the shiny stainlees steel stuff. If any of you would like to camp on the Saturday night before the open day please let us know numbers. Facilities are very limited, but that could add to the fun!
Every meal this week has been cooked and eaten out side, great, very limited washing up and tidying up. I think it has also improved our diet. No sticky puddings and loads of salad and raw veggies along with the meat dishes. In fact we have eaten so much meat this week we are both craving a veggie curry for supper. Hot and tasty, a great way of using up the left over vegetables. Like cauli, fennel, red onions, carrots, leeks and potatoes.
The school pick up has held some scary moments these last few weeks, with me appearing “fresh” from the veggie garden. But Tuesday was the funniest day by far. I am normally running late. But Tuesday I appeared at school, much to the heads amusement , on time. Well what I thought was on time, I had forgotten the children were signed up to the schools gardening club 3 till 4 on Tuesday. ( you would have thought they got their fill of gardening.)
“ Oh great mummy, you can help. “ shouted Billy before I could make my escape. “ She’s organic” announced George my youngest, to the rest of the group of 4 to 9 year olds . Who all nodded their heads, staring at me, with rather a knowing look.
“Your 5” I wanted to shout , “you shouldn’t care if “I’m organic”“, but “have you brought me a present! “
Actually we all had rather a nice time gardening together in their raised beds. It will be lovely for all the children to grow and use their own produce.
Perhaps it is the right time for even our round faced babes to understand about organics and even a little about self sufficiency . Look out school I may need to do a take on compost toilets!

The hot Bank holiday Monday

2008-05-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

Well what an absolutely fantastic start to the week. We spent a very wet Sunday indeed, planting and tidying on the farm. We were so wet we ate our lunch outside, with a roaring hot wood fire to dry us off a little. It wasn’t worth getting dry to go in for lunch just to get wet when we went back out. “ The show must go on “ and we were starting to get our knickers in a twist about sowing dates and harvest intervals.

Monday morning arrived, as it does, and what a day! Clear blue skies and hot, hot, hot. We had arranged to go out for the bank holiday Monday, with the kids. I have to admit half of me was just itching to get back to planting, but luckily guilty mummy syndrome was far stronger. I truly believe that all working mums suffer from the disease.

Off we went to the little train at Heatherslaw. ( http://www.ford-and-etal.co.uk/) The boys had a terrific day with only a few “can I haves and awh!“ We took the train to Etal and had a picnic of fruit, cold cured roast beef (from the slow roast joint that I stuck in a brine cure a couple of weeks ago) cheese and cake by the river as the boys splashed around. Then we had rather a well earned ice cream and pint ( work that one out for yourselves) in the Black Bull at Etal. Taking the little steam train winding its way back to the water mill at Heatherslaw, a lovely day out with only two obligatory parental torture chambers ( child high, plastic, toy, gift shops).
Thank you Heatherslaw for a great family day out. My tip is to get there early and miss the rush, or make a whole day of it, which you easily can.
Tuesday dawned and sun again. What luck. We spent the whole day on the farm planting, sheeting the poly tunnel , fencing and this time a rather leisurely lunch in the sun. Great root veg slaw and spicy chicken wings and garlic croutons made from last weeks loaf and far too many chocolate beetroot muffins (recipe on the web site) and cowboy style coffee from the fire. Ye hah!

Have a lovely week. Please email me and let me know what you are up to.
Look at the website to check out the dates of our cookery demo/courses in June. “Plain and fancy “is the theme and we hope you will join Lucy and I at The Estate House at Chillingham for these cookery days.
Cured Beef
This is a long , but easy process. Well worth the effort and free from any nasty preservatives and colour.
One joint of slow roast beef, you can use bone and rolled shoulder of lamb or pork to make an equally nice and useful cold cut meat for picnics and sandwiches.

The brine or cure
2 litres of water
350g sea salt
150g dark brown sugar
1 bay leaf, 10 crushed juniper berries, 10 peppercorns, 1 sprig of thyme. ( use rosemary or mint if you are curing lamb) all tied up together in a muslin bag
Bring the water, salt and sugar to the boil in a large sauce pan. Then add the herbs and spices and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
Place the meat in a sterilised stone ware or plastic jar and cover with the cold brine, weigh down the meat with a sterilised plate to keep it below the surface. Soak for about one week, I leave it to soak in a cold larder or you could put it in the fridge if there is space.
When you come to remove the meat rinse it under the tap and simmer it in a large pan of water for several hours. Strain it, then take the still hot meat and press it under a weight. I use a cake tin and plate with about 900g -1.8kg of weight on the top. Any liquid that can be poured off can be boiled and reduced and poured over to set , like jelly. ( you can just pour off and discard if you feel you have done quite enough )Leave to cool.

This could keep in the fridge for up to one week

Planting at last

2008-05-07T00:54:00.001-07:00

We finally managed to get a good chunk of seed in the ground yesterday, planting lettuce, parsley and loads more peas. The ground being perfect at the top end of the field but still a little underwater further down.

I managed to get the tractor stuck trying to rotovate more areas in burst of enthusiasm but driving straigh into a boggy hole with a fully loaded 2wd driving tractor turned out to be a silly idea. but onward and upward..

With the sheet fully trenched around the new polytunnel Beth got busy planting her nursed tomato plants, the heat in the tunnel was breathtaking...I swear I saw a bead of sweat forming on Beths brow, people who know her will know this is previously unheard of. I managed to make some doors up but we think we'll have to leave them open all day if this weather continues. Fantastic changes from being underwater in near horizontal rain on Sunday to now being sun burnt from being outside on Tuesday.

In went our apricot tree, 2 surviving bay trees and a fantastic looking cranberry bush purchased from woolworths for £2!! I'm already excited about the muffins and smoothies.

The cranberry comes in as part of B's plan to get us eating more berries, apparently its the thing we are missing in our diet. Despite my arguments relating to my love of strawberry milkshakes, raspberry flapjack etc apparently i just don't get it.

The ground is still a little too wet to get the big machinery on that will start digging our roads. We are still using a wheel barrow to bring everything into the farm steading but hope this sick torture will end soon. I had to laugh at the site of B yesterday with a stack of around 12 milk crates bouncing up and down on the barrow as she made her way across the field. Luckily stifling the chuckle before she came too close to catch me.

Rainy Sunday

2008-05-07T00:30:00.000-07:00

What a day we had on Sunday... the rain never stopped all day.
We had planned to spend the day planting after hearing good reports on the weather forecast but what a disaster it turned out.
Because the fields have been so wet all our veggies are late going in the ground and we were desperate to get on the land to get them going, we even had two willing helpers lined up. I don't think they'll be back anytime soon. we just had to brave the water and get on with other jobs.

I had the delightful job of making our big composting bay with the muck from the chickens and pigs we have been saving in a corner of the field. We will add some organic compost too this and use it on the pumpkins and courgettes next year. Organic rocket fuel for veggies.

Beth had to wrestle with Bandit the pony and Gracie her 2 yer old to get them into a newly erected starvation paddock. Bandit is piling on the pounds now the grass is growing and we need to pen him into a small area with a lot less grass to munch on. This is always going to be a problem with an animal that is used to grazing the welsh mountains and now finds himself living in the lush lowland pastures of Northumberland. Beth says the breed live of 'sucking stones' normally! What a luxury to be here, although it has looked a bit like the Brecon Beacons of late.

We had the guys going round pulling up all the old barb wire off the old fences and out of the ground along with pulling out any old posts and other farm rubbish that has been buried over the years by previous owners.

Lunch was an excellent fry up of bacon and sausages with fried bread that Beth had cooked on a fire that we had going to try and get dry. What a site we must have looked huddled in the corner of a waterlogged field with the rain storming down on us, but it really is moments like this that make us both truly happy. The challenge changes every day but the humour is a constant.

After lunch we set up the rotavator on the tractor ready for the dry we are expecting on Tuesday and put a load of nice dry straw into the pig arcs, although they have been stood out all day. The wet weather bringing up the worms to find.

Plans for the future now include digging a pond to help with drainage and also enable Beth to get some ducks around the place. We regularly have ducks and swans overhead and would like to increase our chances of being a must see destination for them! And then there is the highland cattle, Dorset sheep, turkeys and geese for Christmas, field shelter to put up..........

The poly tunnel rises

2008-04-22T12:06:00.001-07:00

Today we finally got chance to put the our much awaited poly tunnel up. Beth has been excited about this since its arrival in deepest winter and she now 400 sq.ft of space for planting all the plugs that our customers will hopefully be helping us plant on our open day on the 24th of May.

We didnt manage to get the cover tonight as my two helpers had to get off at 7pm. Apparantly there are some people kicking a football around and they could not miss it. I must try to check the sporting calender prior to booking them next. Thank god we aren't in the middle of some life changing experience like the world cup. (that is football isnt it?)

With any luck the weather will stay good and we'll manage to get the area we ploughed today dried and ready for rotavating at the weekend. Then Beth will be straight in with the beetroot seed. I'm still trying to persuade her that just because the boys really love the fact it turns there pee a fantastic red colour it may be a bad idea to plant an acre of the stuff. Look out for special deals on beetroot bulk buys later in the year!

Spring is in the air

2008-04-22T03:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah,
The sun is shinning, yeah yeah yeah. I am so happy the sun is high in the sky. The air is starting to warm and the ground is at last starting to dry out. I really hope I’m not speaking to soon, but I can feel a spring in my step.
The children went off to school full of pancakes, we have a glut of eggs and milk. They still complained that it was a school day! Heres my recipe-
Breakfast fruity pancakes
Pancake mixture.
1 egg
4 oz of plain flour
½ pint of milk
Beat egg, flour and milk together . Heat a little oil and butter in a large frying pan or griddle. Ladle a little mixture into the hot pan and cook, on both sides. The pancakes can be made in advance or kept warm whilst you heat up the fruit.
Chop up some nice ripe fruit, like bananas, plums, apples, warm the fruit in a heavy bottomed pan with a little runny honey.
Wrap some warm fruit in a pancake and serve.
Not be long before “ its too light to go to bed, It cant be bed time “ But we do love the light nights, tea out side, dogs lazy and snoozing in the sunshine. Half the washing, no woollies to wash by hand. Now I’m running away with my self. I can almost smell the drop scones sizzling on the griddle on a smoky fire, home made summer berry jam and butter at the ready. I really do have the best life!
But what of this weeks work load. I must, I must plant the pumpkin seed for the planting day on May the 24th. We are all looking forward to it , excited and nervous ( check the web site for event details.) We hope to have small plug plants for planting direct into the ground in a huge pumpkin bed which we will nurture ready for the boxes for Halloween. I feel a competition coming on. Oh I’m so much more enthusiastic when the weather is kind to us growers.

The first Blog

2008-03-31T12:01:00.000-07:00

This is our first blog. I'm not sure wether to keep it short and sweet or to fill you in on our full story? I'm sure the nerves will settle as we get used to this but it seems a strange idea to be talking to somebody without being able to see how they react, without any chance of adjusting your view as you go along and share ideas. Here goes..

The purpose of our blog is hopefully to give readers a taste of what its like to be a smallholder in rural Northumberland. We have 33 acres of land on which we keep pigs, chickens, horses, sheep and a few cattle. We grow vegetables and some fruit and sell these through our Organic box scheme.

I'm sure an easier way of giving you an authentic experience of organic farming in Northumberland would be to get you to withdraw any cash you might have in the bank and burn it, jump around in deep muddy puddle for a while (without the waterproofs you thought you would'nt need) and then go back in to your kitchen to find the dogs have enjoyed your roast beef that was left on the top and are now sleeping in your chair, but despite what a lot of old school farmers may have you believe it's not all doom and gloom.

Things are on the up for forward thinking food producers and as consumers become more aware of health, animal welfare, food miles and other food issues. We have the reassuring joy of knowing the simple items of meat and vegetables we produce bring great pleasure to our customers every day without having a detrimental effect on the earth.

Our days are a mix of feeding and checking animals, planting and harvesting vegetables, packing and delivering boxes, begging our bank manager and telling lies to our accountant! We hope to write a daily blog to record the highs and lows of the coming months.

With the weather starting to pick up after the usual 'snow at Easter shock' we have plenty to get on with and with that in mind I better get back to it, Beth is putting finishing touches to her sowing date calender and its look like a late supper for us.