October is a nice month

Hello Everyone, …and a spooky Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night to you all. It is the time of the year for soups and jacket potatoes, which we have eaten plenty of this last week. Our potatoes are ideal for roasting and baking and I hope you are enjoying the taste and smell of such seasonal food.  Amsterdam was a lovely mini break for me. Soooo enjoyable seeing our three in the "Dam" even though the weather was very wet and really windy, a home from home. As ever, on my return, I was enthusiastic to be busy here on the farm… The FarmOn my return Bob and I got straight into the juicing of the apples and pears. This is always a good task to complete. Not only is it a time when we seem to find our ‘groove’ really quickly, we also make lots of delicious juice. The juicing process is the same for whatever fruit (or veg) to be used: Place the apples, into the crusher which clearly chops the fruit into tiny pieces; Transfer the  chopped fruit into the juicer which will squeeze all the juice out from the fruit; Bottle the juice;  Pasteurise the bottles in the kettles; The pulp left is fed to the chickens or placed into the compost bin; Start again with a new batch.  Sounds simple but it does happen to be quite a long process. We each take up half of the stages with very little chat and we just…crack on with the task in hand. The Apple Juice and Apple & Pear juice will be on the website soon.  The Crew have been amazing this last week. They have ensured that the Pond Field is very well organised for the coming seasons. The growing crops are obviously gorgeous, but the paths are looking smart, the fabric for the garlic planting, which is now complete, is taut and aligned, everything looks plumb and squarely aligned. All of this makes me more than happy coz I do like to see organised areas which stand to attention. I greatly appreciate the effort Lucy, Graham and Hugh put into their work.  Just as the trees are turning golden the outside asparagus bed is now turning yellow. We have started to cut the plants back to the base. We also had a major, major cut to two trees growing within the hedgerow. These trees were diseased and we have started to have branches from these trees break and bounce off the polytunnels, especially as the winds have been particularly forceful this last year.  We made arrangements for these trees to be felled. The wood we are going to dry for use on our fires. The branches were chipped to make even more wood chip for our paths. It was interesting to note that the centre of these trees was very wet and crumbly, and you could clearly see they were diseased…they were Ash and probably had ‘dye back’. We are not feeling guilty for having the trees cut down as we are hoping that the extra light we have gained will be better along the stretch of tunnels beside the hedge and the extra nutrients within the ground will be left for the crops rather than the tree roots. We are also going to be adding several hundred more trees to our little farm. More of this in future Journals. The Walled GardenThe greenhouses are proving to be successful. The veggies are growing really well inside, in fact are growing faster than the same varieties in the polytunnels. The temperature is still strong which creates a dry environment. We are having to ensure that we water regularly as the compost dries.   Next week we will be hiring big equipment for some big jobs on the farm. Please all request fine weather from Mother Nature as the tasks would go sooo much better if we are not having to deal with claggy mud! Till next week, take care,Ann

Hello Everyone, Bob and I hope you are all very well. This week has felt like the season we are actually in…Autumn. We have had some cold days (and nights). The fire is on and thermals are at the ready… The FarmOn Monday we had an enjoyable visit from a group of young growers from Cumbria. They came with their leader who is advising them on all things growing including growing as a business. They were on a field trip and also visited Gibside Gardens.  They all had great garden knowledge, some volunteered at farms, some had farms, some small growing areas. They mostly wanted to understand the importance of ‘how to run it as a business’. Both Bob and I thoroughly enjoy gardening and achieving, however, we have also instinctively used our combined business knowledge to run the farm. The group were clearly enthusiastic about the way of life they are following. But, to continue working physically as hard as us growers do, particularly small scale growers with little mechanical help, growers need to realise that this life also needs to provide a living salary. We hope we were of some help and good luck to them all! It has been a great working week here on the farm. There is always lots to do with a tick list of duties at the beginning of each week. This last week the Crew have been really busy with the weather being on our side....mostly. More potatoes were harvested and some were massive! See them in the Chef’s Box soon. The restaurants and boxes were all attended to with harvesting, prepping, packing and delivering on a daily basis. The last of the tomatoes are now harvested, stored and ready for use. The spaces left are being filled with more overwintering onions, coriander and chervil.  Where the potatoes were, the beds have been levelled and covered with a specific weed suppressing sheet. This particular weed suppressing sheet we keep using each year…it has small holes which are melted in a regular pattern.....specifically for growing garlic. After the sheet goes down the next year's garlic is planted, and I am delighted to say the garlic is in!  The outside beds of brassicas are being removed as they are harvested and the remains sent to the compost bins. These beds are being prepped and covered , ready for the next planting. All three outside herb gardens have been cut back, weeded and ready for the next growing season. Some plants, for instance sage, are not cut back but left to protect the plant from frosts. Generally speaking the herb gardens look quite bare for the Autumn and Winter seasons. This makes us appreciate when they are in full bloom.  All in all a very productive week.  The Walled GardenThe garden is much the same, but with the crops getting much bigger in the greenhouse. The building activities on the major build has fluctuations in resource usage and when there is an opportunity the builder switches activities to the garden. So we expect that between now and Christmas there will be an opportunity to move to the next stage of the garden development. This will be exciting. Watch this space…   Each morning the team meets for a coffee/tea and a chat before we start on the activities for the day. This last week we have been running through the lists of duties for over the coming months…guttering, strawberry beds, polytunnels all popped up in the chats. There will always be tasks to complete what ever the season. With more work being carried out in the walled garden and chores on a list at the farm…it never stops but we wouldn’t want to. As much as we treat this adventure as a business it is also our way of life. Bob and I have always enjoyed ‘doing’, probably because our parents were ‘doers’. We have instilled our work ethic into our children and now, we are hoping…the grandchildren follow with this approach.  Speaking of which, I am with our granddaughter in Amsterdam on a mini weekend break while Bob holds the fort in the Shire and watching the grandsons playing football. Yes I am enjoying myself and I hope you are too. Till next week, tot ziens,Ann

Hello Everyone, I am sure you have noticed how the light, during the day is changing, this is the month when the hour changes and the light is adapting to the sun light. The time of the day gets all a bit confusing, and the daylight begins to shrink away. The mornings tend to be misty and damp, and the sun sits low in the sky even at midday. While driving it can be quite dangerous as the sun glares just at the wrong angle. But October always seems a gentle month, a calm month after the heat of Summer but before the harsh Winter cold. I have decided I really enjoy this time of the year. Our duties seem calmer, still very important, but there is no panic to make sure that the crops are planted out in time or that we are in a race with the weeds or that we are trying to stop unwanted pests damaging the vegetables. I feel as if we are easing through the days. Yep! We still crack on and achieve loads each day. The Farm We may be easing through the days but there is still a lot happening. The tomatoes are still hanging around with the last few vines coming down next week. It is amazing to think that the tomato seeds were sown at the end of last Winter and they are still here, and it is nearly the beginning of the next Winter. They have served us well. Once these are out, we have a few plugs of mustards and herbs which will slot into the space made available. Then the polytunnels are all chock-a-block! The two tunnels of white strawberries have been fine tuned. The paths have been recreated, and the side beds have been planted up with a runner selected from the middle beds. We have also been able to pot on two hundred and twenty-five runners. These are now living in the greenhouse and will be planted into a growing bed next year. Lucy did a fine job here as this can be classed as one of those tedious and time-consuming tasks.  Graham and Hugh spent a lot of time this last week clearing and prepping the Orchard Field growing area. They have cleared debris, weeded and lightly rotavated the ground prior to covering with weed suppression fabric. This will mean the ground will be ready to use next growing season. We will just need to put in the paths. Rotavate, you ask? We use a no dig system but that does not mean we do not hoe (a favourite task of mine) and when the ground becomes really compacted, we do mechanically disturb the ground, but just the very top. Sometimes areas do need to be loosened to allow air and water in and the little creatures an escape to the surface.  We are now lifting root crops as and when we need them. For instance, jerusalem artichokes, carrots and parsnips are in the Chef’s Box. These we harvest as we need them. The ground is a great store cupboard for many roots. It is quite enjoyable digging up the roots and discovering the results of our efforts. It can be back breaking, mucky but really satisfying. We have started juicing the tree fruit. All the juicing equipment is now out from storage, cleaned and ready for action. Bob and I will be cracking on with this over each week till all the apples and pears are gone.  The Walled Garden There is very little news per say from the walled garden. But there is one exciting bit of news. The radishes are now being used by Alex in the restaurant. They looked great and they were the first harvest from the Freyja Walled Garden. Progress! Well, that’s all for this week. We have the grandchildren for the weekend. There is no free stay here…the boys will be helping with the juicing. Ha! Enjoy, till next week, take care, Ann