Crooked End Farm Organic Blog

Things are a little late this week, but for the nice reason that it was Bruce’s birthday on Saturday and Father’s Day on Sunday. Although the weekend was partly spent shearing the sheep (not bad for our first attempt…I think), we also had a lovely Supper Club on Saturday evening. Bruce remarked that he had a nicer evening at Supper Club than he would have had if we had gone out for dinner, food and company! Thank you especially for the cards and birthday cakes!

There are signs of life in the Crooked End polytunnels, which is just as well as not much is growing outside at the moment. All being well we should soon have baby beetroot and our own French beans and mange tout. We are planting lettuces as fast as we can, and in a few weeks should have enough to sell as whole lettuces too.

Despite the challenges that the weather has presented us with over the past two years, I am looking to expand our growing over the next few years. We have been having great results with “no-dig” in the polytunnels, and outside where we have been able to. I have been put in contact with an organic farmer http://www.tolhurstorganic.co.uk/ who takes the no-dig concept to field scale, and can hopefully give us a few pointers. The indespensible Laura, who has been producing such lovely salad this summer, will be moving on in September, so we are also looking for an organic apprentice http://www.soilassociation.org/futuregrowers to carry on her good work.

Wow, Crooked End Farm is on the up. We are official suppliers of quiche samples to hungry royals! I don’t know whether that in itself merits a “By Royal Appointment” but it was certainly a nice diversion on an otherwise cold and rainy day in Hay-on-Wye today.

Also on the horizon is possible expansion. I can now reveal that we are tendering for the tenancy of Turnstone Court Farm, near Vowchurch. It is a beautiful 240 acre (mainly) grassland farm owned by the Countryside Restoration Trust. We would look to convert the farm to certified organic, and use it to grow hay and raise sheep and cattle, as well as undertake numerous environmental stewardship projects. It represents a fantastic opportunity to grow our farming enterprise, which is pretty much at capacity with the current acreage that we have available. There will also be endless opportunities to continue projects that we have already started at Crooked End on a very small scale, such as providing work experience for young people with special needs. The exciting news is that we are one of the final four candidates left in the tender competition.

Rest assured that should we be successful, nothing will change at Crooked End Farm, other than a noticeable improvement in the supply of Crooked End Farm organic beef and lamb in our farm shop. Please just wish me luck or, better still, drop a line to the Countryside Restoration Trust in support of our proposal!

Have a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend

Spring is well and truly here at Crooked End Farm. The tree blossoms are coming out, the fruit bushes that we optimistically replanted over the winter are budding, the lambs are bouncing in the fields, and our shop is adorned with pots of seedlings for sale. About time too I say!

We are still racing to get the veggies planted out that would normally have been planted out in April. The sheep will be moved to some lovely fresh Spring grass over at Ragman’s Lane Farm next weekend. All in all it is looking really good. And at this point I need to give a really big thank you to our army of volunteers and the hardworking Alice who is leaving us to move onto bigger and better things this week.

As always, if you would like to have a look around at what we are up to the farm is open to visitors whenever we are around. This weekend we had 2 groups of visitors from London looking to fulfil long held dreams of feeding lambs and reconnecting with nature – we were happy to oblige!

Just a reminder that there is no market at Hereford this coming week owing to the May Fair; the market resumes the week after (roadworks permitting!). There are also a few spaces left for Supper Club on 18th May…