Crooked End Farm Organic Blog

Well, the rotovator made it! We now have half our growing area beautifully prepared ready for all our transplants. This will make next week even more busy than normal, but as we have an army of wwoofers (www.wwoof.org.uk)
things should go swimmingly. We are really lucky have such wonderful volunteers to help out, we would be unable to cope without them.

The pigs have spent the week sunbathing and wallowing in their make shift paddling pools, appreciating the cooling properties of mud! One of our younger girls went off to meet “Dr Foster” our local organic boar. She is currently nameless. Any suggestions? We already have a Mabel and an Eleanor. Our matriarch of the pig family has come home from her visit with Dr Foster so now we wait to see whether she produces a large litter. Fingers crossed!

The bank holiday will be busy for us. Come and see us at the Creative Cultivator’s event in Chepstow on Saturday the 29th May. We will also be at the Forest Food Showcase at Taurus Crafts on bank holiday Monday.
Additionally, we will be in our usual spot at Hay-on-Wye next Thursday, which is the first day of the Hay Festival.

Just to update those of you on the edge of your seats worrying about late preparation of seed beds, wondering whether we will ever get plants in the ground this year, gnawing fingernails about the rotavator…..

the good people at affordable tractors collected the offending roto from the farm and returned it, repaired, after only 48 hrs .  Bless them !  And we didn’t even buy our tractor from them. 

All I need now is to get the ridger working and we can do fully machine made raised beds….  watch this space !

We have been very excited about the newest addition to Crooked End Farm, we now have a rotovator to go behind our tractor. Unfortunately it only worked for about 20 minutes before it started making a very strange clanging noise! So we are back to being “Mandraulic”. This is a shame, as the greenhouses are beginning to bulge with all the seedlings ready to transplant. Mind you, as we have been having frosts this week, perhaps it isn’t a bad thing if they stay under glass.

We do have some spare organic courgette plants (80p each) and Strawberry plants (90p each – 2 for £1.50) ready if anybody needs any; and we will have tomato plants soon.

This week we are feeling worn down by bureaucracy. We have just submitted our application for the 2010 Single Farm Payment. For the first time we are able to make our submission online, but there are still numerous paper booklets and accompanying guidance notes to wade through. We also had a list of no less than 32 follow-up questions about our grant application for our new shop. Oury liaison man says that this is the most that he has ever seen, but has assured me that it is a sign that the RDPE funding body really do want to give us some money. Let’s hope so!

On a brighter note, Doug’s Forest of Dean Honey bees have been spotted out and about pollinating the fruit blossom. Doug moved 5 hives to the farm late last summer and expects to make his first harvest of Crooked End Farm honey next month. In return, we have noticed that there is a lot more fruit set on our currant bushes than ever before.

And from next week we will be able to supply Alex Gooch’s award winning organic breads (see http://www.allaboutyou.com/food/Made-in-Britain-Alex-Goochs-Organics/v1). To start, we will be able to deliver his rye and sourdough breads on Thursdays only. However, if you would prefer to try his rustic white, wholemeal, spelt, malthouse loaves or brioche and spicy buns (similar to Chelsea buns) we can arrange for them to be available for collection at our shop on a Wednesday or Thursday after 5pm. Warning! Alex’s bread is highly addictive!

what do I know ???  not a lot.  Apparently you can join our CrookedEnders Facebook group by clicking here

Some young people have been involved with this evidently so I cannot give any guarantees !

Once again time races by too quickly… we’re already into May and I haven’t blogged anything about the new markets (Hereford on Wednesdays. Hay on Wye on Thursdays) which are going really well  – do drop in and sample a pork pie and try and talk Kate (our chef ) into making some more fantastic scotch eggs….)

Nor have I mentioned Eleanor’s new piglets – 10 of the beauties – so tantalisingly mentioned in the last post.  In fact – it’s been so long since the last post that we’ve moved them all onto fresh pasture and they’re all enjoying spring weather and the great outdoors  (just don’t mention the pork pies to them….or the scotch eggs…)

Meanwhile things are beginning to prosper in the polytunnels – and not just the spinach and salad leaves – look what one of our keen wwoofers found whilst picking leaves (it’s the nest of chicks on the right!)

Anyway – drop by soon and see us – or leave a comment and let us know what you’d like to know more about