Crooked End Farm Organic Blog

This week, two events occurred in our flock that reinforced our amazement of sheep. Early in the week, we had a birth of a lamb, even though it is more than 150 days since the last official visits of the rams to the ewes. And today, not to be outdone, one of our ewes produced twins. So it appears there has been some sneaking around behind our backs. The lambs are well and should thrive in this warm weather with lush grass to graze on. We also have an interloper in our flock – seems like she has heard what a great life the Crooked End sheep have so has come to join the flock. We are working to identify her owners but are being a good foster family in the interim. Our redcurrants will soon be ready so look for them in the next week or two. Strawberries are also proving to very popular this year. On the pie front, we have introduced a new vegetarian pie – fresh cheese with Mediterranean vegetables in a piquant tomato sauce. Give one a try! The dry weather is causing us to have to work hard at keeping the fruit and veggie plants well watered.

We are pleased to say that we are now picking our first planting of broad beans and our strawberries are also ready (although the children seem to eat them before they get to the shop!).

The rest of the beans (runner, broad and French) have been planted out in the field and we will be spending a lot of time this week staking them all.

The sweetcorn are doing really well, we have intercropped them with squash again this year. We have found this works really well, with the squash covering the ground underneath the height of the sweetcorn. It means we get two crops out of one space, it also results in less weeding, which is always a good thing!

Don’t forget that we can fill your freezer with our meat packs. We have lambs freezer packs for £50 or you can have a whole lambs cut to your specifications for £7.95/kg (butchered weight).

We’ve had a busy week at Crooked End Farm. Our sheep have gone for shearing – given the warm weather this week, I am sure they will be glad to take off those winter coats. We have also had the opportunity to plant out a lot of our crops – this week we were able to sow the corn and runner beans in the fields. Our broad beans are progressing well and we may have some ready by the end of next week, so stay posted. Additionally, we have noticed quite a lot of strawberries setting on our plants so if we can keep the birds away, we are hoping for a good crop this year.

Now that we are well into spring, you will notice more new season produce on our offering this week – we have long-awaited new potatoes from Cornwall and very flavourful strawberries from Hereford. Don’t forget to order some cream to go with them for a delicious summertime treat. Additionally, we will be able to offer Crooked End fresh lamb (last seasons) this week. You may notice that Jess’s Ladies milk is now priced at £1.30, which is the result of an increase in the wholesale price to us.

In addition to our current markets, we will also be attending the market at Skenfrith, Monmouthshire on Saturday 12th June starting at 10:00. On both Saturday and Sunday, we will also have a stall at the Annual Garden Festival (http://www.thegardenfestival.co.uk/) at Hellens Manor, Much Marcle, Herefordshire between 10:00 and 16:00. We hope to see some of you at one of these markets.

Another week has flown by.  We had our annual soil association inspection on Thursday, this involves the whole farm being scrutinised.  Our inspector arrived at 10.00 and walked around the farm, thoroughly checking all the animals and discussing management and new enterprises.  He took notes all the crops that were growing and discussed our crop rotation. We then took him on a mini tour so he could see the other two patches of grassland that we have recently taken on.  Then it was back to the farmhouse for 6 hours of checking paperwork, questions and audit.  Anya was a little worried when he decided to audit potatoes for a two month period! Would our records come up to scratch? He literally made sure that all the potatoes that we had sold, through the box scheme and markets and shop were visible from our organically approved supplier’s invoices.  And they were! By the time 17.30 came I think that he was as exhausted as I was. “Shop cleaning records?” he asked hopefully, I produced them thinking “hope he doesn’t want house cleaning records!” Anyway, he was really pleased with how the business was growing and said that we (Crooked End) “are what organics are really about”. So that was nice, but I was still pleased to see the back of him!

Continuing on a bureaucratic theme, this week we also had a meeting with the woman from the South West Regional Development Agency, who is the technical appraisal officer for our new farm shop RDPE grant application.  Subject to some more minor paperwork being on her desk by the end of next week, we should have a decision in our application by the end of June.  This means that work on the shop could start on 1st July!  If the news on 30th June is good then the champagne will be flowing…

Unfortunately, we are without the wonderful Ciaran this week as he is unwell.  However, deliveries will still be on Thursday but please bear with us if we are later than usual, as John who is doing the deliveries for us may struggle finding some of your houses.

We also enjoyed a great day at the new Spring Version of the Forest Food Showcase held at Taurus Crafts near Lydney.  Hope you enjoyed a pie or a chat if you dropped by !