What a disappointing August it has been in terms of the weather. Fingers crossed for an Indian summer and glorious September.
Despite the wet conditions work must go on on the farm. Farmer Jim has been busy planting brassicas including cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, calabrese, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and kale.
He has also been planting leeks which are already looking very nice.
At this time of year Farmer Jim crimps our corn crop. This is when he harvests the corn before it dries. It gets put through a crimping machine that crushes it and adds inoculants. This stops it going mouldy so that it can be used for winter feed.
We need some sun to finish off the rest of the corn harvest and bale the straw that will be used for bedding by the cattle in the winter.
The geese are looking great. At the end of April they looked like this:
Only fourteen weeks later (at the beginning of August) they looked like this:
Like the turkey poults, the geese are kept inside as goslings to protect them from predators. Once big enough they are free to roam in and out of their housing on to a specially wood-chipped area for them that also has puddles that they love to splash about in, and beyond that, on to a field.
News from the shop:
Cornish Orchards have a new Organic Cider now available for sale.
After a long absence, Camel Valley Rose is available again.
We have a new red wine from Bosue Vineyard called Rondo-Regent.
We have started stocking a small selection of ready meals from the Little Cornish Curry Co. Please let us know if there are any you would like us to order.
Raspberries are back with the second (Autumn) crop. The first crop was very short due to the wet summer.
We now have French (sometimes called Fine) Beans available. They are grown on the farm.
We have been making a variety of new jams: Blueberry and Raspberry, Blackcurrant as well as Redcurrant and Blueberry. These flavours will only be available while stocks last.
We have also been busy making raspberry, strawberry, plum and kea plum jams.
Please note that from Saturday 29th August until Wednesday 16th September we will not be contactable by email. During this time, please call us on 01637 872 310 (Monday to Saturday 9.30am until 5.30pm) or fax us on the same number.
Apologies for any inconvenience.
