News, Comments, Views and The Farm Diary - Video Clips, Pictures and a Few Words
February 12th 2012
I am sure some of you will agree - time certainly flies. We are nearly half way through February already!!!
The end of January saw Ian travelling to Edinburgh for the annual national conference for FARMA which stands for...the National Farmers' Retail and Markets Association. The conference involved coach tours around "Fabulous Fife" , conference sessions and a bit of eating and drinking! The Farm retail sector which includes Farm Shops and Farmers' Markets is a busy place - growing and selling food directly is a tall order but even though the retail sector is "struggling" - local food producers and on-farm retailers continue to adapt with your support.
We are busy on the farm - still picking lots of produce, 3 drillings of broad beans in the groun already, tunnel soon to have more bunched carrots in. We are also having approximately 250 solar panels put onto the main barn and this morning (Sunday) we had 30 children celebrating their friends birthday in the cafe marquee despite the very cold weather outside.
January 22nd 2012
In the fields: The unusually mild winter continues to assist us with the field crops still growing - spinach, chards, kale, cavalo, cabbage, greens.....The tunnels have freshly planted chards and rocket and we hope to drill carrots in the tunnel any day now. We managed in the dark last night to drill our 3rd crop of broad beans which is is always satisfying at this time of year as we duck and dive between showers of rain. This years cropping programme on paper is nearly complete.
In the shop: We continue to sell lots of own grown organic potatoes for £6.00 per bag.
The chickens: We are collecting more than 200 eggs per day and have started selling them graded into small, medium, large and extra large and they continue to be in demand. PLUS we made some fantastic scotch eggs with our own eggs and our own sausage meat and they taste fanatstic.
Christmas 2011 and 2012 New Year
Christmas sales this year were very similar to last year which we view as very good in these challenging times. For us 2011 has seen some good progress in a number of areas. We hosted a number of very successful events on the farm - Festable, two weddings, the Pulse Festival as well as our weekly Saturday Market. The farming year was also pretty good apart from the fact that we could have all done with a bit more sunshine in the summer. Our chicken numbers at Sunnyfields have increased to meet the high demand for our eggs which many people say "our the best around".
In addition to activty at Sunnyfields, 2011 also saw us getting busier as Kings Farm which is near West Wellow (10 miles from Sunnyfields) We grew most of our potatoes, carrots and parsnips there as well as all the lavender. Kings Farm is twice the area of Sunnyfields, has its own water supply (a lake and river) and has lovely soil. We have also increased the amount of livestock as it is important for us to have livestock in our farming system as a break from crops and a valuable source of nutrients via manure. At Kings Farm we have sheep, beef, pigs and chickens and intend to increase the ivestock numbers further in 2012 at Kings Farm.
Moving into 2012 we still have plenty of winter greens, root crops and other crops in store, the tunnels have freshly planted seedlings in already and we will commence the 2012 seeding very soon.
We wish everyone who supports Sunnyfields a Happy and Prosperous 2012.