Firstly let me apologise for dissapearing off the face of the planet since february on the blog, my excuse?......................Well the good news is we have just been so so so busy! As you may know from previous posts we were just about to start our second season of growing flowers at the end of february 2013 on the Burnt Norton estate out near mickleton. The estate is 400 acres and covers lots of small villages in its grounds, in one word BEAUTIFUL!
MICKLETON
We also decided to finally bite the bullet and move house out here right at the beginning of our growing season which also added a cetain extra amount of excitement/madness to our second year but was without a doubt the best decision of our lives.The baskets got off to a rather chilly start as in march as it snowed a lot but everything was tucked up snug and warm with the new propane heater we invested in to keep the greenhouses a toasty 19 degrees when it was only 3 degrees outside.
Come May everything warmed up nicely and we planted up the dirty ducks summer display again and started on the mighty task of delivering all of our baskets to customers houses, quite an epic task!
CUSTOMERS BASKETS 2013
CUSTOMERS BASKETS 2013
DIRTY DUCK DISPLAY 2013
We started scratching our heads thinking about what next to do with ourselves, Lydias brother is a chef at the church street townhouse in stratford and asked us if we would be able to grow specialist micro leaves/herbs to use on his dishes as the produce he was getting delivered was having to travel over a 100 miles, sit in warehouses for a few days and arrive nearly dead by the time he got to put it on the plate. So we do what we always do, get a bottle of wine and both sit at the computer and research research research and then a bit more research. What an interesting and cool little world the micro leaf growing business is. We definietly decided we could get involved with this and found our seed supplier and started down the path of deleloping our own salad mixes and micro leaf garnishes. We are now growing all sorts of awesome things such as micro red cabbage, broccoli,amaranth,celery,pizzo mustard,radish, leek, red chard and peashoots.
EXTREMELY POPULAR 'PEASHOOTS'
A good thing about the world of food is that word spreads fast and we are now currently supplying No.9 church street, The Townhouse, Loxleys, The Kings Arms and as of last week The Fuzzy Duck in Armscote which we are extrememly excited about!!!!!
Whilst all of this has been going on, we both also work full time doing jobs which are paying the bills so we can float this business in and hopefully go full time in the near future. As if we didnt have enough happening there is of course Raspberry Corner, the 3.5 acre site where our farm shop is going to be just outside mickleton. A miraculous transformation of the fields has taken place after hand weeding the ragwort that covered the area, it has now had its final ploughing and is ready for all our wonderfull veg and soft fruits to go in which includes 2000 raspberry canes, 30 gooseberry bushes, rhubarb, asparagus, beetroot,rainbow chard,elephant garlic and a few polytunnels for our expanding micro salad business.
BEFORE AND AFTER AT RASPBERRY CORNER
Back last month, it was also time to harvest our elephant garlic that has been in the ground since last october and we could not be more happy with it. a fairly steep learning curve had to be overcome but a few good early on decisions has made for a bumper crop this year and it is selling extremely well and has been well recieved by the general public and restaurants alike. We still have some left for sale at £3.50 a bulb and can deliver to you if you are in our area.
OUR ELEPHANT GARLIC COMPARED TO A REGULAR SIZED BULB
So as the summer draws to a close it really as been a great year for us and i cannot believe we have just started growing another 1500 winter pansies for the display down the dirty duck again and a new customer to us The Pen and Parchment also in stratford as well as our customers baskets. I must admit im looking forward to it being a bit cooler so we can get on with the heavy work of digging over the walled garden again and planting even more yummy and delicious things to enjoy through the winter!
Hope you have enjoyed catching up with us and if you want any veg or salad just give us a holl, whether you are a restaurant or just want some for you din dins :)
Johnnie and Lydia x
