LONG TIME NO BLOG!

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.
         

                                                      OUR MICRO SALAD OF RED CABBAGE,BROCCOLI,MUSTARD,AMARANTH AND RADISH ON THE MENU AT NO.9

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.

                                   THE JOHN DEERE TRACTOR GETTING INVOLVED!

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

                                             Traditional values vs Modern day living



       Hello all and thank for having a look, i'm not too sure how to start this one so i shall start it here.     
     This is an issue that has been worrying me for quite a long time since i started using the Internet and computers (only 5 years ago) i agree, rather pathetic for a young man of 30, but to be extremely honest i could never be bothered, as i shunned home computer games, I.T lessons at school and the first wave of the Facebook phenomena that seemed to envelope everyone and everything i knew.
   Having a business we must embrace the opportunities that the Internet offers and we would be fools not be on Facebook and Twitter as we gain a lot of business through these sites and meet so many amazing and interesting people. Twitter has proved instrumental in establishing ourselves in our community as a business, but i hate the idea of everything i write, think and talk about being observed by the ever growing 'Big Brother' that seems to be creeping into to everything and nothing that i do.
   I have probably the oldest phone you can get and am always laughed at by the 'in set' staff in the vodafone shop as they cannot understand why i don't want an Iphone or any other life changing device.    
 The truth is that i don't want everyone knowing where i have been, who I'm with, how far i walked, and what i have read, and was told that i was far too old fashioned and get withthe goings on of the modern day, and get on board like everybody else.
 Lydia currently works as a waitress part time at our local pub and constantly comes home amazed that the couple that she served, sat down to dinner, both got their phones out immediately, did not look at her whilst ordering, did not look at each other or talk to each other whilst eating their food, updated their Facebook status as to where they were, a picture of what they have eaten, what they thought about it and rated it on Tripadvisor and then gone home, all without a word to anyone. How much disrespect for someone let alone your partner must you have if your 'internet' world is more interesting to you than your real life? When i was a kid i was informed reading a paper or wearing a hat at the dinner table was considered bad manners, what a world away we are now in
  Just recently we have started talking about having children and i wonder what the world holds for them, but i think with them growing up with this sort of technology it will not be the 'fad' that it is now to so many people and it will be just a general way of living and a general balance will find itself.   
    Please don't get me wrong, i love technology and am constantly amazed by what is invented to make life a more enhanced experience, its just that if the government decided that we had to put all our details of our life onto a database and everything we discussed and did, there would be a national uproar about our civil liberties being breached etc but here we are doing it for free and people are making a profit from it.
 My only point i suppose, and i realise i am being ironic by writing it on my Blog and it being on the Internet (please note i am not ignoring Lydia whilst writing this) is that real life is out there, so many rich experiences await you to be lived through your own two eyes and waiting for a little red notification to say yes, well done, someone has agreed with you and 'liked' what you are saying/thinking means nothing if the person you are sat opposite is feeling neglected, and things may get very dangerous if common sense and balance does not restore the equilibrium of everyday real life living. *End Rant* 

On a brighter side of things we have just got all our flower orders for this summer and a much brighter happier blog is on its way with nice piccies of our new home for the SP and all the hard work we have been putting in is finally starting to pay off! :) sorry to be an old sod but i just had to get that off my chest, hope it was not too heavy for a read x