September at Hartley Farm

Autumn time is now here and for me it has to be the best time of year. Not only because I have lost all faith for the English summer but Autumn brings beautiful colours to the countryside and some great British produce that warms your soul. It also sees the start of the game season once again and also, especially for us, the ticking of the Christmas countdown clock!

Before we go any further I would like to thank everyone who came along to our Family Fun Day on August Bank Holiday Sunday. It was one of the very rare sunny days and the farm was full of smiling faces, a great day was had by all. The highlight for me had to be Jasper the bull finally kicking into action and doing what he does best on our first farm tour. Dad and I had been wondering if he had been doing any "work" and like the true showman he is decided to let us both know he was with a farm tour trailor full of excited families! Thanks Jasper. Thanks also to the Bath Chronicle for coming out and here's a link to the article with a great picture too!

Elsewhere on the farm we are just waiting for our Indian summer so we can cut some more haylage to top up our winter fodder for the animals. More litters of Gloucester Old Spot pigs have arrived too and can be seen frolicking by our allotments. They really are a sight, make sure you say hello next time your passing!

It really has been a very testing summer for many farmers and growers in this country, lets hope it was a one off. Agriculture in Britain has suffered dramatically over the last few years and weather like this certainly doesn't help. As home-grown veggies and fruits start to fill the shelves as well as British meat & dairy lets make sure we buy British to support this very much needed industry. You wont half miss them when they've gone!

---

We were joined by expert chutney and jam makers Victorian Kitchen from Dorset as well as local rapeseed oil producer Bath Harvest in the farm shop in recent weeks on our "meet the producer" days. Tastings went down a storm with both producers serving up some of their wonderful produce. Don't forget to check our events page to see more details of more of our meet the producer days coming up including Heavenly Hedgerows on 15th September and House of the Rising Bun on 6th October.

Also on the 21st October will be this year's Apple Day! It's a day to celebrate the wonderful local apples we have in abundance right in the heart of the apple season. More details on this event will be in our October edition but will include apple pressing, apple bobbing, Cider tasting and talks and most probably some apple based treats from the farm kitchen too!

Specials from the farm shop this month include..

3 jars of Victorian Kitchen Preserves for £9.99
Avonleigh Rose now only £8.49 each!

---

 

As mentioned earlier it is coming into game season, one of the best times of the year to be a butcher (and a cook!). Our game is all sourced locally from Wiltshire and in addition to our locally shot wild venison we will have over the coming weeks some wonderful partridge too. As ever with game season we are in the hands of the local game dealers and will strive to always offer what we can. However due to the nature of wild game we make sure we only take the best quality produce from trusted game dealers and so not everything will always be available. If you need to speak to our butchers about what is best and available at the moment and to place an order please call the farm shop on 01225 864948 or email theshop@hartley-farm.co.uk.

If you were at our Family Fun Day last weekend and enjoyed some of our hog roast you are in luck as the butchers have got some of the same scrumptious pork on offer this weekend! Likewise if you missed out now's your chance to make up for lost time and recreate the hog roast!

10% of our Pork this Weekend!

---

In the next few days we will be launching some new homemade cakes baked fresh from the farm kitchen available to take away from the farm shop. Ollie and his team have been working (and tasting) away on some new cakes ready to launch this weekend. Our range of family cakes and cup cakes will be available alongside our already very popular traybakes so look out for the new cake display in the farm shop!!

A few months ago we mentioned we had a few plans in place in an effort to meet your expectations in our farm cafe as we know at busy times service can be a bit chaotic! We listened to your feedback and by far the most popular suggestion was to have a cafe till in place at the cafe for a number of reasons. Well, we listened and thought about it (a lot!) and decided, as always, you were right and now have a brand new till system about to be installed. We hope to have this in place by the end of September and with it a more smooth service from the cafe. Thankyou to everyone who took the trouble to fill out a suggestion slip and let us know your thoughts, as ever suggestions slips are around the farm shop so if you have an ideas pop it in the box!

We are also playing our part in the World's Biggest Coffee Morning and raising money for the Macmillan Charity. On Friday 28th September we will be doing our part fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support. Details on how you can join in and help (mainly by eating cake i'm afraid) will be posted on our events page soon.

---

August has been a slightly better month than Kate was expecting, and we've actually had a few days of sunshine, wow! That means that the tomatoes and cucumbers are producing well now, along with leafy crops such as rainbow chard (lovely shredded finely in a salad, steamed as a 'green' like spinach, stir-fried or in curries), salad rocket and lettuces. The leeks are looking good in the field too, and there was just enough dry weather to get them weeded in time. The runner beans that survived the slug onslaught are going for it, and will soon be caught up by the purple, yellow and green pencil beans. September will see a real harvest of veg: some squashes and pumpkins are looking promising, and the kale and cabbages and now growing well too. We just need a few more sunny days for the sweetcorn though…

---

Heavenly Hedgerows taster day Saturday 15th September

House of the Rising Bun taster day Saturday 6th October

The Worlds Biggest Coffee Morning 28th September

Apple Day 6th October
-cider tastings and talks, apple pressing & tasting

Sausage Week 5th - 11th November
- New sausages to be tasted, sausage specials in the cafe and a specials Sausage Supper Club!

---

We look forward to seeing you all soon

All the best
Tom

August at Hartley Farm

Well it wouldn't be one of my newsletters if there wasn't some reference/grumble about the weather! It seems our week-long summer came to a premature end in July and we're now back to the grey and drizzle. The only benefit from this weather is its a perfect grass growing climate and we have more grass this year than we need! Due to the plentiful grass we have and great quality silage we have cut this year we have made the decision to increase the size of our Aberdeen Angus herd. The recent award for our grass fed beef in the Taste of the West competition has given us further proof and confidence that our slow-growing, traditional breed, grass fed beef is the best around and so our efforts on the farm are going towards breeding for future generations. In July we welcomed a pedigree Angus stock bull by the name of Jasper to Hartley Farm. Jasper is now happy munching the pastures here at the farm, and doing what he does best, looking after our girls and the future generations of Aberdeen Angus cows for us!


On the subject of new life on the farm we've had another two litters of piglets from our Gloucester Old Spot sows in July with a total of three so far this summer. With all the rain they've had plenty of mud to play around in so at least the British summer has brought some happiness! We will also have one or two new arrivals in Pet's Corner soon. We've been on the look out for a few more interesting animals for all to see and as our newly created enclosures are just about finished they will be filled soon so keep your eyes peeled!



We have seen lots of great new products from local producers in the farm shop this summer. Over the next few months we will be inviting some of these wonderful producers to the farm shop to say hello to all our equally wonderful customers! Below are the dates to put in your diary for our "Meet the Producer Days"

Victorian Kitchen and their Handmade Preserves on Saturday 18th August.
Bath Harvest Rapeseed Oil on Saturday 25th August.
Heavenly Hedgerows with their preserves made from foraging local hedgerows on Saturday 15th September.

As well as meeting our suppliers you will get to taste their products and we will also be running special offers on their products for the day only.



As the weather changes from deepest winter to tropical summer in the space of a day at times our butchers are staying strong and continuing to craft their delicious barbecue range on offer from the counter. All available to pre-order are our handmade burgers and sausages all homemade as well as our ever popular glazed chicken skewers, and marinated chicken. Also new to our range is our ready made Beef Burgundy and Beef Stir Fry in an attempt to offer something for all seasons! Our new ready made meal solutions can be popped straight into the oven in their containers and dinner is taken care of! The ingredients are of course using our own meat from the counter and all vegetables are freshly prepared too picked from our vegetable display!

This months specials from the butchers are as follows;

6 Hartley Farm Beef Burgers for £4.50
10 Marinated Chicken Skewers for £8

Also new this month is our 3 for £10 offer in our self-service fridge. Mix and match any pre packed meat with our 3 for £10 stickers on them to save! The range will include our burgers, sausages, free range chicken and more!



While the terrible growing season has continued, ground under cover has been even more valuable this year, and Kate is very excited as her third polytunnel is finally finished! After waiting for a still, sunny day to put the plastic on, she and her team of helpers finally gave up and did it anyway in the drizzle. Now the cucumbers have a home and look happy, with some more beetroot, carrots, spinach and rocket sown to try and make up a bit for all the lost crops in the field. Meanwhile bunches of spring onions and beetroot have survived and are on sale now, along with the trusty red butterhead lettuces and rainbow chard. Roll on the August heatwave, she is looking forward to moaning about the dry for a change!



Firstly, and by far most importantly our butcher Will got engaged to his now fiancee Lizzie in July! Wedding planning has already commenced and we wish them both all the best for their future together.

In other, slightly less exciting but none the less interesting, news (well we think so anyway) we have recently entered a national award for farm shops and farm retailers. One of the sections we were asked to fill in on the entry form was about our green credentials which got us, thinking about what we have done so far this year. We're please to say our solar energy system is now installed on our barn roof and already harnessing lots of energy from all this sun we've been having! In addition to this we have also managed to recycle the following in the past year;

2.5 tons of cardboard 

1.25 tons of Plastics

10 tons of Glass!!

We're very please with this effort and we are continuing to try to decrease our carbon footprint with a view toward rain water conservation among other projects. We'll keep you posted as these projects gather pace.

Best wishes and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

Tom