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!
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
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