A word from Romy…
Dan's farm update
Vegetable and fruit up date from John
A word from Romy…
We managed to finish renovating the old linhays (barns) just before the summer started. We now have a mini-turbine and a solar thermal collector, keeping the showers warm and the fridge cold, all good stuff! (big thank you to Matthew from CAT and Godfrey from the OU)
We’ve had a succession of groups over the summer, undaunted by the rainy weather, they’ve all made themselves at home and managed to keep singing through the rain. I love hearing children shouting around the farm, helping with harvesting for their own meals and cooking Trill meat over the camp fire. This is what the farm is all about.
The Dairy is now ready for our food courses. This will be the second workshop area, the first is already running out of space with the soap making projects. Next year we will be growing as many of the ingredients for our soaps as possible.
Finally the sun has come out, the autumn is beautiful and we have been working on planning the courses for next year. We are looking forward to our second birthday. Halloween!
Dan's farm update
While I wrote the last update I wondered if we were ever going to see the sun again for more than a few hours at a time! Now as I look over Trill it is another blue sky morning. This is the latest in a string of similar mornings that have heralded more stable weather for us in the west. How different from two weeks ago: in that short time we have managed to put our new (old) combine into service and harvested all the crops. The beans were sold to a local organic farmer. The wheat will go to another and the triticale awaits another buyer. All in all our first harvest at Trill was a success! We have also purchased an old mill so that we can try making our own animal (and people!) rations this winter.
Our Devon red calves, born this spring are growing well, and enjoying their mother’s milk and lush grass. We have on loan our neighbours’ Red Devon Bull called “Emperor” and in mid August they were scanned with a successful result of most in calf. We also took the opportunity of taking a sample blood test that has revealed a selenium deficiency on the farm. We can remedy this with supplement that will ensure the right balance of this mineral over the winter. Hopefully this will help with the difficult calvings we experienced with some of the cattle last spring. We have recently purchased four more heifers in calf to grow the herd.
We have kept one piglet from our last litter born at the end of March. She still lives with her mum and is also growing well. They have a new patch up on the old railway. Mother pig is having a holiday as she has produced over 30 piglets in the year we have had her. She is due to meet the boar on a romantic liaison soon!
The Gotland ewes lambed successfully in the spring and, apart from a few losses, the lambs are all growing well and have now been weaned to grow on grass alone. The mothers will go on to short grass to stop their milk and then allowed to get back into condition on better grass before meeting the ram in the late autumn. He will arrive in a couple of weeks and our foundation flock will grow to nearly 30 breeding ewes with the best females lambs being kept on for breeding next year.
In June the haymaking went well with the best crop being made in double quick time: two days! The grass was still so green we thought it wasn’t dry enough but it still looks lovely and dry. After a long period of poor weather we finally cut the last two fields but had to wrap them as we could not get it quite dry enough for hay.
We are now getting the stubble fields clear of straw and ready for autumn cultivations and sowing winter oats and beans that will reduce the workload in the springtime.
The hedges are heavy with fruit this year and we will hold off trimming till later to let the wildlife and the people take advantage of the wild harvest these offer.
One last remaining surviving guinea fowl is feeling lonely. Does anyone have an ageing, lonely guinea fowl that needs a friend?
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Vegetable and fruit up date from John
The period of time between spring and autumn that used to be known as summer has had a brief existence this year. The dry spring may have caused some worry over the development of the growing crops, but with the traditional British summer weather getting into full swing plants recovered in varying success to produce a fairly good harvest.
Our salad bags are becoming renowned in the local area and we have had to sow extra throughout the spring and summer to cope with the demand.
We have been selling our produce from a stall inside River Cottage Canteenevery Thursday for the last couple of months, so please drop in and see us. We have been selling all our seasonal produce such as tomatoes, carrots, cabbage and of course salad mix all of which is freshly picked.
Some of the field is now being sown with green manures that will help protect the soil from the weather to come, and fix nutrients to feed our crops next year; the rest of the fields have enough produce to take us through the autumn months.
There are some new recruits now working away in the veg area: The General and his Ladies (Our three Khaki Campbell ducks) patrol around the crops keeping a watchful eye over any unfortunate slugs that may get in their way!
A big thank you to Dinam for doing a fantastic job of looking after the vegetable area for the last few months and to all the Wwoofers who have been helping.