A farmer’s daybook is where they note everything going on with their herd; milk yields, health, behaviours, emotional states. Our online daybook is where you can keep up to date with the latest goings-on on the farm.
Maya, Miriam and Louisa kicked the year off by attending the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
The farm and garden team have just planted almost a thousand plants on the farm to create a new hedge.
It has long been a policy of Biodynamic husbandry to keep cattle with horns. As well as the aesthetic value, the horns have an important function in the life of the cow.
Your choice to shop directly with your local farms is more important than you may realise.
Approaching the halfway mark in my 2-year placement here at Old Plaw Hatch Farm, the coming of the shorter days has allowed me to reflect on what has been one hell of a ride this past year.
Growing vegetables in a political climate that has very little understanding of how food actually gets from the producer to anyone’s kitchen table (let alone the unpredictability of that same climate) means we are very grateful to the crops that have been successes, and we move on quickly from those that were or are, to put it bluntly, failures. Let me briefly talk you through our growing year so far…
Recently we’ve seen a real surge in new customers and have also noticed that existing customers are coming much more frequently and seem to be doing the majority of their food shopping with us. These changes are rarely down to one thing, and I believe at the moment there are several reasons.
Firstly, because we would really love you to. Of course, at an AGM there is the dry procedural stuff, it’s a legal requirement, but there is so much more. It’s an opportunity to hear directly from the people who grow your food.
The summer is flying by and we have already started to get the first harvests off the fields like onions, potatoes and squash. The Spring was very late this year, however, Summer is not over yet.
The milking parlour is like a bridge between the farm and the dairy. Connecting the pasture and the daily life of the herd to the bottling of milk, cheese and yoghurt making; the parlour is that transition point of receiving this gift from the land and from the cows.
Read MoreFor every bottle of cows’ milk there is a story of a cow and a calf.
Read MoreThis February, all the members of the Plaw Hatch management group took part in a 3-day Holistic Management Course. Holistic Management, like biodynamics, is about working with the whole farm organism and with, rather than against, ecosystem processes.
Read MoreBiodynamic flower bunches from the Plaw Hatch garden will now be a weekly feature in the shop on Thursdays during summer.
Read MoreMuch like the strength of one’s coffee, choice of cheddar maturity is entirely personal. We’ll now be cutting our mild cheddar much younger to provide a greater range to our customers.
Read MoreAs summer arrives, summer blooms are springing up from cleared areas in the woodland regeneration site.
Read MoreAt the beginning of June, Rebecca and Gala welcomed local farmers and smallholders to Plaw Hatch to discuss ‘enterprise stacking’.
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What we’re doing for our cows and customers.