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.
In the many debates that erupt every January about food it can be easy to forget that farmers are people and that they eat too. Gala Bailey-Barker, shepherd of the Plaw Hatch Flock, doesn’t eat meat when she’s not cooking at home unless she know where it has come from. In her words “I choose to eat meat and would always rather eat an animal I have known than one I haven’t.”
Read MoreShop Manager, Jenny Thornhill, explains how the staff at Plaw Hatch have risen to the challenge of the coronavirus outbreak.
Read MoreThe beginning of March saw two new oak doors built for the milking parlour. Herdsman, Robin Hall, tells how he sustainably manages the woodland here on Plaw Hatch Farm.
Read MoreShop Manager, Jenny Thornhill, explains the stark differences between small scale, mixed Biodynamic farming and large scale industrial monocultures and gives her opinion on the cultural climate towards eating meat and drinking milk. Does farming how we do hold the answers to many of the problems we face with the environment today?
Read MoreGarden Manager, Nir Halfon, speaks of his presentation at the Oxford Real Farming Conference and discusses the problems with industrial farming and the modern diet.
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What we’re doing for our cows and customers.