January 2007
Tour dates for this summer
Here are the dates as promised for this years tours. June 27th and 28th, July 4th and 5th, these will all be part of the Hampshire food festival that runs for these 2 weeks. We have added 2 extra days to cope with numbers on July 11th and (Now full, 12th.) We can take group bookings and individual bookings. Tel. 01794 390451
Charges are £9 for adults and half price for children. Tours will include organic veg, cows and cheese and sit down supper. Tour guides are advised to organise their own good weather! If it rains you will get wet.

So the Food Standards Agency thinks cheese is a junk food!!!!!!!

December 2006
New edition for the Christmas period.

Little Lyburns, weight about 1.3kg, in green wax, little bit older than the Gold but not as old as the Winchester. Available from the farm shop, farmers markets, and various other outlets.

November 2006

This is a short introduction to Anna, who is now taking over the cheesemaking at Lyburn farm. Anna has spent the last 5 years studying food technoligy at university in Poland. Now that Poland is all part of the EU, the rules and regulations are all exactly the same, and albeit, more and more complicated each year. Making the cheese is the easy bit, filling in the paperwork and getting it right is a complete nightmare.

October 2006

Cows now back out to grass, after a long dry summer the cows have now got more grass than they can shake a stick at. Inevitably the high yielders have had to stay in, but the dry cows are all out there enjoying the sunshine, and munching their way through the crop.

September2006
British Cheese Awards 2006.

An outstanding day for us and the culmination of 7 years hard work.

Old (Aged) Winchester takes a Gold and with it the prize for the Best Modern British Cheese
Lyburn Gold, Gold Medal.
Winchester, Silver Medal.
Lyburn Cumin,Silver Medal.
Garlic and Nettle, Bronze Medal.
Full result

For those of you that made the journey to Cheltenham, only to find we had all gone home, our apologies. We suffered a flash flood in the morning, leaving a lot of the electric cables under water, and Health and Safety dictated that it was unsafe to continue, a decision none of us could disagree with, hopefuly we will see you next year.

Julie Cheyney and Stacy Hedges with their trophies.
Having won the Supreme Championship at the 2006 British Cheese Awards with their fantastic little brie Tunworth.

The dry weather continues with no real sign of a break, the odd shower of rain and dull day, but nothing to make the grass grow. The maize has survived well, and the first time we have ever had a crop mature enough to harvest in August.

July 2006.

Certainly the driest summer for some time, some have compared it with 1976, but have to say nothing like as bad. In that year we had to travel as far as the Blackpool area to buy hay to keep the animals going. As you can see from the picture we ran out of grazing in July, and the cows now on winter rations, that will leave us short of food for the winter. However the vegetables have ther own water supply, and provided thay have enough water will cope although the runner beans dont like the extreme heat.

More prizes for the Lyburn cheeses. The Bath and West Show gave us a first in class with the Cumin, and then at the end of June we had the World Cheese Awards in London. Another Bronze for Winchester this year and a Silver for the Lightly Oak Smoked.

Southampton Farmers Market has now moved to a new venue in and around the Bargate. This looks like being a very busy event, and we will be back again in August.

Lyburn Cheese now available in the US West coast stores of Washington DC, Oregon, and California.

Cropping on the farm has been slow and a start has been made, better late than never, to supply Waitrose with Organic rhubarb, for organic availability go to our organic site.

April 2006.
New Point of sale posters available in A2 and A5. Farm shops and deli's just give a ring and we will put them in the post for you. 01794 390451

The launch of a new website to join up local food producers, and public procurement bodies in the Hampshire area. We have at the moment only a couple of pages but more will follow, watch this space.

Organic vegetable news, crops very slow due to the cold weather, for availability click here

National Trust.
Alongside are the gardens at Mottisfont Abbey, 4 miles to the north of Romsey.
Known for its gardens, and in particular, its Roses, this old Abbey stands alongside the River Test. Lyburn cheese now on the menues of both Mottisfont and The Vyne to the North of Basingstoke.

March 2006.
This month Romania is on the agenda. We have now had our second visit from Ben. Ben, who is Romanian, is involved with Task Force Romania. This is a Surrey based national charity with 300 volunteers who raise funding through sales,donations and sponsorship for task force teams who go out to work on a number of projects in Romania. Their projects are based around the essentials of life, and Ben is charged with the job of setting up a small dairy, to pasteurise milk for bottling and also making small quantities of cheese. This is a real challenge for Ben, who has been getting some hands on experience with us at the farm.

February 2006.

An excellent trip to California, 3 days hard work at the show has yielded results. Large numbers of fascinating people to meet. The British cheese stand was competing with approximately 100 other stands selling cheese from all over the world. To the right one of the cheese counters at Whole Foods in San Francisco. Whole foods have been around for 25 years with about 180 stores including 7 stores in the UK under the name Fresh and Wild. Watch this space.