December 2008

Happy Chrimas to all of our customers. Sorry we ran out of truckles , will try harder next year.

Christmas Opening Times.

The shop at the farm will be open, Monday and Tuesday 9am - 4-30pm,
Wednesday 24th, 9am - 1pm.

October 2008

What a star, Susie Carter wins 'Britain's Best Dish' competition. You might well say what has that got to do with us, well all the ingredients of the fabulous Smoked Trout and Watercress Tart', come from Hampshire, and the butter for the pastry came from Lyburn Farm. None of this slippery old Olive Oil for Susie, cant beat a pint of Pratt's Hampshire Rape seed oil

Pumpkin season is nearly over for another year. Not been a particularly easy year, with smaller than usual pumpkin, and prone to rotting.

British Cheese Awards move to Cardiff, and another great result for the South East. Sandy and Andy Rose, carry off the Championship with their Barkham Blue. Helped by glorious weather, and a superb backdrop, there was a good turnout and cheeses entered from over 180 cheesemakers across Britain.

The World Cheese Awards followed a few days later, and Old Winchester takes anther Gold, and our new cheese Stoneycross emerges from the shadows, with a Bronze at Cardiff and a Silver in Ireland. Stoneycross is not yet in full production, but there will be a few 1.2kg truckles for Christmas.

For those of you now wanting to purchase the Lyburn Gold, you can now find it in a number of Sainsbury's Stores, on the deli counter in the South East area.

September 2008
For some years Waitrose have run a small producers competition. This year they have teamed up with Country Living and have run the Made in Britain Awards. We entered Old Winchester, and have made it all the way to the final, and the presentations were at the Burghley Horse Trails, Stanford, Lincolnshire. It had to be one of the wettest days of the year, and there turned out to be 3 of us in the Dairy sector and we have been piped to the post by Jo Schneider and Randolph Hodgeson and there excellent unpasteurised Stichelton. Events like this are important to all the smaller producers, we don't have the huge promotional budgets that the bigger companies have and the continued support of both Waitrose and Country Living are most welcome. Full results

August 2008

Milk wars have just broken out with Tesco announcing that they are to sell 2 litres of milk for £1.06 or approximately 25 pence per pint and they are going to run it for a year, we can only assume they are to run this promotion from their own pocket and not ours, the consumer needs to realise that there is not a cats chance in hell of the dairy industry being able to sustain this sort of lunacy. If there is the slightest hint, of the farming community picking up the bill there is trouble ahead. The losers will be the corner shops who dont have a £3 billion war chest to fall back on. Is this the begging of the end for manydairy farms?

Plenty of good news for Old Winchester. We had entered an Old Winchester into the Nantwich Show in the novice class under Anna's name as at the time of making this entry she had only been making cheese 6 months and the result was a Silver, this has now been followed up by a Gold 3 star award at the Great Taste Awards.

Broad Beans all finished, courgette settled into daily cutting after a very difficult start to the season and lots of good quality runner beans, pumpkins still well behind.

Big relief that the weather had improved for the New Forest Show after last years disasters. The local food area well supported and looked a treat.

June 2008
The veg, having got off to a good start have been subject to water logging in the first week of June. We have lived here nearly 40 years and we can get some flooding in winter but this is the first time ever in the summer. Lost a large block of organic courgette, mainly due to slugs, and an area of French beans, . Broad beans survived and harvest now in full swing, pumpkin all finally drilled but very late.
Great two days with Specialist Cheesemakers visiting Lincolnshire Poacher and Stichelton, both cheeses made on farm with the milk from the dairy herd.

There has to be grave concerns about fuel prices, western economies will not cope with these sorts of price increases, prepare for a really rough ride.

Another 3 tonnes of organic broad bean safely unloaded.

On a much more serious topic it is now mid May and have just vaccinated the cows with Blue Tongue vaccine, they will need another dose in 3 weeks time. This disease has the ability to cause chaos. Unlike Foot and Mouth and TB where the government been so sloppy, Blue Tongue is another problem altogether. In this instance the Government has got on and ordered the vaccine, it is affordable, and hopefully there is enough. The problem in our area will be the deer. On our farm there are more deer than cattle and as a result the Governments objective to get 80% of all susceptible animals vaccinated to establish a threshold will miss by a mile.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/bluetongue/index.htm

Organic veg have had a good couple of weeks courgette and runners looking very strong, broad beans not far away.

The Lady In Black
V
The Lady In White

Lyburn cheese, Two Hoots and Wickham Vineyard find themselves at the top of Spinnaker Tower for St Georges day 23rd April.

On the same day Newlyns farm shop, North Warnbrough, just off junction 5 of the M3 have an open and tasting day to celebrate the opening of their new cookery school.

Cows out to grass at long last, but only by day, there is less grass now than in the middle of winter

March 2008

Mid March and the Sunday Telegraph Stella magazine has written a report on some of the Very Best available strong cheeses being sold in the UK at the moment. Old Winchester was chosen as one of six, and to quote,

'Old Winchester. This delicious multi-award winning cheese, is strong and characterful, with a touch of creaminess in its texture and a slightly musky, sweet taste. It is aged to about 18 months.'

Old Winchester continues to impress.

Another year and a new face. Sadly Anna has left us and returned to her homeland of Poland, and naturally we wish her all the best in her new job, Anna , still cant get your e mail to work at the moment.

To fill the position here, making the cheese at Lyburn Farm, is Paul Thomas, who has been working with Ian Mellis in Scotland. Paul brings new skills to the Lyburn party, as cow and man, seek perfection.

January 2008

Here is a picture of Dawn Hacket, the champion of Farmhouse Cheesemakers. Dawn has now been selling Farmhouse Cheese, by mail order and form her old camper van in London for some time. But not one to let the grass grow under her feet she has now moved to Whitstable in Kent and now as you see, has a new van, well new to her, and sells her cheeses on pitches around Kent. She sells our Old Winchester and you can find out more by going to her website www.cheesebox.co.uk

        During the last six months Anna and I have been working up to SALSA accreditation. This is a junior BRC if you like, it has been accepted that full BRC is complete over kill for most small producers. This accreditation is still no pushover it has taken a huge amount of time and paper work and cost about £450 a year, but has already saved us filling in 2 substantial questionnaires.