January 2010

Finally we get a sensible winter, delivering to the North of Hampshire became a bit of a challenge, but nothing we could not cope with. The local authorities took a lot of stick but in general they coped pretty well. There have been some misguided comments about the weather being as bad as 1963, for those of us that remember '63, this year was a piece of cake, '63 was wall to wall snow from Boxing day to April, and we have been lucky not to have had the wind, that would have constantly caused drifting. Inevitably sales have taken a hit but likely to bounce back once the weather settles. Large number of new customers in the pipe line including the export of Grey Pumpkin, Crown Prince, to several countries.

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December 2009

The year ends with huge sales in December and we see a growth of about 20% for 2009. As we started 2009, the world was full of doom and gloom, and we could not possibly have anticipated this level of sales, the net result being that we have run a bit tight on some products. We have had to stop butter production to make way for more cheese. The value of the pound has clearly helped exports of cheese and vegetables. This is the first time we have ever exported courgette into France. The Lyburn Smoked is also lined up for export as well and Old Winchester continues to cover new territory.

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November 2009

Hampshire Farmers Markets have now been going about 10 years and contiue to flurish, depite what have been in the last year, more diffcult trading conditions. In an effort to champion some of the stars of the Farmers Market show we have run out first Awards ceremony, kindly hoasted by Lainston House, Sparsholt. ON the right, we have Ian Axton fron Andover Sound FM who kindly did the Jonathen Ross bit, but with gettting to quite so much trouble, with the winners being:

• Best Product was won by Blackmoor Game, producers of venison, pheasant, duck and all types of game.
  • Nominees: Beechcroft Lamb & Beef; Mapleleaf Watercress; Blackmoor Game

• Best Food To Go at the Farmers’ Markets was Bowtell’s Farm Shop.
  • Nominees: Greenfield Pork – Hog Roast; Pott’s Pantry; Bowtell’s Farm Shop

• Best Dressed Stall was won by Pott’s Pantry.
  • Nominees: Cresson Creative; Pott’s Pantry; The Tomato Stall

• The Best Personality category was won by two people, Pete Sole of Blackmoor Game and Sean Brown of Mapleleaf Watercress.
  • Nominees: Sean Brown, Mapleleaf Watercress; Toby Bowtell, Bowtell’s Farm Shop; Peter Sole, Blackmoor Game; Jennifer Laing, Cresson Creative.

Useful crop of pumpkin on the way.

British Cheese awards

Link for the results

Another good set of results for us at the British Cheese Award. A total of 2 Silver and 5 Bronze. This years celebration of British Cheese was a huge success. With the weather on our side, the population of Cardiff turned out in force to drink all the beer and eat and buy all the cheese.

We will be at the Royal Victoria Park for the pumpkin festival in aid of the Jubilee Sailing Trust.

World Cheese Awards results now in. Held in the Canary Isles this year, 2 placings for us in Class 60a, a Silver for Stoney Cross, giving it 4 awards this year and a Bronze for Winchester. A good result for us against huge competition from all over the world, and a total entry of 2240 cheeses.

Copyright Cloudhawk Tim Smales.

August 2009

Food Standards Agency carping on about Organic food, not what it is cracked up to be, we then have the environment agency just about to plunge us into a NVZ (Nitrate Vulnerable Zone), and screamed blue murder that we need to use less chemical and fertilizer, on non organic land. Both of them Government Quangos, both heading in different directions, no joined up thinking, nothing changes, could write a book on this one, but dont have the time.

SORRY, just been told I missed the point, they are, both working together, they are both trying to put British Farming out of business, silly me. There is absolutely no justification for us to be put in a NVZ, I have appealed, and another day of my life goes up in bureaucratic smoke.

Great crop of Runners to the right, no chemicals, no fertilizer, no blackfly, but if you work for the Food Standards Agency,

'You Knock it'.

July 2009

Interestingly, it was Old Winchester winning the prizes last year, and has done another Gold Star at the Great Taste Awards, this year Stoney Cross seems to have caught the imagination. With a silver at the Great Yorkshire and Paul then takes a Gold at Nantwich with the same cheese. We are not really making enough at the moment, need to get on and make more and stop fiddling with it.

We have had some huge Farmers Markets recently in Winchester and Romsey, all being part of the Hampshire Food Festival, anyone who has not been to a Hampshire Farmers Market yet has not lived.

Beautiful crops of Organic veg at the moment, and despite all the grizzling about the absence of a bar b que summer, this is great growing weather, producing some surplus, and there is only one thing worse than too much veg and that is too little.

June 2009
The end of another year and the Apprentice. You either love it or loath it, and we love it. There are always lessons to be learnt and we look for tenuous links with cheese. This year the link is a little closer to home as we have been supplying Yasminas restaurant with cheese for the last year or so. Well done Yasmina.

Broad beans in on time, lovely crop ahead of us, courgett looking slow though.

High powered delegation over from China and we are standing in what will be a useful crop of Organic Broad Beans. Yes that is the rain gun in the background, the crop consuming a great deal of water at this stage of their life, so an inch of water going on, date 5th May and young beans about one inch long. My visitors are farmers from the area of the Gobi desert and more familiar with water melons than broad beans.

As you can see a fantastic crop of rhubarb, new crowns planted 2 years ago have given us a terrific crop, eagerly consumed by Abel and Cole and Riverford for their boxes locally pulled the last of the crop 8th May but will be back for a second pull in August.

All the maize that was planted is now up and looking very good.

The six evening tours that you will find on the tours button are all fully booked so we have laid on one more evening Wednesday 5th August.

Mid April and perfect conditions for drilling Maize. Today's modern tractors come with computers that tell you everything and enough candle power to melt the paint work. Thirty acres, of about 80 acres being drilled in this field deep in the middle of the woods.
Cheese sales very strong, as is the case for the rest of the Hampshire cheesemakers. Apologies to those that have short orders, back on track soon. Cheese wedding cakes for those that would like them just follow the link

March 2009
Four Days at the International Food Expo, turned out to be a huge success. Having joined forces with Bookham and Harrison, and High Weald, under the name of '3 Cheesemakers From the South East', we attracted a huge audience of new and existing customers. The message is quite clear, there is a strong market for good quality Regional cheese, not to mention export. It is however sad to report, that the logistics of getting in and out of that place were a complete nightmare, and if the shower who run Excel had a herd of cows they would milk them once a week! I just hope President Obama and Gordon Brown had better luck.

February 2009

A large part of our business is organic vegetables, and the question being put to me is,'How is it going', assuming that the organic vegetable trade is in a state of collapse. This is clearly not the case at the moment. For those with well organised box schemes, sales are only marginally down, whether this is the case in a years time remains to be seen. Organic veg boxes remain to be good value and unaffected by last years, input costs such as chemicals and fertilizers. To the left Broad Bean seedlings well on their way, despite the cold spell and the inane blabbering of Politicians and Bankers all squabbling over who split the milk and the Fat Cats waiting to lap it up!! Cheese sales can only be described as remarquable and some really good cheese in the pipeline. We will be at IFE on stand N1943/J

January 2009

And so it is a Happy New Year to you all, or that is what we would like to think. These are clearly troubled times, and with out wishing to be a doomster, 'We haven't seen anything yet' The grief keeps on coming, the Government keeps on wheeling out the sticking plaster, in all sorts of colours including blue, but the crisis just deepens and we have now all become so shell shocked, a lot of it just goes over our heads. The answer, according to our great leader, is for the banks to lend even more money, to people who probably cant afford to pay it back. The complete collapse in the pound does make our cheese more competitive in the world market, and as you can see we have had a presence at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.

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.

December 2007

Hampshire County Council and Hampshire Fare launch a DVD that tells the field to plate story of today's school dinner, presented by Chris Packham. Since the Jamie Oliver series about school dinners, the lunch time meal has been in decline, so a number of stakeholders have come together to produce a DVD that tells the story of school dinners, their nutritional benefits and the fact that as much produce as possible is sourced and produced locally.
90000 DVD'S have been produced and will be distributed to all primary school children in Hampshire, for more information ring 01962 845999

Thats a nice field of cabbages

November 2007

Run out of room yet again. The bigger volumes of Old Winchester that are in the pipe line, all need storage, so we are in the middle of installing another two maturing rooms that will hopefully keep us out of trouble for a year or two. The first one should be up and running by mid December. Old Winchester still remains very tight, however by the middle of 2008 there will be more available.

Cows all milking well, hopefully with Foot and Mouth behind us, the threats are still TB, the Governments lethargy has been outrageous,TB will be endemic in 10 years time, and the then we have the unknown of Blue Tongue.

October 2007

Pumpkin campaign has gone well, all the large cleared, with some small left but still have a tinge of green to them, probably sold in the region of 150,000. The two new customers on the right are from Monkey World down near Bere Regis in Dorset. They are Woolly Monkeys, and thoroughly enjoy their seasonal treat. No waste or sell by date here, they eat the lot

British Cheese Awards 2007

Another good solid result at the British Cheese Awards, a Bronze for Winchester, and a Bronze for Old Winchester in the home market and Gold for the Export class. Lots of interesting news in the pipeline. Lyburn share space with Two Hoots and their Barkham Blue, and Hampshire Cheeses and their Tunworth.

Judy does the BBC 1o'clock news and NEWS 24 and tells the world about Regional Cheeses.

A visit from the EC2B, students of Eastleigh college to lean a bit more about pumpkin and cheese.

Reasonable quantities of pumpkin available, the lager ones are fully orange, the medium and orange but the smaller ones are still 50% green. They will come right with a bit more sun. No wasting expensive power and light on this farm to change the colour, if you dont like the colour, 'tough'.

September 2007.
We have for the time being, shut the farm shop again due to Foot and Mouth. We now have no idea where it will turn up next, so will play safe.

The good news is that the British Cheese Awards are on at the end of the month. We will be exhibiting there along with Two Hoots and Hampshire Cheeses.

August 2007.

There is no end to the grief at the moment, Foot and Mouth is back. News that the bug may have escaped from Pirbright is mind numbing. We have missed Petersfield and Basingstoke farmers markets this Sunday and we are not going to open the shop this week, August 6th until August 12th, this may seem like overkill but sooner be safe than sorry. Try visiting the Royal Oak at Fritham instead, where you get great beer and a great lunch. The shop will be open again from 14th August unless there are any setbacks.

Light at the end of the tunnel for milk prices, as Britain runs out of milk. The big 4 supermarkets, have now put so many dairy farmers out of business, that the milk has run out, helped by the weather and some very strong world markets and of course the WI. Prices are going to rise very sharply in the next few months.

July 2007.
Job to know where to start this month. Strong sales growth with the cheese has been dented by the theft of a large amount of cheese, including a substantial amount of Old Winchester.

The drilling of our first crops of Terraseed, picture right, more pictures. The seed is inpregnated in a mat of paper and polythene, and instead of sowing the seed conventionaly we lay the mat and water it. This ground breaking, (if you will excuse the pun) project is being developed in Hampshire.

Nantwhich Cheese Show.
Old Winchester takes another prize, this time a Silver. What with having some stolen and the growing recognition of this cheese, supply is still tight.

June 2007.
Had a very good run in the last 6 months, lots of new customers for the cheese, and makeing an extra day a week. Having thought that it would never rain again in April, June is the wettest ever, don't complain, rain in June and July is always a bonus on a sandy soil farm. Veg all looking good picked the first runner beans to day 28/6, never picked beans in June before.

Great trip with the Specialist Cheesemakers to Cork in Ireland. David and Jo Clarke win the Patrick Rance trophy for an unpasteurised cheese with their Red Leicester cheese Sparkenhoe.

May 2007.
Tuesday 29th. May, Bath and West Show week, yes and its raining surprise, surprise. Then even more surprises, Lyburn's Old (Aged)Winchester is named Reserve Champion. This event is particularly challenging as it is in the heart of Cheddar country. Our agenda is not to challenge the Cheddar but to add another dimension to the market place. This is not everybody's cheese, but for those that enjoy Old Winchester, it is clearly a star. We still need another year to knock the rough edges of this cheese and to build up commercial volumes. Thank you all, for your kind comments, more than anything else this is good news for our cows, who , without the cheese would be facing a very uncertain future.

We still have the Food Standards Agency prattling on about cheese being junk food, so it's nice to hear Sir Alan Sugar come to the defence of the quality end of the cheese market and telling his apprentices to sell QUALITY. This program is the only TV we will make a point of watching each week, as there is always something to learn. This week we learnt not to cook your breakfast on an old baked bean can, and don't try and sell crap to the French, because they still have their food culture. Selling just 15kg. of cheese is nothing like good enough. Sorry Paul, but you were fired, quite rightly for a number of failings.

April 2007.

The very dry weather, will soon start to affect milk production, irrigating, grass seeds and Broad beans.

Meanwhile, Lyburn Gold goes Japanese. Follow the link for more detail of how our cheese takes on the rest of the world.

Thomas Lord, West Meon, celibrates its first year in business. All done with localy produced food, and now a reputation second to none.

March 2007

Good news and bad news, the good news is that our cheese Winchester won another Bronze at the World Cheese awards this month.

Bad news our 4500ltr milk tanker was stolen. As you can see, can be clearly identified, painted in John Deere green and yellow, stands about 8/9 feet tall. Any one who might have any information please call 01794 390451

February 2007

Not a very happy story, bird flu hits East Anglia. As we watch the story unfold, the overriding message, and this is not Bernard Mathews in particular, there is still a major issue regarding labelling. It is in my opinion quite outrageous that foreign raw materials, can be imported into this country, re-processed, and then, can be passed of as British.

This has to change. We want to know exactly where our food comes from. Those that are not prepared to tell us should be shamed into doing so. Are you listening supermarkets.

No problem with the label to the right.

World tour.

This is a picture of Geobear from Paradise Valley, near Phoenix in Arizona. Geobear is on a quick world tour and came to Winchester Farmers Market last Sunday, that is Winchester in the UK , not California!! Geobear who clearly is an expert in cheese, declared Lyburn Cheese to be the best in the market, and will be looking out for the cheese in the US when he gets home.

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.