September 2010.

Lots going on this month, you will find us at the Sturminster Newton Cheese festival 11th/12th September, the START event in London on the 13th/14th September, then at the British Cheese Awards in Cardiff, 24th/25th/26th September.

Tim has taken the huge commitment to do the Ironman Triathlon this summer in Bolton. This encompasses a swim, 110 mile cycle ride and to finish a full marathon of about 26 miles. There were about 1100 contestants that finished and Tim was placed an amazing 257th. and 58th. in his class.

Some super crops of veg now coming off, the cooler weather has really suited the runner beans and the dwarf beans, pumpkin looking good with some very large fruit , and the sweet corn looks better than ever, saved mainly by the irrigation reservoir.

Over a period of time it has always been Old Winchester that has picked up the prizes, but this year it is the turn of Stoney Cross to steal the lime light. At the great taste awards Stoney Cross takes a 3 star Gold which is about as good at as it gets, to be closely followed by a second in the Great Yorkshire Show behind a Wensleydale, in the speciality class.

Vegetables all now back on track although needing a lot of irrigation, due to the very dry weather, nice crops of courgette and runners. Water comes from the Blackwater that passes near by, using a summer abstraction licence. This hose real can cover about 7 acres a day. Organic Sweetcorn being watered here, on what promises, despite the dry weather, to be a huge crop. We are constantly asked why we chose the Oak Tree as our logo, and the answer is in the background of this picture, as we have these single Oak trees every where.

June 2010

The Hampshire food festival has now become a huge event for the month of July, and as the program has evolved over the years, there has to be an event for just about everyone. Our 6 evening tours, now becoming close to sold out, but lots of other events to choose from. All of us in the food industry are involved, from the farmer that sows the seed and milks the cows, for the milk that makes the cheese, to the pubs, hotels, restaurants, farm shops and delis that cook, serve an sell the fruits of the Hampshire country side.

One very exiting and entertaining event will be a Ready Steady Cook, between Limewood and the Chewton Glen

The crops, although late are now looking much happier and we seem to be back in control, sweetcorn and pumpkin all in and looking good, could do with a bit more rain though on 8th June that is.

V

Limewood V Chewton Glen

May 2010

We visited Arbutus the other evening, just off Soho Square. That was just so good, it is not often you can walk away from a restaurant and score ten out of ten, but this was the case here. Those of you who have been watching The Great British Menu on BBC 2, will have seen Anthony Demetre give the competition a pretty hard time, and should have got through. Anthony's local ingredients had to come from the Mottisfont Abbey area and the county of Hampshire. His cheese cake, was by all accounts fantastic, probably helped along with a little bit of local crème fraiche. We will certainly be back to Arbutus.

The new P&O ship Azura will be due into Southampton on the 7 April and made ready for her maiden voyage. She will be based in Southampton for the Summer season, sailing off to all sorts of exotic locations, and then spend the winter in the Caribbean. For us and other local suppliers the first opportunity to supply local produce and our contribution will be  Winchester and Stoney Cross, not to mention the ships milk.

March 20th and finally some heat and warm rain, the grass has been scorched bare by the cold and the frost, absolutely no grass at all, some time before there is any thing for the cows to eat. The first 2 acres of Broad Beans have been reduced to nothing , having looked so well at Christmas time. After the miserable January, sales have now bounced back strongly, Old Winchester stocks now coming under pressure, and Stoney Cross gaining ground all the time. Roll on April.

With a general election looming Hilary Benn gets up at the Oxford Farming conference to tell everyone, what a great bunch farmers are and how his 'Food 2030' is going to change food supply in Britain in the next 2o years. His 3 point strategy is.
First, we need to produce more food.
Second, we need to do it sustainably.
Third we need to make sure that the food we eat safeguards our health.

All 3, very laudable, only one catch, they come at a cost and as the big supermarkets supply 80% of the food in this country, it is unlikely they will pay up. Sadly nothing much is likely to happen until someone puts some money on the table, it certainly wont be the Government, they are not going to have any money. Track record of the big 4 supermarkets is not that good at coming up with the money, as we all stumble along with 25p per litre for our milk. There is now some effort being made by Government to deal with supermarket power, probably too little too late, it is interesting to watch Tesco throw its toys out of the pram, so may be the tide will turn. But then pigs might also fly.

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.