For February we have 2 Hungary Sailors, in the form of Dick Strawbridge and his son James and to follow their adventures there is a link here . They came to the farm to make cheese with Paul and we harvested some broad beans and courgette at the same time last summer and the net result is here. This was not Cordon Bleu, but Cordon Boat, great fun and enjoyed by all, OK so the pizza was a little bit burnt, but who cares its the thought that counts. The series has been very well received, I am amazed at the number of people that saw it, I thought no one watched TV at that time of the day.

January 2012

Sorry but have been away, and have got a bit behind, and away was New Zealand. It was 40 years ago I last hiked around NZ, it was the year Christchurch hosted the Commonwealth Games. Two of us hitchhiked around both the North and South Island, 71 lifts in total over a period of 4 weeks. This time needless to say it was a hire car, drove about 6000k, met so many fantastic people, their farms, their sheep, their cows, pumpkin, bulls, horses, Red deer crossed with Elk, their tractors old and new and of course their cheese. If we saw one cow we must have seen a million. To the right we have Albert Alferink, of Mercer Cheese, just south of Auckland. Everything you see is made by him, all fundamentally Gouda style cheese made in 10kg wheels, different ages from 3 months to 3 years. He sells all his cheese for this little shop on the side of the highway and has a constant stream of customers.

December 2011

As part of the Hairy biker’s series Great British food, they took a look at what was on offer and few new angles. One of them is Street Kitchen, the brain child of Mark Jankel and Jun Tanaka of Pearl Restaurant in London. The idea was to take 'The take away, up a gear' and that just what they have done, at lunch time for lunchers in the City. It has been a great success, and with in that agenda, they have chosen to use only British produce, and that is where we come. They needed a hard grating cheese, to oust Parmesan, and Old Winchester ticked the box. It is still a bit young and we are still over sold, but we will have it back to 16 months plus by March, I promise, I know I have been saying that for about 1 year, but we are getting closer.

November 2011

Stoney Cross does well at the World Cheese Awards with a Gold and Bronze in two different classes. Star of the show yet again Barkham Blue from Two Hoots, taking a Super Gold, Tunworth with a Silver and Isle Of White with a Bronze

November sees exiting news and the introduction, of two new washed rind cheeses, Little Colonel and Francis, Francis taking a Silver at the World Cheese Awards. Made at Lyburn Farm by Paul with Lyburn milk, and washed and matured by James McCall, previously with Cranbourne Chase cheese. They are not commercially available for a few weeks, but watch this space.

This is something of a joint venture, James will be handling the sales, and contact details can be found on his website, dont call us, call him. http://jamesscheese.co.uk/

October 2011

Good months sales on cheese, up about 5% on last year, don’t really know why, you don’t notice until you have an add up at the end of the month. In several months time we will have more Old Winchester coming through, at long last, then should see sales push on a bit.

The pumpkin job was on a knifedge for a few days, a number of smaller regular orders had been delivered, but no real action until 19th, all too late and chaotic, however we managed, as you can see from the picture a number of big pumpkin over 5 kg still with us with only a few days to go, and then suddenly things went a bit short and they were all gone, not a pumpkin left.

September 2011

Early morning, approaching the brow of Short Hill Nomansland, just caught the sun coming through the trees, with just a bit of early morning mist. Veg nearly all done and finished, just the pumpkin left to clean and harvest along with the squash. Not been an easy year for either. We were worried that we were not going to get a number of the Halloween pumpkin to colour up orange but the fantastic weather we have had along with no frost made all the difference.

. British Cheese awards in Cardiff again this year, Gold for the Lyburn Gold and Silver for Stoney Cross will do nicely, but the stars of the Show yet again, Sandy and Andy Rose of Two Hoots with their Barkham Blue, runs off with the best British Blue prize again.

August 2011

The weather up until the second week of June, had looked as if there were to be a complete disaster for the arable sector. Then it started raining and didn’t know when to stop. Yields were a mixed bag, Oil Seed Rape was in a number of cases pretty spectacular, and at the other end Spring Barley fairly grim not helped by the weather giving us a stop start harvest, and for a us a poor straw sample, black and dusty.

Having said that, the maize for silage is looking well, and the cows up to their knees in grass, not always the case on our sandy soils in the New Forest.

July 2011

We normally enter the various cheese competitions each year and this year is no exeption. Entering the Great Taste Awards with Stoney Cross and Old Winchester, this year we achieved 2 star Gold with both. We consistently seen to be in the frame here, it is a fairly long drawn out affair and has to jump a number of hurdles to get into the last few but, but give that it involves a huge number of judges all of whom have to give the product the thumbs up, it is worth waiting for.

Stoney Cross and Old Winchester continue to impress

June 2011

A visit from cousin Ian Smales and his wife Angie form Australia. Ian has to go to Norway next week to give a paper on the impact of wind turbines on local bird life, and it is relevant to what ever part of the world you live in. Which brings me to what are we doing about green energy, and the answer is, not a lot at the moment.

There is a lot of talk, and governments keep moving the goal posts. Pay back periods of x,y and z, people franticly covering their roofs with great slabs of unsightly PV glass, that all has to be cleaned fairly frequently, presumably with a helicopter. We live in a valley, so there is no wind, the river runs dry in the summer, so no Hydro system, and AD looks like huge investment.

Cheese made on the farm uses only 10% of the fuel an resources to move it around the country, we use hot milk from the morning milking, so we don’t use the energy to cool it and don’t need to use energy to heat it up to pasteurise it, that the way to do it!

May 2011

The dry spring has meant that the silage crop is looking light, probably only tow thirds of what we would normally expect. This is going to leave us short of food for the winter period.

That is the down side, the up side is that the quality is super, harvested in dry conditions, slightly earlier than normal, this will give some real quality to the silage. The other good news is that the maize drilled in mid April, has gone off at a real gallop, going to need rain later, but looks good at the moment.

April 2011

Broad beans look fantastic, the best I have ever seen them. They have come through the winter well, the picture shows about 4 drillings and ground in the distance being prepared for the final April sowing, there will be about 10 acres in all.

Cows all out to grass now, bit concerned about no rain, we will need a good soak fairly soon otherwise we are going to be short of grass come May time.

Fallow dear are a complete nightmare, just hundreds of them, not enough being shot on the Forest as they are 'Nice to look at', just having to fence them out as best we can but not easy. Fortunately they don’t like broad beans, but runners is another story

March 2011

Weather warming up a bit now , dry enough to get on with some grass seeding, any when from the middle of March and no later that the middle of April. Picture to the right shows a new set of cambridge rolls, you can cover big chunks of ground at speed and really get on with the job

January 2011

Weather warmed up a bit now, broad beans have made no progress in November and December, cant blame them, but now coming through, and look OK, they don’t need to be any more than just showing, if they get too proud, and a lot of frost or even snow, they are in trouble.

Not making enough cheese so we have made the cheese vat bigger, now takes about 2200 lts, another 20%, this now fills up the presses, so that is the next limitation!

December 2010.

And so quickly another year draws to a close, no sooner did it start , and here we are at the end of 2010. Another fantastic year for Lyburn Cheese, not to mention the Organic vegetable department. Cheese sales have grown, yet again, by some 22%, Old Winchester and Stoney Cross leading the way. The cheese plant is now running at full capacity and has done so for most of the year, so we need to move on, our cows produce some 1.2 million litres of milk a year. To this end, we consider the final phase of the cheese project that will give us the manufacturing capacity to process most of our milk. We apologise to those of you that have gone a bit short on Old Winchester, but there will be plenty in the pipeline. The new plant will give us the opportunity to ignore the outrageous behaviour of several large supermarkets intent on driving down the middle market milk price, flying in the face of market forces and costs of production. To the right, the Christmas Winchester Farmers Market continues to draw in visitors and customers from across the whole of Southern England, and has to be one of the most exiting days of the year, if not totaly exhausting.

November 2010.

The picture to the right is of a Crown Prince pumpkin/ squash, always a debate as to what to call this one. We grow about 10 acres in total and this year despite the fact that they keep very well and will keep right round to the Spring, our crop has already been sold and gone. Emanating from New Zealand, the climate in this country, suits this squash well and only very occasionally disappoints. The market leader in the UK for squash is the Butternut, mainly because it comes in a manageable unit of a 1kg or less where as the Crown Prince will average about 3kg and can go up to 5kg. The butternut is not so easy to grow, it is fine to grow a few in the garden and then finish ripening them on the kitchen windowsill, but commercially they need more sun. So the Crown Prince is a worthy substitute, for not only flavour but colour of flesh as well. For those that want to sore them, you will need to keep the mice out, they love them!!

October 2010

A huge crop op pumpkin selling very quickly this year, demand for suqash also very brisk, seem to have come in a bit earlier than other parts of the country. We normaly sore a lot of Crown Prince right through the winter period, but this year a big crop is aleady nearly gone, you need a bit of luck sometimes.

You will now find video footage of the cheese make on a new web site at www.lovefood.com.

September 2010.

British Cheese awards were back in Cardiff again this year, blessed with some very good weather, the Supreme Champion being Golden Cenarth from Caws Cenarth, a lovely little washed rind from Wales.

The English winner turns out to be Sandy and Andy Rose from Two Hoots, with their sheep's milk blue Lodden Blewe

Another good set of results for Lyburn, of particular note Stoney Cross takes its first Gold at the British Cheese awards, that sits very nicely with the 3 Star Gold from the Great Taste Awards. Winchester takes a Gold, Garlic and Nettle and Lyburn Gold both take Silvers and Old Winchester a Silver.

Full results

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.

British Cheese Awards 2010

Clarence House

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, and he 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.

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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