Meadow Lodge Farm

A nice frosty morning so I went for a walk in the orchards to see what wildlife I could spot and maybe take some wintry photographs.   I saw a good number of wildlife but too far away for any decent pictures though will add for the record the ones I did get!   Noteable wldlife seen included roe deer, hares, muntjac,  fox, red legged partridges, moorhens,   green spotted woodpecker  and to my delight about two dozen ducks flew out from amongst the reeds on one of the ponds.  This is the most we have ever seen, as only seen two last winter.  I think the cutting down of the vegetation and opening up of the ponds must be attracting more birds and I am sure they werent only mallards there. I will need to go down again and see, but they are so wild that any little movement spooks them.  Cox orchard with prunings on the ground New pear orchard Wildlife orchard Roe deer the other side of our hedge muntjac muntjac fox fox about to pounce (which I...

 All the plums are now picked and sold - a good crop of Victoria plums plus a reasonable crop of the other less known varieties and lots of jam made and sold using plums, strawberries,  blackberries  and even elderberries and mulberries from the farm! We have now picked the majority of the pears, with large crop of Conference and surprising good quality considering they havent been sprayed although we are not expecting it to be so good in future years.  We hope to have some made into Pear Juice and also plan to pick some Perfection and Greensleeves apples this week for juicing. As we only have one cold store and pears and apples cannot be stored together, we are leaving the apples on the trees as long as we can. We are continuing to clear the vegetation around the ponds to open them up and hopefully encourage more wildlife and birds and make them so we can walk beside and enjoy them. Victoria plums   Conference pears At the waters edge   View towards St Ive...

Yes , the cold store really did come off the back of a lorry!  A refrigerated unit from the lorry of a well known supermarket - can you guess which one?  Clue is the colour of the floor! .With the aid of the telehandler, people power and some wooden fence poles, we moved it into position. The mathematically  brained amongst us calculated that  it should store 150 trays of fruit.We also took delivery of some large apple boxes ready for later in the season. Fruit picking is in full swing , we have so far picked Herman, Sanctus Hubertus, Czar and Rivers ( all purple plums)and Opal (red)  We have just started on the greengages with the first apples (Discovery) now ready for picking too.                                                                        wat...

 Having watched the trees come into blossom, then the fruit start to appear, we are now seeing the apples and pears start to swell.  We appear to have a good crop of pears and Cox apples but without having been sprayed, some of the other apples have succumbed to disease and pests which we expected.  We hope to have a visit from a local  representative of the  Apple and Orchard Association  next week to help us identify the fruit and plan the management of the orchards.   They knew Mr Wallis and his orchards well and apparently know where most of the apples are in the orchards and also the pears and plums  We have started picking some of the plums now and sold16 trays to a local farmer/supplier. They were also popular with customers of Oxholme Farm and sold out with hours of them being on sale! 

 This week  we noticed our first plum crop was ripening which we believe to be the Herman variety. We have about 8 trees so Richard and Julianne picked these last evening and got about 16 x 12 lb trays. Surprisingly the quality appeared quite good with few damaged or bad ones. We are selling a few via Oxholme Farm shop and a farmer/wholesaler Richard knows,offered to take and sell the rest!  I also saved a few to make our first home made jam from our produce - plum and cinnamon.

 When I arrived at the farm this afternoon I heard that there was  kayaking on the pond!    I went down to see what was going on but Richard, William and George had just pulled the kayak out onto the bank.  However I was sent a photo see below!   Think we need to get some life jackets!   George in kayak, William on bank Oscar  Aaron and Oscar   I also checked to see how the fruit was growing, they're getting bigger although doesn't look like a large crop of plums but plenty of apples and pears.    Victoria plums pears cox apples   wildflower meadow