Beaconsveggieboxes

Early june update

2009-06-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Usual veggie reminder, and also to let you know that we have some coriander, spring greens, derby day cabbages, salad leaves, lettuce, fresh garlic, spinach and bean tops available from us and Penpont this week.

We have updated the website to include latest pictures of our adventures in pony drawn hoeing techniques. The food miles comparison data is also now on there.

Weather seems to have taken a slight downturn – we had about 5” of rain up here over the weekend, making it very difficult to get out and do anything in the fields. We have sown some green manure (clover and vetch) but need it to dry up a bit before we can roll/harrow it in. The low temperatures and light levels have also slowed down the growth on some of our plants considerably, but hopefully the weather will improve again.

Updated produce list is also attached – but keep checking the e-mails for new things coming on locally!

All the best
Theresa, Ian, Alan and Jasmine says Hi to all Wwoofers

Me trying out a Saddle Chariot

2009-05-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

Good morning

Rhubarb, rocket, salad and chives all available from us/Penpont this week – other than that, please use last week’s list.

We have had a busy week. Lots more planting has been done in the tunnels and gardens – beans, peas, salad crops, spinach, rocket, and beetroot has all be planted out, kale has been potted on, and many of our little native trees have been transplanted from their pots. Both fields are now ready for seed sowing – ploughing, rotavating and bed cultivation has all been done. Seeds will be going in in the next couple of days – carrots, parsnips, swede, beetroot, turnip, perpetual spinach, chard and beans.

Not only that, but we also got the opportunity to try out a Saddle Chariot – see picture below. Great fun – and means we may be able to seriously consider using a pony to work on the land and in the garden, as it can have all sorts of implements attached to it – and comes with a wonderful, quick release safety feature which avoids the dangers of a lose, frightened pony with a heap of metal attached to it. Have a look at our new page on our website for more pictures, and the practical uses of the saddle chariot. http://www.beaconsveggieboxes.co.uk/Saddle%20Chariot.htm

Easter 09

2009-04-16T00:33:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone

Hope you all had a lovely Easter, and enjoyed the glorious sunshine that we had. We have had a wwoofer with us, and we have managed to get lots of sowing and bed preparation done, catch up with the weeding and had a generally good tidy up – very productive. This week I am away for part of my university course – so boxes will be handled by Alan and Ian!!

Availability veggie-wise is pretty much the same as last week – but I think the purple sprouting is at an end.

All the best
Theresa

Winter Wonderland

2009-01-05T03:42:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas – we certainly did, with lots of walking, a bit of gardening, a fair bit of painting and decorating in the house and far too much eating (and the odd glass of wine, of course)! We are loving this weather – the scenery up here has been absolutely amazing, especially when we had the few days of frost frozen on everything – it’s been like living in a huge Christmas card! Only down side has been that all the water has frozen in the barns, so we are carrying an awful lot of water out every day for the animals – but I’d rather that than mud, wind and rain.

We’ve attached an updated produce list – not much changes at this time of year, but I can at least start the New Year looking efficient, even though we all know it won’t last very long! We have Marmalade Oranges available from this week, but unfortunately the frost has well and truly seen off our salad at the moment, so only lettuce available.

All the best
Theresa

New Products Update (slightly delayed)

2008-08-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

Following unprecedented anticipated international demand for its products following recent celebrity endorsements. Here and here

Theresa has had to start a strict first come-first served policy on all orders for the new Welsh Wonder Weed.. Currently Alans field in Llangynider holds large supplies of the WWW, but determined action by WWoffers and hosts is seeing stocks diminish and if anticipated Supermarket orders materialise we fear local supplies might be affected.

Photo showing WWoffers and woofer clearing Brasicas to allow increased production of the WWW.

We are hopeful that Castle Street Restaurant and Bridge Café will be running WWW promotions over the upcoming weekend.

In addition to the exciting information above we can also supply from our own fields

Cucumbers
Broccoli
New Potatoes
Fresh Garlic
Lettuces
Spinach
Red Russian Kale
Mange tout
Broad beans
Green beans
Fresh Basil
Fresh Turnips

Regards

Ian and Theresa

Ps,

Celebrity Chefs and Interested customers looking for the next new food fashion need look no further than Couch Grass….contact BVB for wholesale opportunities

2007-12-17T02:42:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone
usual veggie order reminder - but just to confirm our Christmas delivery arrangements if anyone missed (or has mislaid) our note ....

This week deliveries will be going out on Friday and Saturday; St Mary's bakery and the offices and businesses that we deliver to in Brecon and Builth will all be delivered to on Friday afternoon - if you normally get a home delivery on Wednesday afternoon you will receive your box on Friday afternoon also, but it might be slightly later than normal as we will deliver to Builth first to catch the offices, and then do the home deliveries afterwards.

If you normally get a box on Wednesday evening, this week it will be delivered on Friday evening, and any boxes delivered on Thursday will be delivered on Saturday. Don't worry if you are out Christmas shopping, we will find somewhere safe to leave it.
Please note that the deadline for orders this week is Wednesday evening, but we would very much appreciate it if you could get your order by Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.

IF YOU WISH TO ORDER BREAD WE MUST RECEIVE YOUR ORDER BY TUESDAY AM AT THE LATEST TO GIVE CAROLINE CHANCE TO BAKE IT.

The next veggie box deliveries will be w/c Monday 7th Jan, with orders being delivered on the 9th and 10th (Wednesday and Thursday) as normal. We'll send our usual e-mail out to remind everyone.

We've attached a December produce list incase anyone hasn't received an updated list in their boxes.

Hope this makes sense - if anyone has any queries, or problems with the delivery times please let us know.

Best wishes - and Merry Christmas!
Theresa

Brief October update

2007-10-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

Brief update, we have updated ourproduce list for October, we will also put printed copies out in the boxes for those that would like them this week.

There are quite a few new things on including savoy cabbages, red onions, pumpkins and UK Bramley cooking apples. Alan has made some delicious green bean chutney from the last of the bean harvest, and we have decided to stick with lemon cake for another month, as it is by far the most popular!

We hope that you have been enjoying the peppers and aubergines which have been coming from Alan at Pwll Court in the last month or so, and also last week’s broccoli, which was all mine! We are finding that the produce list doesn’t accurately reflect where things are coming from, as our stuff comes and goes so quickly, so the e-mail is turning out to be a really important way of communicating what is in season locally, and what is coming from our farms.

This week I have Chinese leaves available apx 1.50 per head depending on size – excellent for stir-frying – I haven’t put them on the list because they won’t be available for the whole month, but if you would like some just let us know.

Best wishes
Theresa

2007-08-22T02:18:00.000-07:00

Next crop to grow for the veggie boxes – rice!

What a washout of a summer! Although we have managed to produce a considerable amount of veggies, salad and herbs this year for the boxes, we have lost lots of crops, and those that have come have certainly not been as productive and quick growing as usual. We have discovered the benefits of fleece (for the crops, not us), and have been very grateful for our polytunnels, although even crops in these have struggled due to lack of heat and sunlight. We know that we aren’t alone in this – other growers we have visited and spoken to have lost much more than we have this year. A Pembrokeshire holding that we went to was a scene of absolute devastation – not a pea or bean in sight, and 1000s of brassicas left unplanted because the fields had been too wet to take the machinery on.

Regretfully we have decided cancel both the open days that we had planned for this year - we feel that it wouldn’t be worth people coming for a day out, because frankly there is so little to see in comparison with previous years. As most of the early field crops have failed at Pwllyn I will be sowing a lot of green manures this year, and experimenting with some overwintered crops in the tunnel for early pickings next year – so it may be that we try to hold a ‘Spring Celebration’ at the farm next April instead of our customary Harvest one this year.

This Bank Holiday Weekend (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) will see us at the Visitors’ Centre on Mynydd Illtyd Common (just along the track from our farm) where we will be selling some veggies, hoping to recruit some new customers for the box scheme, and generally chatting to folk about food and growing. We will also be at Llangynidr show on the Sunday – supporting Alan’s local show, and sponsoring the ‘Best Scarecrow’ competition!

We were lucky enough to have a Wwoofer, Phillip, from Australia, with us for about 10 days this month, which helped enormously with the fencing and various other jobs. He managed to reach to top of Pen-y-fan from the Storey Arms car park in about 40 minutes – then came back down the long way, returned to the farm and carried on working until 9pm! Two more Wwoofers are due in September, one English, one American, and we hope that they will help to clear the crops from the garden beds, and muck and cover them for the winter. There will also be the remaining potatoes to lift before the winter really sets in, and we also have to get our hay harvested to feed the animals through the winter.

We have bought two pieces of equipment this year – a steering hoe, and a flame weeder, which will make weeding the field a much easier job next year, and finally got our module planter up and working. A major project we have planned for next year is to vastly increase the amount of compost we produce to go back on the field – we probably need to be producing around 25 tonnes a year (!) – I am also on a steep learning curve of soil analysis, rotations and green manures.

Finally – proof that every cloud has a silver lining – the ducks have REALLY enjoyed the wet summer!

Bags in the Brecon Beacons

2007-06-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

Hello

After my mail of gloom and doom last week things have definitely improved and most of my plants have decided to live after all! The courgettes and runner beans have perked up, and we will soon be able to offer sugar snap peas, the broad beans are covered in flowers, and lettuces, salads and herbs are all looking good.

The flea beetle are still partying on the brassicas, so we have had to cover all the new stuff we have planted in horticultural fleece, held down by a wide variety of plastic carrier bags filled with soil - so at the moment our field looks like a shrine to supermarket shopping! We've started to update the blog on the website more frequently, check it out for our own version of installation art - Bags in the Brecon Beacons - and also to see what I get up to after dark!

We are also pleased to say that, along with Castle Street Restaurant and Bridge Cafe who we supply, one of our loyal and longstanding customers has nominated us for UKTV Food 'Local Hero 2007' - you can have a look at uktvfood.co.uk (thanks, Adrienne).

This week, as changes to our normal list we have available; lettuce, salad bags, basil, coriander, parsley and spring onions (all either mine or Alan's) plus welsh broad beans at 2.25 per kg; new pembroke pots (absolutely delicious) at 1.80 per kg and mini cucs from wales at 75p each. I also have a limited amount of my own strawberries (they are limited because we can't stop eating them - sorry, there has to be some perks to this job) at 1.70 for 250g. The greens are limited this week to pointy green cabbages, or red or white cabbages, and we also have necterines (Spain) at 2.50 for half a kilo.

Hope this makes you feel peckish!

Best wishes
Theresa

2007-06-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Just to let you know that the salad will be ours and Penpont again this week, with lettuces coming from Alan. We can also supply some coriander and basil this week.

We have had an interesting couple of weeks on the farm - slugs, weeds and flea beetles have caused huge consternation on the field - every brassica crop that goes in now has to be covered by horticultural fleece to stop the flea beetles attacking them - this of course provides a perfect habitat for slugs! We can regularly be seen in our field diving on cabbage plants with yellow sticky insect papers to get flea beetles to jump and stick, and prowling the field at night with head torches on, armed with scissors (aka 'weapons of mass destruction)!

But we will not be defeated - in a moment of inspiration Vicky bought me some ducklings for my birthday, who have been duly names Peking, Ho-sin, Pancake and Sweet 'n' Sour - collectively they are the SAS (Slug Assassination Squad) and soon they will out in the field, clearing areas of slugs before we plant there. Hopefully they will be joined by more ducks, and some chickens in due course - extra benefits will be their weeding skills, fertiliser and eggs for the boxes.

We have also been invaded by a particularly rampant weed known as Corn spurrey (also known as begger-weed, pickpurse and - wait for it - farmer's ruin!). It has invaded the carrots, beetroot, chard and spinach, and we are going to have to clear the whole area and re-sow - fortunately it is still quite early in the season and we should have time. We are also sowing these crops down at Alan's - and starting a lot of stuff off in trays to make sure we do get a crop this year!

Hoping your gardens are looking better than mine at the moment!

best wishes
Theresa

Weekly update

2007-05-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

Good morning

usual veggie reminder, and just to let you know that we have our own salad bags this week - very tasty - and Alan has some coriander, and one of our customers can offer parsley, so if you would like any of that just let us know. I'm afraid the rhubarb was a bit oversubscribed last week, so Alan will probably be resting the plants for a week or so, but once more becomes available we will let you know. My caulis have finished now, as well.

many thanks
Theresa

2007-05-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hello

Hope everyone was OK with the exchange of spring greens and cauli instead of kale and purple sprouting last week. Kale and psb now completely finished, but we may have some more of our caulis for this week, if anyone would like them. We also have a limited supply of new season rhubarb (Alan's).

It's a pity the weather broke on the bank holiday, but I have to confess we are very glad to see the rain up here - sun and showers is what we need for the next month!

Best wishes
Theresa

Today we also planted 1000 brasica plants and drilled almost 720mts of carrots, beets and chard.

Recent Project on farm

2007-05-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

Recently we took advantage of the weather to plant 300mts of new hedging to protect our veg fields, Supervision was by Yinka, Oscar, Jasmin, Jasper, and Esso on 4 legs, with the two legged team of Theresa, Silvia, Alan, Pete and Ian doing all the work

April Update

2007-04-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone

usual reminder for veggies, but I have attached April produce list, and updated version of Caroline's breadlist. The cake of the month has changed to Carrot and Walnut - absolutely delicious (although the lemon was VERY popular, so we will probably have to repeat that at some point).

We are having a busy but productive day - field has been ploughed and rotavated, and we will be planting potatoes and sowing seeds for beetroot, spinach, chard, carrots, kale, swede and turnip later on - then we will be hoping for a drop of rain. Alan's field has also been ploughed at his farm, and he has put up a polytunnel and is building raised beds, so hopefully we will have more local veg than ever on the boxes this year - so please bear with us in this time of not-very-much-local, as you probably know this time of year is known as the 'hungry gap' but hopefully our fields will be producing lots of good stuff in the very near future. Alan has also got some chickens, which are completely free range, so he will be supplying some of the eggs on the boxes from now on, and we will probably getting some as well in the not-too-distant future, so hopefully we will be self-sufficient in local, free-range eggs.

If anyone doesn't get attachements by e-mail please let me know and I will put a produce list in your box.

Best wishes
Theresa