Thursday 18 June 2009

Open Farm Day 2009

It was Open Farm Day 2009 today, and we popped over to Shabden Park Farm in Chipstead where they had a variety of animals on display for the children to see. Eden has started getting a bit distressed about the idea that animals have to be killed for meat, and I don't think the sight of the incredibly cute baby animals, most of them a few days old, did much to dispel her reservations. There were baby goslings, little lambs and tiny baby pigs, which put the sausage we had eaten into perspective. The day really reinforced for me the value of buying properly reared meat, that has been treated well. The small farm shop sells only their own meat and that of other selected local farmers.

After a lovely sunny day, we went back to the Warren to see what was going on. The brassicas have grown amazingly in only a week.

Cauliflowers
Cauliflowers


The gooseberries have come through and are looking extremely good, even though the leaves are getting eaten by something.

Red gooseberries
Red gooseberries


Dinner tonight was roast duck with vegetables roasted with thyme and bay leaf.

Roasted vegetables
Roasted vegetables


The final crop of rhubarb came from the plot this afternoon which we roasted in the oven for about 30 minutes with sugar and vanilla.

This afternoon
This afternoon


Rhubarb

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