It’s been a very busy time at Gatcombe Farm, preparing the fields ready for drilling the seeds for next year’s harvest. However, even the most tired farmer can’t help but be uplifted by the stunning sunsets we’ve enjoyed over the last week! 
Julie
Stunning sunsets to inspire the workers!
Posted in Member Farms
Apple Day – celebrating the English apple!
Perched on the eastern side of Dartmoor you will find the small village of Hennock (meaning Oak Hill). Every year the village, which consists of approximately 300 homes, a primary school, church, village hall and pub, comes together to celebrate the humble English apple.
In late September the villagers, both young and old, meet at local farms (including Stickwick) to pick apples from ancient cider orchards, a tradition going back through the generations. Farms always made their own cider in the past and it was often used as a form of currency to pay the farm workers. It was also often safer to drink than the water! 
The following week local farmer, Roger, brings his vintage apple press to a large field on the edge of the village which has far reaching views across to the tors of Dartmoor. 
Apple Pressing Day was started nearly 20 years ago and locals join in with the tradition. Alongside the pressing of the picked apples, visitors can see and try crafts and artisan trades from days gone by such as charcoal making (https://www.dartmoorwoodcraft.co.uk/), wood turning and shave horse work (http://devonwoodworks.com/) or the delicate craft of willow 
weaving.
Simple play for children using apples and natural resources creates some wonderful apple pigs and apple monsters! Live music, local food stalls and delicious homemade apple cakes adorn the pop up tea barn. You can enjoy apple juice tasting straight off the press or take home a bottle of last year’s press (not for the faint hearted!). There’s a wonderful atmosphere for young and old to enjoy so long may it continue!
Alison
www.stickwick.co.uk or Facebook page, Stickwick Manor & Cottages)
Posted in Member Farms
Fancy trying your hand at driving a magnificent shire horse?!
At Higher Biddacott Farm you can book in and enjoy a truly unique experience….trying your hand at driving one of our handsome Shires! We can give you a enjoyable taster of what it’s like to work with one of these gentle giants. 
During your stay you will experience a rural escape on an organic Devon farm, worked by beautiful Shire horses. 
Arrive to a warm welcome with home-made cakes or a cream tea. Take a walk around our farm trail, sleep in crisp white linen in our 12th century farmhouse. You can start the day with a delicious breakfast – perhaps home-produced sausages and bacon, or fruit compotes with local honey and later go for a family wagon ride around the lanes. Finally, snuggle up in front of a log fire after a delicious, locally-sourced dinner or enjoy a walk to the local pub. We also run Christmas wreath-making courses at this time of year! Look on our Facebook page for details!
Fiona
A busy time at Gatcombe Farm…
Gatcombe Farm have had a very busy time over the last couple of months calving some magnificent new Angus youngsters. They all enjoy their daily milk delivery!
The blackbirds have had the last of the plums off the trees now, but it was certainly a bumper crop this year!
Julie
Book in and get a free cookery book!
New from Primrose Farm – A cookery book featuring the favourite recipes from the Primrose farmhouse kitchen! Order at: https://
To make our guests’ stay as relaxing as possible I often cook for them, spending many happy hours in the kitchen concocting all manner of delicious things. The frequency of requests, not only for repeats, but also for my recipes, have resulted in our very own cookery book, ‘Favourites from the Primrose Farmhouse Kitchen’. From tasty starters and salads, through delicious main courses, to desserts and baking, including our hugely popular lemon drizzle cake, you are sure to find a tasty meal to enjoy.
Guests booking in for a holiday with us via the Devon Farms website will get a free copy! What are you waiting for?!
Anne
Posted in Member Farms, Recipes
Learn about all things pig at Smallicombe Farm!
Whether you’re a genuine pig enthusiast intent on learning more, or just have a gentle curiosity about these intelligent creatures, Smallicombe Farm can offer you a bespoke experience.
Ian and Maggie Todd have years of experience breeding and showing British Rare Breeds and still have fine examples of British Lop, Berkshire and Saddleback pigs in their small herd. You can book in for a course on Practical Pig Keeping, where you will be educated on all aspects of keeping weaners, from feeding, housing and fencing to all the regulations involved. Ian emphasises you should never attempt to breed pigs until you have first successfully raised weaners for the freezer and enjoyed doing so! Pigs need full time care and commitment and you must also be prepared for your pastureland to be destroyed! 
If you do eventually decide to breed, your ‘starter kit’ will comprise a couple of sows and a boar. They are large and powerful animals and should be respected as such.
Smallicombe is a 75 acre farm of fields and woodland and have a small herd of Ruby Red cattle and 50 Dorset Down sheep as well as their pigs. Holidaymakers staying in the delightful B&B and self-catering accommodation can also get involved with feeding the livestock and, if they time their stay well, watching the piglets’ first adventures in their pens! www.smallicombe.com
Posted in Uncategorized
Scrub up in cow’s milk soap!
West Middlewick Farm’s latest innovation was inspired by one of their ‘raw milk’ customers. Jo heard how the lady was using the milk to cleanse her skin and wondered if this could be taken a step further. The enterprising couple have now created soap using the milk from their herd of British Friesian cows, combined with honey. The soap can now be purchased, alongside the milk and meat products, at the farm shop which is open every day.
www.westmiddlewick.co.uk
Posted in Member Farms
How to dupe a turkey!
Amelia the turkey sat for on her eggs for 28 days and I got increasingly worried. Her eggs didn’t look viable and if I didn’t intervene, this was not going to end well! Thanks to Jonathan Hill of Hills Hatchery and Ross Gardner of Otter Poultry, I got a box of one day old chicks and I smuggled them under Amelia while simultaneously removing her bad eggs. RESULT! She loves them and they love her! At 2 days old they already knew where to find their food and water and how to cuddle up to their ‘mum’. She may be puzzled as to why her babies grow up to be chickens and not turkeys, but I have yet to meet a family which does not have some odd members who just don’t seem to quite fit in! Happy days!
Posted in chickens, Member Farms
Be sure to visit this floral treat
One of the main fundraising events for the Holy Cross, the Crediton Parish Church Festival, will run from 2nd – 7th June this year. The 2018 Festival has the intriguing title ‘In Our Element’ and work has been going on all year round to make this a memorable exhibition. The title of the last Festival was ‘What’s the Point’, and a big talking point was a rhino in the church. 
The rhino, kindly loaned by Exeter School, was subsequently decorated with flowers and the unusual sight of the rhino entering the church can be viewed via a video on our Festival Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/creditonparishchurchfestivals. There have been other wonderful displays over the last few years too.
If you wish to see the fruits of a year’s planning and the skills of local flower arrangers working to this year’s brief then why not make a date for your diary to come to visit. Admission and Parking is free and there is disabled access. Opening times are 10.30am to 7pm on Saturday and Wednesday, 11am to 6pm Sunday, 10.30am to 6pm Monday and Tuesday, and 10.30am to 5pm on Thursday, the last day.
Refreshments, snacks and meals are available in the nearby Boniface Centre, where the Newton St. Cyres Art Group will exhibit and sell their work.
Free interesting and informative guided tours of the Governors Room and Church Tower will be available during the Festival. You will see floorboards dating from 1434, English Civil War artefacts, the retired town criers bell, the signature of Sir Redvers Buller and silver coins from a hoard found in 1896. In the Bell Tower you can see 12 bells (only 4 towers in Devon have 12 bells), clock mechanism and redundant chime barrel (musical box) and massive oak beams dating from 1532.
Crediton Parish Church is a Grade 1 listed building, considered by many to be one of the finest in the country. Proceeds from both the annual Christmas Tree Festival and Flower Festival provide much needed funds towards the upkeep and maintenance of the church. The church is heavily dependent on donations, legacies and grant funding to deal with safety issues, keeping water out of the building, structures and for bigger fabric projects. Current work includes north side drainage, painting churchyard railings and security improvements following recent break-ins.
Crediton Parish Church is conveniently located on the A377, by a bus stop and only 10 min walk from Crediton Railway Station on the picturesque Tarka Line.
Have you tried Wild Garlic Pesto?
The South Devon hedgerows around Beeson Farm Holiday Cottages offer an abundance of edible flora, whether its Sloes in the Autumn for gin or Elderflowers in the early summer for making cordial.
This spring the hedgerows are bursting with wild flowers and lots of wild garlic. Our favourite spots to forage for wild garlic are Stokenham Woods (up the lane opposite the church) or Loddiswell Woods (by Avon Mill Garden Centre), though wild garlic and its cousin, three cornered garlic, can be found in virtually every lane where there are bluebells.
We love the Riverford Organic recipe for making wild garlic pesto which you can find here https://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/view/recipe/wild-garlic-pesto
This pesto is wonderful served through warm pasta, with jacket potatoes, roast lamb or as an accompaniment to summer BBQs. This recipe makes 1 large jar which will keep for at least a week in the fridge.
Ingredients
- 100g wild garlic
- 50g Parmesan grated
- 50g hazelnuts, skinned & toasted
- Olive oil
- Lemon juice, to taste
- Salt & pepper
Method
- Thoroughly wash your wild garlic and place in a food processor, blitz until fairly well broken up.
- Next add your Parmesan and process further, this will help to break down the garlic leaves.
- Finally add your hazelnuts. When the nuts are added you will want to have your olive oil to hand; turn the machine back on, and add olive oil to your desired consistency.
- Add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.
- Enjoy your taste of South Devon!
Posted in Member Farms, Recipes