Pork is back available on the Website

Hello Everyone, 

After another session of snow, it feels Spring is finally here!

Something else which is here…sausages, leg of pork and shoulder of pork are all back on the website. These are the choices we have and unfortunately, they will be the last pork we will have.

Since 23rd of October 2016 we have thoroughly enjoyed having the company of our Tamworth pigs. After much research we decided on this traditional breed purely on looks. We acquired our first lot of Tamworth’s from the Scottish Borders. We bought four weaners (pigs who have moved away from their mother), brought them back to our farm and so the pig venture began. 

Over the six and a half years we feel we became good caregivers to all our pigs. We had a number of litters, especially after Royal, the boar, arrived. He serviced Kate and Megan very happily. To continue the breed, Megan travelled South to help conserve the gene pool of the Tamworth variety of pig. Kate and Royal stayed here on the farm till it was decided, via the accounts, that, from a business point of view the pigs were not making any profit. 

We all know that everything we are paying for is increasing. Over the last eighteen months the price of pig feed (particularly the organic feed) has more than trebled. We felt that the price of the pork could not be trebled! Hence our sad decision.

Kate and Royal are now back in the Scottish Borders, where our venture began, with a farmer who is actually called Kate. Kate, the farmer, is also very caring with many more pigs and sheep. All on a much more grander scale than us. She has sent pics of our pigs and they do seem very happy. They are still together, which makes me happy.

So, enjoy the pork while we have it. 

Here on the farm, we have followed the Soil Association’s high organic farming standards. This meant that the pork was always classed as ‘Organic Pork’ totally. However, due to the decreasing number of organically farmed pigs (we are not alone in our decisions), so the number of Organically Certified Butchers has decreased. In actual fact, the number locally is none! Instead we have used a very highly respected butcher in our area…WMH Farm Fresh Meats of Hayden Bridge…to butcher the pigs. He understood our organic status but it does mean that we are unable to class our pork as ‘Organic’ as he does not have organic certification. The butchering is the only organic certification criteria we have not been able to achieve for our last set of pigs. By the powers that be, the rules state we will now class our pork as ‘Reared Organically’. But I think you get the picture…we have great joints and sausages available to buy! Enjoy!

Pork is now on the website, as I said. You will now be able to ‘click on’ each picture of the pork to read and understand these details described above. This little extra addition (click on) to the website will become available to all our produce soon. We are, as they say, working on improvements to the website. All will be revealed and it is exciting.

The lighter and lengthier days are proving to me that I may becoming a ‘fair weather’ gardener. This week's good days have seen me out in the tunnels till late. The crew, on the other hand, have been working in snow, hail, rain, wind and sun. The lovely Lucy has continued to sow seeds in the greenhouses, directly sow the parsnips in the Orchard Field and plant out more horseradish in its bed beside the greenhouses alongside the general duties of watering, tending and helping me pack the boxes.

Graham the Great has begun to dismantle all the stock fencing within the Well Field (which may take some time not to be called the Pig Field).

Yes, Lucy helped pack the boxes this week. As many of you are aware, we have an increasing number of you, our lovely customers, each and every week. As we say…we are working on it! We are trying to catch up on the ever increasing weekly orders. This means that we will need to harvest, pack and deliver more than our optimum number for a short time. We are trying our utmost to ensure you are happy customers. But, we are big enough and do not intend to grow, pardon the pun, any bigger as the next step would be another van, another van driver! You would all miss your chats with Bob, so, please bare with us while we play catch-up.

Thank you for being excellent customers.

Thank you for returning the boxes.

All have a great week,

Ann👩‍🌾