|
On the back of one of our chefs asking recently: "How do artichokes grow'... I thought I'd do a quick video to explain. I don't think Steven Steven Spielberg has anything to worry about, and if you suffer from sea-sickness you may need to close your eyes when I start walking... but other than that I hope you find this little film informative! There are subtitles if you can't hear what I'm saying...
Have you ever answered a survey and wondered whether anyone actually read your thoughts? Well, I can't speak for others, but I'm going to show that I've tried my best to read and digest all of your replies to the survey we did in July 2018.  Time for my best Les Dennis impression... Last summer we launched a review on the future of Kenyon Hall Farm. Within a week we'd had an overwhelming response: a whopping 875 replies, 10,000+ pieces of data and 30 pages of A4 filled with suggestions. It was so heartening to have so many people care about our little old farm! So it's only fair I put the time in to analyse what you've said and to share the findings.
This post will explain why we did a survey and three of the fundamental things we discovered - the Executive Summary. My next blog post(s) will go into specific details about the ideas for the future that we're going to run with to (hopefully) make the farm even better!  I've been staring at a blank screen for an hour now. If I don't start writing something soon, we'll be opening for Pumpkins 2019 before I've written about 2018!
I just don't know where to start. October was the busiest month ever at Kenyon Hall Farm. We grew more pumpkins, welcomed more visitors, sold more pumpkins, carved more pumpkins, wheeled more barrows and ate more chocolate apples than ever before. We smashed all our records - not just for a pumpkin season, but for any season. Since we started in 1978. I can't let all that pass without comment. But after a month of relentless pumpkining and minimal sleep (I call it pumpkinsomina) my brain doesn't seem to fancy this final task: the write-up. So you'll be pleased to hear that I'll be keeping this brief! A quick look at how we did and a nod towards next year...
All bets are off. It’s 19th June, the strawberry season is under a week old and I couldn’t tell you whether there will strawberries to pick tomorrow, let alone into July! We’ve never seen a fruit season like it: raspberries ready in mid-June, sugar snap peas so plentiful they’re carpeting the field bright green, and the strawberries… oh dear, the strawberries. In this post I’ll clarify the current situation with our Pick Your Own fruit and veg, explain why it’s behaving so bizarrely, look at what to expect in the coming weeks and help you work out how to still enjoy a visit to the farm this summer. 
Welcome to the Kenyon Hall Farm Blog!
I've created this blog as a place to publish articles about what's happening on the farm. The posts here will go into more depth than is possible on the other pages of the website and in our pithy social media posts. We deliberately keep those succinct to avoid the key messages getting lost. That doesn't always work. This page will allow me to provide more detailed information about the farm - to answer common questions and give updates to what we're planning next. For those with a curiosity for farming, growing, food, fruit, health and even what it's like trying to run a small business with your parents, I hope you'll find some of the articles here interesting. As I write this I have two children under 4 running around my ankles with a third due to arrive next month. With these domestic duties as well as a small business to run, a (fantastic) team of staff to look after and a strawberry season to prepare for, I'm not making any promises on the number and frequency of articles here. But I'll do my best to find a few minutes every now and then to answer questions that keep cropping up. And in terms of the biggest question on everyone's lips at the moment, there's only one place to start... |
