Stanhill Farm News!

It has been our busiest year yet for pumpkins and our Pumpkin Patch was once again, extremely popular. This year we had the added bonus of being situated next to the fields where the pumpkins grew, giving customers the choice of choosing their pumpkins from there or from the patch itself. The customers loved this and we're pleased to say that we have already earmarked a field for pumpkins at the front of the farm for next year, to enable customers to do this again.

We grew a lot more pumpkins this year to keep up with demand, and the weather was also kind to us which was an added bonus, especially as it was half term! Thank you to everyone who came along to the farm to buy pumpkins, your custom and support is much appreciated.

The marquee attached to the Farm Shop has now been extended, which can only mean one thing...the Christmas countdown has begun! We are starting to get the shop and the marquee prepared for the extra busy festive period, and Christmas order forms will be available to collect within the next week.

Our British grown Christmas trees will be on sale from Saturday 1st December. The varieties available will be Norway Spruce, Blue Spruce and Nordman Fir, with the prices ranging from £25.00-£70.00, depending on the size. We're delighted to be able to keep the prices of our trees the same as last year.

We have been busy harvesting Red kale, kale, Savoy cabbage, Primo cabbage, sprouts, sprout tops and cavolo nero. We are still harvesting some of the Winter squash varieties, and will soon be harvesting parsnips and leeks. We still have very small amounts of Purple Sprouting Broccoli but are now coming to the end of the broccoli (calabrese). 

Unfortunately, due to the hot summer the carrots have already finished. The first drilling of carrots survived, however, the later drillings sadly perished.

Next year's wheat has now been planted and we are currently planning the fields for next year's Pick Your Own. The heatwave this summer caused all our strawberry varieties to come up early, and the lack of rain made for a very challenging year. However, despite the weather, we saw a later strawberry crop appear and customers were still finding strawberries as late as October.

The hot summer has also caused potato crops to suffer, resulting in less being harvested. Therefore, supply and demand has pushed the price up,  particularly for the Maris Piper variety.