Heatherhurst Grange – Deepcut

Being a lover of good food I get very excited whenever I get an email from Martin Flick from Heatherhurst Grange to announce he has products available from his small holding in Deepcut. Martin and Michelle have been very busy getting all their amazing produce ready for Christmas and of course the weather has made this more challenging for them as … Read More

via Surrey Heath Residents Web Blog

All four of our geese are getting fat, but the good news for them is that they are being kept to provide a bounty of goose eggs next year. Our Turkeys on the other hand are also getting fat, but the future isn’t so rosy for them. All of our Turkeys that we bought back in the summer as day old chicks have been lovingly reared and are destined for the festive table at various households in the area.

The rate they have grown at is phenomenal, and having run around freely through the summer and autumn in our middle paddock being fed on grass, corn and premium feed, I bet that not only will taste delicious but having come from Wildcroft Rare Breeds at Puttenham they will have only travelled minimal food miles.

As the cold weather sets in, life as a smallholder becomes more challenging, as in addition to twice daily feeding and provision of fresh water, all the ice has to be broken on the water troughs and with frozen outside taps  getting the water to the animals is extremely problematic. At this time of year, with the lack of natural forage, our bees require a weekly supplement of fondant in their hives to ensure they maintain enough energy to survive “over winter” and maintain the queen’s health for the population explosion which will start in the spring.

On the pig front, we have three Berkshires that are going in for pork and sausages to supply the Christmas demand, and we still have some availability (see our ordering page for details).

Our Oxford Sandy and Black will go for ham’s, bacon and cured porky delights in the spring and our middle white gilt Pearl, is growing at a pace and will be ready for the boar in the spring in the hope of our first litter of Heatherhurst Grange bred piglets in early summer 2011. Finally our two Kune-Kune’s, Gloria and Delilah seem to do nothing more than eat, sleep and eat some more, so next year they will need to earn their keep as breeding sows too.

Other high points from the year include; the massive success of our honey which we sold out of within a week of harvest,  we added spiced apple chutney in our porky parcels (recipe courtesy of the WI and apples from our neighbour), and in the summer we ate the first complete meal produced entirely on site, and have delivered multiple orders for logs.

We aren’t quite at “Tom and Barbara” good life status yet, but our efforts have started to yield really rewarding results for us and provided high quality produce with local provenance to some very supportive friend’s, neighbours and locals.

Next year will bring the introduction of our breeding plan with the sows, creation of a fully functional vegetable garden and the modest expansion of our livestock holding to meet steadily growing demand.

Other plans include more  “sizzling sausage Saturday” for those who don’t want to buy a whole quarter of pork where we’ll open to allow locals on our mailing list to pop up and buy some sausages, bacon, the odd joint of pork or any other products that we have produced at Heatherhurst Grange. If you are interested in being added to our mailing list please let me know via the website or by email to pork@heatherhurstgrange.co.uk

Thanks to everyone who has supported us or followed our progress this year, and as we move into what will be a tough 2011 from an economic perspective watch this space for ways to enjoy high quality, cost effective locally produced goods from Heatherhurst Grange.

July has been a busy month at Heatherhurst Grange. The long awaited departure of our Middle Whites finally came around and we, along with some local customers got to taste what had been rumoured to be the ultimate pork pig. Having tasted 4 or so rare breeds, in my opinion the Middle White tops the pork league table by far. Less fatty than other breeds (although all rare breeds produce more fat than commercial pigs), the meat was a beautiful colour, texture and taste. We think Middle Whites will be one of our breeds of choice and now the search has begun to find a perfect Middle White sow we can breed from.

In addition to all our regular customers ordering quarters, we dedicated a whole pig to sausages in order to fulfil demand for the BBQ season. Within 2 days of a mention on the Surrey Heath Residents web blog, we’d sold out and I spent a whole day last week delivering to local people.

Our remaining Oxford Sandy & Blacks have been having a whale of a time and one of them has turned into an escape artist. Twice she’s managed to burrow out of the pen, and run amok in the garden. In one incident whilst chasing her I took a tumble and stretched my cruciate ligament. The doctor was highly amused at the tale of my injury.

In other developments our hens strangely stopped going in to their house at night, and seemed a bit lethargic. Upon closer investigation we discovered the presence of dreaded Red Mite, a parasite that can be fatal to chickens. Back in the spring we took in some hens from a breeder in Hampshire that must have been infected, and they spread to one of our flocks. As a result we’ve spent the whole month systematically treating our hens to destroy the Red Mite colony and after a month of catching and treating the birds and pressure washing the hen house regularly, we think we’ve beaten them.

Yesterdays hive inspection of our three colonies confirmed that our hives are packed full of honey. As a result the largest hive has been rearranged to force bees down deep into the brood box so that next week we can remove the top box (or super) and extract and jar our honey.

This years attempt at elderflower champagne was a great success and unlike prior attempts we produced a highly drinkable sparking wine with very little effort at all. 4 bottles exploded during the fermentation process causing a real sticky mess (probably not as messy as next weeks honey extraction), in our store cupboard but the remaining bottles were a real treat and are nearly finished.

Having spent all those long winter nights wishing for summer, here we are in the height of summer planning for Christmas. In mid August our turkeys will arrive to be reared over the autumn in readiness for the Christmas table, so all enquiries welcome but we must have confirmed orders by 10^th August for anyone interested, and in another step towards the end of summer we’ve taken our first few orders for log deliveries, so in addition to honey extraction and turkey fencing, we’ll be getting the log splitter out of mothballs and into service during August.