2024 was a year full of highs with plenty of challenges along the way. A wet winter and cool spring & summer meant it was a tricky year for growing. Many lessons were also learnt; that Romney sheep just love eating fruit trees, that rabbits can comfortably hurdle a 4ft fence, that more worms = more moles, that it’s not just humans that love cavolo nero, and to never underestimate the humble slug.
The new year started with a road trip to The Oxford Real Farming Conference to meet some of our farming heroes and talk Farm Diversification. Soon after we successfully gained our CEVAS accreditation with us hosting more schools on the farm. What followed was a brilliant year of school visits and we are delighted to already have relationships with more than a dozen local schools. Spring 2025 visits are already fully booked!
Despite the awful weather, spring 24 was one of the smoothest calving seasons in recent memory, culminating with twins in early May. We expanded the herd last year to support the conservation collaboration with Cornwall Wildlife Trust. Another 24 yearlings will be heading out to the dunes at Penhale to start work this spring.
Our friends from Finisterre joined us on the farm for a spring ‘away day’ and returned for some festive fun in December. We hosted the ‘Food & Lifestyle‘ awards in September and The ‘Sustainable Food Cornwall‘ Summit in December. We look forward to hosting The Great Cornish Food Awards in the next few weeks aswell as the fantastic Forest for Cornwall and our friends at Cornwall Wildlife Trust. We love working with other similar-minded local organisations who are doing such great work here in Cornwall.
New for 2024 were our Courtyard Lunches – a absolute joy to host, despite the lack of sunshine last year. They moved inside for autumn and winter and will be back this year. We have high hopes that the courtyard will feel more like the South of France in 2025.
In autumn our Harvest Suppers began and led us into a busy winter calendar including the return of our Christmas Market and plenty of Festive Feasts.
Its been mentioned once or twice already, but we celebrated 10 years of events last year, which rounded off with a bit of a team party in November. We loved meeting the many new babies who had arrived recently – 2024 was certainly a bumper year on that front!
We’re now readying ourselves for reopening at the end of the month. 3 pallets of floor slabs have just been delivered as part of our courtyard revamp, new Tamworth piglets arrive next week, and the first of our Shropshire lambs should be born in late January. We’ve ordered another batch of fruit trees and we’ve been drawing up plans for a perennial food garden which overlooks the barns.
So, what’s the plan for 2025? The first of our monthly Feasts takes place on the 31st January and the first Sunday Roast on Sunday 2nd February. Our regular suppers & lunches will be back in February with a fresh new menu and there will be more pathways to enjoy a farm walk, and hopefully more to see and do during your visit. We have introduced new flexible wedding packages (see below), and our new ‘A day at Nancarrow’ workshops begin in April. In summer we hope to start the Nancarrow wetland project which will accelerate bio-diversity here on the farm.
We also aim to keep you better informed via our mailer, and there is even talk of a VLOG. Watch this space…