LOCATION!

We are located 4 miles north of Cirencester, between the villages of North Cerney, and Woodmancote. From A435 you take the turning towards Bagendon, go up past the Church to the T junction. Turn right towards Woodmancote and Scrubditch Farm is approximately 100 yards on the right. The Care Farm is situated down the drive, up the track on the left.
From A417, turn off at Perrotts Brook/Daglingworth, and proceed towards Perrotts Brook. Just before the A435, turn left towards Woodmancote. Go for approximately 1 1/2 miles and Scrubditch Farm is on the right, just past the Bagendon/North Cerney Cross Roads.

Saturday 31 October 2015

we were very lucky to have been invited up to the Star College last week, by The Wiggly Worm Charity, to an afternoon's cooking in their Star Bistro!  We took along lots of our produce; heritage tomatoes, parsnips, rocket, apples, and lots of hedgerow fruit.  Six of our students took part, and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  Sue Guilding from the charity led the afternoon.  We split up into three groups, and made 'rocket pesto', sloe chutney, blackberry & elderberry jam, followed by apple cobbler, fruit flapjack and blackberry yoghurt cake!  At the end of the afternoon, we all sat down and had a delicious meal.  Sue made pasta to go with the pesto, and a lovely stroganoff and bolognese, and we had a beautiful tomato salad, made with all our heritage tomatoes!  Everyone had a very jolly time, and thank you so much to Sue and her team for making it possible.
Our heritage tomatoes - delicious!
Danny stirring the jam!


Helen & Charlotte looking very pleased
with their fruity flapjack!
It's half term this week, and we were due to pick up the ram we borrowed last year - but the day before; the owner rang and said he had died!  Luckily, another friend in Chedworth is lending us one of his...so we are going to pick him up on Thursday next week
My Birthday cake made by Gerry -
obviously it's Manny !
one evening shutting the poultry in

We have had some really beautiful
sun sets recently, and i managed to 
get this one on my phone last
week





DON'T FORGET THE CHRISTMAS FAIR ON SUNDAY 8 NOV
AT STAR COLLEGE ULLENWOOD!

Wednesday 14 October 2015

OPEN DAYS!

This week we had another lot of Open Days and we had a very special guest on Monday - no other than TWEEDY from Giffords Circus!  He was brilliant - arriving with his iron in tow; dressed up and with a wonderful umbrella with bells hanging of it all playing a different tune!  The students loved him and showed him all the animals.  He even juggled with our hen's eggs whilst standing on the table in the garden!! (photo to follow)

Tidying for the Open Days!
We had a group from The National Star College on Wednesday, and the students loved showing them round too.









Gerry starting to train one of our ewe lambs!
We took 3 of our lambs off last week to the abattoir, and have pre-sold most of them, so we are taking another two tomorrow.  All our lambs have done so well this year - the ewe lambs look fantastic.   We are going to try and show a couple of them next year, so Gerry is going to try a rope halter on them on Monday!  We continue to round them up each week, and put them through the 'race' as it means that some of our less able students can really get the feel of them.

Saturday 10 October 2015

Week 3

This week we have a new student starting and she has joined our Wednesday group.  So we now do three full days per week.  Some of our students wanted to do two days per week, which is a great tribute to the work we are doing here at the Care Farm,  It goes without saying, that we couldn't do the extra day without help from our very willing volunteers so a huge thank you to all of them.

our beautiful lambs
We have been weighing the lambs regularly so that we can choose 3 or 4 to go off next week.  We try to have lamb to sell in October, and then pork for November/December.  We will have 3 lambs ready for the weekend of 10 October.  They look fantastic this year; better than ever.
The ewes are still on the bank, but we have reduced their field size so that they don't get too fat, before the ram comes at the last week of October.

Our veg boxes are still going well - we now have loads of runner beans, and delicious yellow and red tomatoes, and yellow and red raspberries!  Salad bags, and a mixture of kale and purple sprouting.

We had a group from Nationwide Building Society here a couple of weeks back - they spent all morning 'hedgerow' picking - ready for us to make our special Christmas Jellies.  Then they spent the next hour stacking all our straw bales in the yard ready for the winter - there were some very impressive photographs!  A big thank you to the group - it's great to have volunteer support from local businesses.
Nationwide volunteers bale stacking!


Blackberries and Sloes picked by the volunteers
 for our hedgerow jelly
We have more Open Days planned for week of 5 October, so anyone interested in the Care Farm can come and have a look round.  Our students love showing people round!