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goosemoor organic produce |
Warfield Lane, Cowthorpe |
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Download this week's Pick of the Crop Price List or the latest Grocery Big List Our latest newsletter Links to external info NEWS: Dec 08: sad, sad news... Dec 08: check out our latest vacancy Mar 08: Goosemoor wins Best Green Business award! Mar 08: Goosemoor is the only Yorkshire supplier in Times Top 35! Feb 08: check out Where does the produce come from? Jan 08: What is the difference between Organic eggs and Free-Range? | Happy New Year!Chicken Out!We've enjoyed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's thought-provoking campaign to urge people to avoid cheap but inhumane intensively-produced broiler meat and eggs, and encouraging consumers to switch to free-range instead. As well as showing the reality of high stocking densities and the impact on bird health, Hugh gave a community group the opportunity to raise & despatch their own free-range Sunday lunch If you are going to eat meat, there is a lot to be said for taking personal responsibility for the animal's wellbeing during its lifetime, and then ensuring its death is as humane as possible. If you haven't yet signed up as a supporter, click on the campaign logo below, and help get the CHICKENS OUT! However, we would love everyone to go one step further, and only buy organic meat & eggs (which is by definition also free-range). But what makes organic poultry products better than conventional free-range? What's Growing this monthJanuary rain has led to extensive waterlogging here at Cowthorpe. Luckily the soil inside the polytunnels has remained very workable, and we have been able to prepare some beds in time for the first of the 2008 crops. We're ready to start sowing the chillis and parsley, but unfortunately our own compost from the heap is too wet to sieve into our usual home-made growing medium, so we've had to buy in a small amount of Fertile Fibre Organic Seed Compost. We've not tried this brand before, but it is approved by the Soil Association, and is peat-free being based on coir Europe has also been affected by bad weather, leading to a reduction in quality of certain crops such as some of the citrus fruit, which has left us with a lot of wastage. This has been added to the muck heap, and will rot down along with our horse poo and weeds, and next year we will shovel it on to the polytunnel beds to help grow the 2009 vegetables Fortunately there will continue to be a good assortment of locally-grown root crops and greens available for the next few months Weather Alert Friday 25 Jan: from the West, at 28 gusting to 49 mph...
We need to get these tunnel covers replaced quickly, otherwise we will have to delay sowing our radishes, which will then delay their harvest, and also the planting-out of the following cucumbers and chillis Annual InspectionOur annual inspection by the Soil Association took place on 16 January, and went very smoothly, culminating with the inspector concluding that Goosemoor is a 'very well-run horticultural operation', and found no cause for concern with either the production or the processing aspects of our business. Phew!
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Oh
dear - more climate change calamity! Today we lost the
covers from 2 of our tunnels in a rather strong breeze! Now we have some
very wind-swept spinach and salad leaf that probably will be too battered to
harvest next week.