Summer recipes, farm update and NEW for 2023, Pick Your Own Flowers 🌸🌸🌸

It is a super busy time of year, the sun beating down on us as we race with nature to complete sowing and planting before midsummer. Those wonderful long summer evenings go on for some time yet, but after the Summer Solstice on June 23rd, there are few crops left to sow that will fruit or flower in this calendar year.

Midsummer tradition takes various paths which Meg reflects on and chooses her favourite in our stories this month; being present to see the rising of the summer sun following a night of bonfires, feasting and dancing (or all the above if you are young enough to be at Glastonbury!).

On the farm, lambing over, with temperatures rising Will quickly lined up shearing and the flock of ewes with lambs at foot returned to the river meadow. They have switched with the cattle who now grace the cherry orchard and keep an eye on anyone walking the public footpath. They are extremely inquisitive animals, hilariously entering and then getting stuck inside the new ‘kissing gates’ (going round and round!). Several groups of chicks have been successfully raised and despite the best efforts of two very large foxes, sixty of our eighty hens remain, laying eggs, despite daytime attack. Upsetting of course, but a glimpse ‘real life’ farming.

We’ve all been enjoying the locally grown asparagus and Cornish new potatoes, but now we are harvesting our own vegetables again, broad beans, lettuces (of all shapes and sizes!), turnips, kohl rabi, beetroots, a few courgettes, fresh onions, things are looking up! There are new recipes to find by clicking here, a summer quiche, tips for easy salad dressings, fresh pesto and a super easy strawberry pavlova, all the things you need for summer entertaining.

Speaking of summer entertainment, we are very excited to announce, new for 2023

It is undoubtedly the most exciting thing that we have attempted in ages and is giving us all a real lift after the dramas and stress of the ‘Covid Years’. Over the winter we planned a new ½ acre site tucked away behind the Roots glasshouse. Through the Spring we have been raising an extraordinary number of flowering plants, from seed, and in May it took us nearly three weeks to get everything hand planted. So now all the hard work is done, we can confidently say there will be flowers. The ‘when’ is slightly harder to predict – the latest, but best guess, is towards the end of July, just in time for the school holidays. It’s going to be GREAT!

Tickets can be booked for picking sessions through our website, we’ll release a couple of weeks at a time to make sure we can keep on top of bookings. Grown-up’s on Fridays, families with children welcome on Saturdays and special arrangements made by appointment for those that want to ‘buy the field’ for weddings or family celebrations, just contact Meg directly via our contact page.

Florence will be managing the PYO plot. Having chosen and sown most of the seeds herself, she told us what we can expect.

“From early February the plot design was laid out and varieties chosen. I love bright, fun colours and we know what grows well at Roots so we’ve gone for a super colourful palette with lots of texture. A whole quarter of the plot is planted with Dahlias, so the drama will continue well into the Autumn. There will be special events dotted through-out the summer, including photography days when there will be opportunities for you to have a ‘professional snap’ taken amongst the flowers. Frederick will be helping me out on the plot during the summer holidays, so do book a slot and come and see us with your sunhats at the ready!”

Read more about PYO Flowers

So ready for a summer of fun we leave you planning the Midsummer celebration of your choosing, we’ll be enjoying a long supper with friends and family, taking a moment to reflect before we accelerate into the summer of 2023, one we are tremendously looking forward to!

With best wishes
Will, Meg & the team at Roots