Looking Forward To 2025

Hello Everyone,

The festive season is more or less upon us. Feeling organised? Never fear coz on the day…you will be ready. Ho Ho Ho!

Grandson number one had a staring role in his school Nativity and I had the opportunity to watch with a warm glow of pride. Grandson number two, with his nursery class, had a visit to the Northern Stage Theatre and I was delighted to be a helper in high viz walking in a very long line of little and big people thru the town. A memory was made. As a family we took a festive walk thru the lights of Exhibition Park. I am well and truly in the spirit of Christmas.

The Walled Garden

Lots of preparatory work has been progressed this week in the Walled Garden. One major task was the levelling of the ground in front of the North Wall (see photo above).

It is against the North Wall that the 40m long lean-to traditional wooden greenhouse is to be constructed. In the coming weeks the foundations for the greenhouse will be put in place ready for the construction phase – currently scheduled for March 2025.

In parallel, with these preparatory activities Bob is working closely with Northumberland County Council to obtain approval for the materials we will be using to construct the greenhouse. This is important as the aim of both ourselves and the Council is to ensure the building materials we use, are consistent with the materials already in place at the Walled Garden. For example, the brick we use for the greenhouse dwarf wall needs to match the brick used in the existing North Wall. These activities take a lot of time but are hugely important and cannot be treated lightly.

Another area where a lot of progress has been made this week is on the gardens which are alongside the entrance to the hotel. The largest area has been cleared ready for further work in Spring 2025.

Alongside the garden activity the building team have been focusing on a lot of “enabling work” on site ready for construction work which is planned to start in 2025. Not that I want to wish time away but… roll on 2025!

The Farm

Our girls (chickens) have had a little maintenance work carried out in their chicken run. If you remember the November snow broke a large part of the overhead covering of the chicken run. The netting arrived this last week so, the Crew, as you can see below, have replaced and added extra wooden beams to secure the roof. As we had a fine, wind free day the netting was placed on top. They are back to being safe and secure in their home. The girls still roam and wander throughout the Orchard Field but me thinks it will not be long until they will be on lockdown due to bird Avian Flu. We are ready!

Ten tons of PAS100 has been delivered. This will cover many of the vacant beds and has already been topping up the asparagus beds and the herb gardens. Some beds in the polytunnels have had a sprinkling too.

The beds of over wintering crops within the tunnels are all under a blanket of fleece, being white the fleece makes the tunnels look as if snow has been falling. November brought colder weather than the average resulting in a slow-down of the little growth expected. We have our fingers crossed for the fleece creating extra warmth and for the over-wintering crops to be snug under the blanket.

The outside beds are becoming cleared of any crops  and are having a covering of compost and then fabric to keep the light out and the warmth in. This will make them ready for 2025 when we reconfigure the bed sizes and plant out the new season vegetables. 2025!!! How did we get here??? A quarter of the way into a new (well it seems still new to me) century.

Ben and his team from Saltburn are also on the Freyja project and are continuing to document the entire project on YouTube.

Our YouTube channel is only one month old yet it has already attracted a lot of attention. We have over 600 subscribers and one video has had over 12,000 views!

This week’s video focuses on our existing farm and shows how we are going to be utilising a two garden approach to providing fresh produce to Restaurant Freyja (it also includes a cameo of grandson number 2).

Till next time,

Keep watching,

Ann