Newsletter 21st June

Good morning,

Things are feeling good at Trenchmore this week. The weather is helping us make plenty of silage - mowing, tedding and baling is all much more fun in the sun. We’ve also been TB testing one of our herds and so far so good.

Nev has been experimenting with adding some cider vinegar - made from cider batches with unfavourable flavours, which is the inevitable but thankfully rare tax of doing wild fermentation - to the cattle feed this year. It helps to regulate the acidity in their gut and supports a healthy microbiome, and he has spotted a few changes. Most notably their dung has less smell and their coats look healthier, and fewer were suffering with lice in the damp months. It is too small a case study to make any great claim but it is certainly pretty exciting. So well done Nev, you’ve earned yourself a burger.

And not just any burger, a 3Bros wagyu burger - which if you are lucky enough to have tried, you will know is a bite from the flavour gods.

This week I wanted to celebrate the lads who have been serving burgers at the farm for the last few years. 3Bros started in the first lockdown when three 20 year old friends were living and cooking together in their house in Moulsecoomb. After perfecting the recipe for their burger sauce and feeding their friends out of Patrick’s uni room-turned-prep kitchen, Akhmat’s mum offered them the kitchen in her cafe to use in the evenings.

Patrick had spent summer holidays working at Bleecker Burger (which wins burger of the year most years), Bok Shop & White Men Can’t Jerk in London, whilst George was the bar manager at the Shepherd & dog in Fulking - one of our favourite Trenchmore beef burger pubs in the early days - and working in the kitchens at Burnt Orange, Due South and etch.

Their ambition was to make the tastiest burger with the best ingredients and after trying our beef, George reached out and came to visit us at the farm. I must admit I wasn’t originally convinced by the three likely lads who turned up at the farm gate in their spotless white trainers and cheeky grins. That was until I tried one of their burgers, back in the golden days when they would deliver to my flat in Brighton. And I had an o-m-g-a-haaa moment. Despite having travelled in a bike box, it was the best burger I’d ever tasted.

And that was that. I invited them to do a one-off pop up at the farm, which turned into a monthly slot, and now a weekly residency. They’re now based at the farm and we do private events and festivals together. Patrick also does some delivery driving for us and George helps me run the Trenchmore Table supper clubs, and is doing some cider marketing this summer.

Akhmat has moved on, but Phoebe & Dulcie have joined the team and the burgers just keep getting better. This year they started using Brighton-based Flour Pot Bakery buns and Weald Smokery cheese. They are working towards a permanent spot in Brighton or London by the end of the year, which will be sad for us but great news for everyone else. Well done lads.

This Saturday, George is serving wagyu (and veggie) hot dogs at the farm, and the boys will be serving burgers here every Saturday thereafter. Our fridges are stocked with tomahawks, fillet, flat iron & denver steaks, and we have short ribs, brisket & mince in the freezer.

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Patrick will be cooking burgers & I will be pouring Silly Moo Cider at the Cheese & Chilli Festival in Chichester on Saturday + Sunday this weekend. Tickets are £8 and the weather looks glorious so we hope to see some of you there.

And lastly, we’re taking bookings for our next Trenchmore Table supper on 6th July, which will be a relaxed & hearty 3-course meal with Trenchmore beef + chips as the main dish. Save a seat here.

Wishing you a fun & sun-filled weekend.

Newsletter 31st May

Good afternoon,

Have you been watching Clarkson’s Farm? I didn’t used to be a fan of the man but I love that by sticking a couple of cameras to his tractor and taking us along for the bumpy ride, he is helping viewers understand more about the countryside and food production - whilst making Amazon Prime’s most watched show in the UK. Kudos Jeremy.

We shouldn’t give JC all the credit - Gerald, Lisa & Charlie are very watchable characters and the relationship he has with Kaleb, his long suffering farming contractor, is entertaining. This season, Jeremy & Kaleb compete to see who will make the most money - Kaleb on the arable land and Jeremy on the non-farming enterprises.

And this made us think about our own farm and its various diversifications. Trenchmore Farm grows apples and beef. We add value by turning apples into cider, butchering beef for restaurants, welcoming you to the yard shop & cider tap every Saturday, laying the table for our monthly supper clubs and clearing the yard for our quarterly food & drink markets. There’s hope & scope for plenty more too, but we don’t currently have the bandwidth or capital for it all just yet.

We take great pride in seeing you enjoy the farm and produce, but the main reason we and other farms diversify is to subsidise our food production. We’re losing the farming subsidies and gaining a system that will effectively pay us a quarter of the previous one - and that’s for Trenchmore, a farm that already does a lot of the required nature-friendly activities.

We’re also soon to welcome tariff-free trade with countries who produce food with different standards and lower costs, and this last 6 months of rain has resulted in crop failures here and across the country.

So, it’s great to see Clarkson & his motley crew expose the ridiculousness of farming, (whilst earning a thick wedge from Prime) and that the government’s recent relaxation on agricultural planning regulations show that we need to support farmers if we want them to grow food. And ideally, that food should be produced in ways that promote biodiversity, soil health, human health and community engagement.

We are all doing our damnedest, and we are mighty grateful, as always, for your ongoing support to Trenchmore and other British farms. Even Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm.

Next week Henry Porter is taking over the Trenchmore Table.

He has sent me a veggie menu that sounds almost as delicious as the beef one, and serves marinated bbq’d broccolini instead of the hanger steak. You can book either menu online.

We still have a couple of tables available if you’d like to join us. We’d love to have you.

The Trenchmore Table - 7th June

Our fridge is full of steak - tomahawks, sirloins, chuck rib eye, denver, rump, flat iron & bavette. Plus short ribs, roasting joints, mince & diced beef.

The boys are serving burgers and I will be pouring & sipping Cyder Cider in the yard tomorrow.

Come say hey, 11am - 4pm.

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Newsletter 17th May

Good morning,

The grass is growing gangbusters. There’s a barely visible black dog in the photo for scale. The orchard has been slower to get going with the trees only just coming into leaf and not much blossom - it is hard to know what kind of crop we will get this year.

We expect the difference in enthusiasm between grass and trees is that the grass has managed to transpire more water through the leaves, and the deeper tree roots in the orchard are still in cold, wet clay, which signals that it is too soon to bloom.

We’re planning to mow the grass next week to make our first crop of silage, and will be sowing a barley & pea mix into the failed wheat fields soon after. In order to get a proper crop, we should have sown this in middle March but the ground is only just coming dry enough to get on and it is nearing the end of May. It won’t have full ground cover until after the longest day next month, which might mean it tries to produce a seed head too soon and will certainly mean a small crop.

Dad isn’t expecting to recoup the cost of growing it but knows it is part of the regenerative way to keep living plants in the ground year round and we’re playing the long game. So, sow we shall, and reap we shall not - yet.

This month at the Trenchmore Table we are welcoming Henry Porter to the kitchen. Henry grew up in Bexhill and has cooked in restaurants in Sussex & London, including Marcus (of Wareing fame) and etch. under Steve Edwards. He’s off to cook at Noma Copenhagen next year, so we’re very excited to have him cooking at the farm before he heads off.

Henry’s cooking is both style & substance, and his menu brings international flavours to complement local ingredients. This Trenchmore Table will be a celebration of our Sussex Wagyu beef, but we can also cater for veggie appetites.

The Trenchmore Table - 7th June

You can find 3Bros burgers at the farm on Saturday, at Beak Brewery in Lewes on Sunday and at Bison in Hove all bank holiday. It’s a big weekend for burgers.

We have some bavette steaks, roasting joints & short ribs in stock so pre-order or pop in.

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Wishing you a sunny fews days and hopefully a decent burger this weekend.

Rachel x

Newsletter 10th May

Good afternoon,

I hope it’s sunny where you are. I’ve been delivering beef & cider to pubs and restaurants in Sussex today and I can feel a sure shift in energy thanks to the last few days of warmth. It even makes driving in my electric van with its ever present range anxiety feel like a bit of a holiday.

Farmer Knowles and I walked the fields yesterday and it’s amazing what 1.5 inches of rain can do when the ground is already saturated.

The field on the left is our best example of regenerative agriculture as we’ve managed to increase its organic matter by the most - more than doubled. We’d sown a multi-species herbal lay (not cheap, I might add) and things were looking hopeful until the downpour.

Rather than let the cows do more damage, we’ve sacrificed the already sorry wheat field next door (middle & right) and are feeding them 4 bales of hay every day until things dry up. They seem happy enough - it is just more work, stress & cost for everyone else.

In more cheerful news we have multi-species crops growing fiercely elsewhere.

In this picture you can spot grasses, vetch, clover & plantain, and a good healthy shine on them.

And blue skies, thank god for blue skies.

We’re open from 11am - 4pm on Saturday, serving burgers & sipping cider in the sunshine.

We have a fridge full of fresh Sussex Wagyu steaks, so pre-order or pop in.

If you’re in London on Sunday afternoon, I’ll be at the Hop Counter in Kings Cross drinking & chatting about cider, and would love to see you.

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Wishing you a glorious weekend filled with sunshine & good food wherever you are.

Rachel x

Newsletter 2nd May

Good morning,

Saturday was wonderful. We had 700 visitors to our food & drink market and the rain held off until ten minutes before the end. And then didn’t stop all night, but I am really not complaining.

The cattle out in the fields, which is about half of them now, have made a bit of a mess on the new herbal leys after we had 1.5 inches on Saturday night, but we’ve moved them into another paddock and expect the leys to recover just fine once it dries up a little.

We’re hoping it will dry up soon so we can get our spring barley in before it is too late to sow.

We’re waiting for our final calf of the season to be born, and vaccinated all 160 cows and 65 calves for blackleg this week. I caught this lovely thing enjoying a sunny snooze on the hay heap on Tuesday.

We still have a couple of seats left at the Trenchmore Table on Friday, and I’m going to entice you with the Sussex Wagyu centric & delicious sounding menu…

snacks: marmite & honey butter brioche

starter: beef cake, carrot puree & a smoked leek emulsion

main: wagyu rib eye, kohlrabi three ways served w/ potato dauphinoise

finish: chocolate mousse

We can make this gluten free or veggie if you let us know when you book.

info & booking

Newsletter 25th April

Good afternoon,

We are really looking forward to Saturday as it’s our first market since December. With a fairly variable forecast, we’ve evicted a few of our housed cows (happy days for them) and swept out a couple of the bays in the roundhouse barn to make space for seating, in addition to the Cyder Shack.

So we will be here from 11am - 4pm, eating, drinking & being merry no matter the weather. Naturally.

We have a delicious line up of farmers, makers, chefs, foragers, brewers & distillers joining - Spiced Sussex hot sauce, Cocoa Loco, High Weald Dairy, Titch Hill wines, Curing Rebel charcuterie, Tynefield Pork, Nuthurst Lamb, Sussex Bee Farm, Spirit of the Downs, Goldstone Rum, Ringden Farm juices, Wildling Drinks & Terra Vitum tea. And of course plenty of Trenchmore Beef & Silly Moo Cider to fill your boots with.

SoPi pizza & 3Bros burgers will be keeping us fed, and the Moo Tap & Sussex Coffee Truck are keeping us quenched. Nev will set off for the farm tour at 2pm from the yard - just look for the chap in the cowboy hat.

In preparation for the market, we have FILLED the fridges with steaks - sirloin, denver, flat iron, chuck rib eye, fillet, tomahawk, bavette… want it? We’ve got it.

Pre-order online or pop in on Saturday.

beef

The Trenchmore Table is back open next Friday, and we've got an amazing chef joining us for his Trenchmore debut - Dan Ibbotson.

Dan (from Etch. by Steve Edwards) won the Sussex Young Chef of the Year, and was a semi-finalist for the national Young Chef Young Waiter competition in 2021.

The 3 course menu he has put together to showcase our beef has Sussex Wagyu rib eye as the main course, so we know this is going to be one of the most delicious meals served on the farm.

Newsletter 18th April

Good morning,

I hope you knew that signing up to a farm newsletter meant reading a fair amount about the weather. It’s not small talk when your livelihood depends on it. Throw in the fact it has been and will continue to be more extreme and unpredictable, and growing food has been and will continue to be more difficult on the land we’re on, and it becomes an obsession that oscillates between relief and despair. What a ride.

This week, we’re fizzing with relief. The sun is shining and the ground is drying up. We’ve managed to get the first herd of cows with their 6 month old calves outside. We’ve got a couple of old apple trees in blossom. The oak trees on the farm are waking up. The bluebells have carpeted the woodlands in purple. The grass is shiny and fat with that spring starch. The birdsong, more jubilant. The wheat is dead but you can’t have it all.

The yard shop is well stocked with sirloin steaks, fillet steaks, chuck rib eye steaks, tomahawks, roasting joints, short ribs, brisket, rump joints & burgers this week.

Pre-order online or just pop in tomorrow. We’re open 11am-4pm & wagyu burgers are served 12-4pm.

beef

The big news this week is that our Spring market is next Saturday and we have a juicy line-up of growers, makers and bakers joining us.

A few old favourites including High Weald Dairy, Flint Owl Bakery, Flavian’s pork & Curing Rebels charcuterie, plus some new faces like Titch Hill Wine, Spiced Sussex hot sauce, Goldstone Rum & Ringden Farm juice.

3Bros burgers, SoPi Pizza & the Sussex Coffee Truck will be keeping you well fed and caffeinated, and the Silly Moo Cyder tap will be serving tasty tipples.Sussex.

The roaming brass band and DJ Dan are back, and Nev will be setting off on the farm walk at 2pm.

Booking for the next Trenchmore Table supper is now open, and we’re chuffed to announce the winner of the Young Sussex Chef of the year award Dan Ibbotson will be cooking at the farm.

Dan is currently working with Masterchef winner Steve Edwards at etch, so we’re very lucky to be able to peel him away on a Friday evening.

He will be cooking our Sussex Wagyu rib eye as the main dish.

I’ll say no more.

book here

We’re looking forward to…

25th April, 7pm - a spring family bat walk in Cowfold, hosted by Sussex Wildlife Trust’s Huw Morgan. Email to book.

27th April, 5pm - a spring forage walk and a 2 course supper for £10, thanks to Greening Cowfold. Email to book.

A pop-up cinema & supper in Lurgashall - look at the lineup and book here.

5th July, 7pm - a musical romp through the history of land rights, with Silly Moo Cyder on the bar at the Cowfold village hall.

Newsletter 27th March

Good morning,

The spells of sunshine and extra hour in the evenings felt good on the long weekend. It certainly seems like we have turned a seasonal corner with the orders for Silly Moo going out to pubs and restaurants last week, and the number of people enjoying a burger with sun on their faces in the yard on Saturday.

The sunshine hasn’t quite been enough to mitigate the showers we’ve also had, so we’re still a couple of weeks away from turning the herd out. We have some fields that could do with a half dose of fertiliser to get enough grass growth to make sufficient grub for the cattle next winter, but we’d make ruts if we tried to spread them just yet. So, patiently, we wait.

In the meantime, I wanted to tell you about what else has been going on over here.

We’ve upped the Moo factor. We deliver some of our trade orders in a little electric van and thought it was about time to give it a makeover, so now I’m very easy to spot out & about. We’re working on getting solar panels installed on our barn roof and then we will be able to charge the van on solar power - so these deliveries will be without emissions, and we’ll be able to run a lot of the farm electrics on renewables.

We’re also now selling Moo merch online and in the yard shop. Navy organic cotton tee-shirts, with a little Silly Moo summat on the front & back. You can order here.

The calving is starting to tail off. We had our first ever identical twins a few weeks back - only 2% of pregnancies result in calf twins, and even less are the result of an embryo splitting early on so they are very very special. I’ve only managed to photo one of them (above left), but as I said, they’re identical, so once you’ve seen one… And I spotted a sweet group snooze today (right).

The Brewhouse Project are serving up a 3 course feast, bringing together the flavours of Trenchmore Farm & Arundel Brewery in the yard this Friday.

We just have 4 seats left, so please book if you fancy the sound of wagyu & ale croquettes, smoked short ribs, treacle tart and, of course, some pretty fine beer and cyder.

Until next time,

Rachel x

Newsletter 20th March

Good afternoon,

And a jolly sunny spring equinox to you. Daylight hours, temperatures and spirits are on the ascent, and even the fields are drying up in some patches. It’s still too sodden for the cattle, but with a few more days like today we’re hoping we can put out the first 45 cows and their calves in a week or so.

Farmer Knowles and I walked the fields this morning to check on the state of things, and it is a mixed bag. The blackthorn blossom is adorning a lot of the hedges, providing an early spot of pollen for the bees. The grass is looking lush in places, and  today tends to be a turning point for its growth. And we spotted lots of worm castings, which is a sign of good things and healthy soils.

Our diverse population wheat hasn’t fared so well. With some 40 inches of rain this winter, it looks like the crop is unlikely worth harvesting. Even our best field (below) is a sorry sight. We can make out some of the rows of wheat, but most have drowned and the crop is very thin, so we’re planning to oversow with peas and oats as soon as it’s dry enough to get on, and then turn this into silage for the cattle.

Our farm is on heavy Wealden clay, which is unforgiving. The water retention will serve us well in a drought, but makes things difficult with this amount of rainfall. I think the answer for Trenchmore with our climate becoming more extreme, more warm and more wet is that we stop fighting our soils and stick with grass, herbal pastures, apple trees and livestock. We do those pretty well, after all.

This Saturday,

23rd March

We have 3 troupes and 40 or so Sussex morris dancers taking over the yard on Saturday, so we’re expecting a lot of noise & merriment. Please join us to bless the orchard and have a dance from 12-3pm. 3Bros Burgers are on the menu and you can pre-order here or just pop along. It is free to attend.

Friday 5th April

The Brewhouse Project are taking over the Trenchmore Table on 5th April, serving a 3 course feast of beef & beer in our cyder shack.

You can book a seat here.

Newsletter 6th March

Good afternoon,

A very short one today because it is gloriously sunny here and I’ve just popped inside to make tea for the pruners.

It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday and whether or not you’re celebrating, all Sundays are good reason for a roast. We’ve got extra Sussex Wagyu top rump & topside roasting joints in the fridge, and some fresh tomahawks - at last. Pop in from 11am on Saturday, or reserve one online.

Mythago Mythago and friends are chanting & dancing around the orchard on 23rd March. What with blessings & some pruning, we’re expecting a stellar crop this year. The wassail and hot food will be from 12-3pm. It’s free to attend, there’s no need to book, families are welcome and face paint is encouraged.

Also, the next Trenchmore Table supper will be on Friday 5th April with chef Michael Notman-Watt. We will start taking bookings soon, so keep an eye out.

Right, I’m heading back to enjoy the sunshine with my loppers. Long may this weather continue.

Rachel

Newsletter 28th Feb

Good afternoon,

March is days away and with it, hopefully some warmth, longer days and signs of spring. Sam managed to source some early wild garlic for our Valentine’s menu, and the apple trees are beginning to wake. We’ve only managed to prune half the orchard so far - the cold, dark days and relentless rain haven’t been beckoning me & my secateurs outside, but next week looks like we’re due some sunshine so I’m hoping to spend the afternoons trimming. Let me know if you’d like to join me.

We’ve had 30 calves in the last couple of weeks, which means we’re almost halfway through the spring calving block. They will all be turned out into the fields in a month or so.

With Mother’s Day and Easter fast approaching, we are well stocked with Rosie’s lamb - in the fridges and on our supper club menu this week. You can pre-order a box or joint on our website ready to collect on Saturday - or we can hold it in the freezer until Easter if you prefer.

Rosie runs her flock of Suffolk mule ewes from Nuthurst Farm, grazing meadows, pastures, orchards and vineyards around the Horsham area. She sells her lamb from September through to May, supplying the Trenchmore shop and local customers, chefs and butchers. The lambs are also native cross breeds, famed for the flavour. They're reared on grass in a slow, extensive system, which gives the animals a better life and a truer, richer tasting meat.

We’re mostly full but do have some seats available at Friday’s Trenchmore Table, if you haven’t yet booked.

Sam is prepping the lambs tomorrow and we’re all set for quite the feast. We can cater for veggie & vegan appetites, but we need to know at the time of booking as everything is prepared to order.

menu + booking

The yard shop & Moo tap is open this Saturday 11-4pm, and the boys are cooking burgers 12-3pm. You can order a burger here.

Newsletter 22nd Feb

Good morning,

Nev has a weather gauge in his garden so we get a regular rainfall update - we’ve had over 35 inches in the last 6 months, and our average is 27 inches for the whole year. So it’s been wet. Wetter than wet. And the sodden ground makes doing things in the field harder, slower and muddier. Rosie’s Suffolk mules in the orchard seem happy enough, noses down bottoms up, in their thick woollen coats.

menu + booking

Talking of which, Rosie’s lamb will be on the Trenchmore Table next Friday, prepared 4 ways and served with tacos. We’d love you to join us.

Tacos, for anyone unfamiliar, are small round soft corn discs, not to be confused with crunchy tortilla chips. They serve as the perfect tasty little vessel for all manner of meat, fish & veggie toppings.

Chef Sam was crowned Taco King at last year’s Tacover, the UK’s biggest taco festival. Between him and Nuthurst Lamb, we’re in for the biggest taco treat this side of Mexico.

The full menu is available online, and we’re able to organise veggie and vegan options if you let us know when you book. It’s £45 per person or £160 for a group of 4, as this style of food is certainly best shared between friends.

The yard shop & Moo tap is open this Saturday 11-4pm, and the boys are cooking burgers 12-3pm.

Restaurant Interlude have been awarded the first Michelin Green Star for West Sussex, which recognises their ethics as well as their cooking.

They’re 2 miles from our farm and support us in a really real way - regularly buying our beef, eggs, grain & cider and kindly naming us on their 20-odd course tasting menu - which is tight for word space as you might imagine.

We’re proud as punch to work with them, and chuffed for their well deserved successes.

And lastly, I enjoyed a video of Highland cattle spending their winter at the beach this week. Not planning on taking ours on a day trip to East Wittering anytime soon.

Newsletter 9th Feb

Good afternoon,

If you need a little reassurance that spring isn’t far off, we welcomed our first spring calf this afternoon. And we welcomed Rosie’s ewes back into the orchard to nibble down the grass for a few weeks on Monday.

Our wheat is hanging in despite being drowned, then frozen and drowned once more. The reseeded grass looks good, and with some sunnier drier weather, it should start to really take off.  

We’ve decanted all of the 2023 harvest cider to blend it with fresh apple juice from Ringden Farm, as our acidity was a little low (please don’t @ me about the bramley ban…). The pH for our orchard & swap fruit was 4, and it ideally needs to be less than 4 in order to remain stable - the acidity of Ringden’s fruit is lower than usual too but higher than ours so should do the trick.

I posted about the 2023 low acidity in apples on the cider maker’s google forum and so far just had a response from Nick in Oregon with the same experience, but not much of a suggestion as to why. So as with most things, I’ll resort to blaming the weather as the amount of rain and sun endured, especially in the 70 days before picking, does influence the flavour of the fruit. In both Sussex & Oregon, presumably.

We have 3bros serving burgers in the yard 12-3pm tomorrow, whilst the yard shop & Moo Tap is open 11am-4pm, with plenty o’ beef in the fridges.

Valentine’s Day Steak night has just a couple of steaks left for any last minute romantics, or singletons who can eat beef for two.

I’ve booked some great new stalls for our Spring market, which is still a few months away but certainly a date for your diaries: 27th April.

Newsletter 2nd Feb

Good morning,

The year is off to a good start. With the shop closed and the trade a little quieter, we’ve been able to push ahead with various yard jobs and get on top of some paperwork. Dad has been preparing for our annual Red Tractor inspection today, we’ve TB tested the whole herd - and been given the all clear - and treated most of the cattle for lice. We’ve mucked out and carted most of the dung store to a field heap for spreading in due course. Plus a little painting, cleaning and orchard pruning.

The yard shop is back open tomorrow and will be open every Saturday 11am - 4pm, & serving burgers every week from midday until they sell out. You can book online here for this week, or just pop in.

Our Valentine’s Day steak night is filling up nicely, with a few tables left if you fancy joining us. Each steak is to be shared between 2 people and you can book in multiples for larger groups. More info is here.

Silly Moo Cider Wassail

Our little orchard has done us proud over the last 12 years, and produced a juicy bumper crop in 2023.

It gets an annual prune but to keep things on an upward fruitful trajectory, we think it wise to up the ante & throw in a wassail for good measure this year.

Join us, Mythago Mythago & Black Swan morris dancers for an afternoon of food, cyder & orchard blessings on 23rd March.

Free to attend, families welcome & face paint encouraged.

Come, make some noise & sip some cyder with us.

Newsletter 19th January

Good afternoon,

We’ve just started taking bookings for our steak night on 14th February and would love you to join us. Chef Sam will be cooking fillet, tomahawks and flat irons over flames to your taste, and serving with fries & salad, with a little something small before and sweet after. Nothing says te amo quite like grass-fed suckler herd Sussex Wagyu steak.

More details and booking can be found on our website here.

Moo love x

Newsletter 28th December

Good morning,

I hope you’re enjoying a slow few days. If you’re looking for a reason to get outside we are open for burgers, mulled cyder and farm produce on Saturday from 11am ‘til 4pm and would love to see you.

And then that’s it from us until February.

The online shop remains open and we can fulfil local cider deliveries, but any meat or cider ordered for collection will be ready for you on 3rd February.

All the very best until then,

Rachel, Andrew, Nev, the cows & the last few hens that refused to relocate.

Newsletter 21st December

Good morning,

With 2023 being almost done, we thought we’d send a round up of how it went at Trenchmore this year. Notes from the field by Andrew.

We started the year with 300 cattle in the barns and by April we had another 58 healthy calves from 62 cows. A little shy of our target of 95%, but given the ripe old age of some of our foundation cows, a good result. 

With calving complete, everything settled down until two of the strongest calves dropped dead at around 3 months old. Post-mortems revealed nothing untoward, so tissue and blood samples were sent to the lab. They drew a blank for all the major diseases, with selenium deficiency offered as the prime suspect. 

Nev wasn't convinced, as cows generally can’t get in calf if essential minerals are unavailable but he administered a quick action drench, followed by a slow release trace element bolus a few weeks later.

I don't want to jinx things but we haven't lost any since.

As you may recall, after a very mild, dry February we saw little but rain in March. April remained too wet to turn out the cows and unusually cool, so grass growth was delayed. Eventually, the jet stream shifted North, clear skies returned and some welcome warm winds soon dried out the ground and the grass absolutely took off.

We finally turned out the herd a month later than usual - in the middle of May - and 10 days later we were pleasantly surprised to harvest 750 bales of silage.

Our arable enterprise didn't fare so well. We planned to sow 30 acres of spring barley in early April, but failed to get the crop into the ground until early May. By the time the seed had germinated and the leaves were fully covering the ground we had under a fortnight before the longest day. You can't beat the laws of physics so despite a sunny June, the late start couldn't be made up for. Instead of our expected yield of around 2 tons of grain to the acre, we harvested less than half that amount off our best field. The crop was so thin elsewhere that we cut and baled it for winter forage - straw and all.

After a hot, dry June, the weather challenges returned in July with spells of wet weather making hay making particularly stressful. With some anxious late nights carting barely dry enough hay before rain arrived, we managed to make 260 bales of our target of 500, wrapping the remainder as silage rather than lose the crop.

Our orchard, on the other hand, enjoyed a bumper season. With no late frosts the fruit set was very good and the strong June light quickly produced a full leaf cover. Despite some fairly ferocious pruning by Rosie's sheep, (they were supposed to be eating the grass beneath the trees), almost all 19 varieties produced a heavy crop.

September is my favourite month and was particularly warm and sunny this year, helping our 60 Autumn cows to birth 57 healthy calves in the fields (the magic 95%) and prolonging the ripening of the apples, raising the sugars to a high level. Harvest started in earnest in mid October, with welcome help from locals, the scouts and a professional picking gang we cleared the orchard in early November, our fermentation tanks brimful.

We've also been busy with construction this year. With an expanding herd we have put up a big new barn extension for hay and straw, and subsequently converted our old straw barn into an airy calving pen. We have also begun laying pipes for a rainwater harvesting set-up to water the cows from the roof.

With an expanding shop and more regular events you may have experienced our cosy new ablutions block and up-cycled garden shed, aka the Cyder Shack. It’s available for private hire, so bear us in mind should you be looking for a rustic space for an event next year. Building cost inflation has been quite sobering but we have managed to re-use a lot of old timber and materials, and are delighted to see the new facilities being enjoyed whatever the weather.

The hamster wheel spun ferociously this year - here's wishing all of us a kinder and calmer 2024.

Yard shop & burger hours

23.12.23 11-4pm

30.12.23 11-4pm

January - closed

03.02.24 11-4pm

10.02.24 11-4pm

17.02.24 11-4pm

24.02.24 11-4pm

Newsletter 14th December

Good evening,

It was lovely to see so many of you at our Christmas market on Saturday. Despite the forecast, we had spots of blue sky and a jolly merry afternoon - and served 48.4 litres of warm mulled cider! Cin cin.

Well done to the 5 raffle winners, and thank you to everyone who bought a ticket - we raised £265 for Sussex Nightstop.

Wagyu bresaola

The perfect Christmas nibble is on offer - buy two packs and collect three on 16th or 23rd December - order here.

Excellent mouthful suggestion from Jamie O here.

Burgers in the yard

3Bros are serving burgers in the yard on 16th, 23rd & 30th December from midday - book here or just pop in.

They will be back in the yard every Saturday from 3rd February.

The Trenchmore Table - 22.12.23

We’ve added a few extra seats to our festive supper club - have a look at the menu & information about the evening here.

January hibernation

The yard shop will be closed in January to give the shopkeepers time to recharge, resuming 11-4pm hours every Saturday on 3rd February.

Newsletter 1st Dec

Good afternoon,

Next week is our Christmas market and alongside our usual array of wonderful Sussex food & drink producers, we have a few extra treats in store. Andy is bringing his 3-foot potted Christmas trees, and I can report that the one I bought 2 years ago, which lives 11 months of the year outside and is soon to be dragged back indoors for its month of *jazz hands* showtime, is still in cracking health. Plus, they’re grown on the lane and only £25 each.

We will also have some very special scented candles and room diffusers, handmade in Sussex from natural ingredients by Parkminster.

Plus a couple of Sussex Taste Collective hampers to win in a raffle, with a selection of lovely things from each market stall. Raffle tickets can be bought at the bar and all the money will go to Sussex Nightstop, a charity working with the homeless.

The Cyder Shack will have tables and a log burner for cosy sheltered seating.

In the meantime, whilst wreaths are being made, 3Bros will be serving burgers tomorrow from midday. You can book a burger here or just pop in.

We’re stocked with steaks, brisket & roasting joints this week, and will inevitably be sipping mulled cider from 11am tomorrow as it is now December, officially the judgement-free sip-heavy month.

online shop

Something to listen to…

The Food Programme looking at the food culture in Gaza, and what the current conflict has done to food supplies.

Sliced Bread confirming that a potted Christmas tree is the ethical choice - thanks Andy.

A Paul McCartney & Wings banger that was my most played song of 2023, according to Spotify Wrapped.

Second was Taylor Swift, which makes me blame the algorithms.

Newsletter 24th November

Good morning,

With a little over a month to go, the end of the year is just about in sight and with it comes a period of slowing as we follow the cycle of the seasons, and settle down for winter.

For now, there’s still golden leaves our apple trees and plenty of festivity to ride out the next few weeks on, with all the sparkle and delicious indulgence that comes with this time of year.

To kick things off, we’re serving wagyu burgers & mulled cider tomorrow from midday. You can book a burger online or just pop in tomorrow.

We will be making wreaths on 2nd December and our Christmas market is on 9th December.

Christmas Market 9th December

11am - 4pm

We have 15 local producers to peruse, hot food & drinks to keep us well-fed and live music & DJ Dan providing some seasonably jolly vibes.

The farm walk will leave the yard at 2.30pm, the woodshed will be open for sheltered seating and our yard will be full of merriment no matter the weather.

We have local pork & lamb boxes which you can order and collect at the market, as well.