Past Courses and Events

July workday is always a fruit picking day, especially strawberries. There weren't quite as many as last year, but we managed to pick 38kg.

The Stables Project from York visited Old Sleningford, organised through the LAND project. They were particularly interested in our wood fired pizza oven, as they are about to build one themselves. We had a wander to see the pigs and the Forest Garden before making pizzas for lunch. Everyone made their own, choosing the toppings they liked, and everyone managed to get theirs in to the oven from the peel without dropping it. After lunch, we had a walk by the lake and in to the woods where the rope swing and tree climbing finished the day off.

Another full course for the pig keeping day on a sunny spring day. The pigs were enjoying the sunshine and dived straight in to the wallow the course participants made for them.

Our Smoking and Curing Course proved so popular this year that we added an extra date to accommodate all the people who wanted to attend. They all had a day of sampling cured and smoked food, and learning about dry curing, brining, hot and cold smoking. New foods we tried this year were smoked liver and smoked nuts - very nice indeed!

Another three fun days of sausage making were held during March and April, with 12 people getting to grips with mincing, stuffing and linking. We made a variety of flavours, incuding some salami and a dried garlic version, which are hung drying at the moment.

The willow and hazel around Old Sleningford is now very abundant and therefore there was plenty of material to be able to run three chair making workshops this year. In total, 16 people came and made 10 chairs - all different shapes and sizes, and all beautiful and unique. Amazing considering everyone starts out with the same sorts of bits of wood.

Winter is the time for planting trees and that's when a Forest Garden can start to take shape. 13 people came to the February Forest Garden course and took the opportunity to see the structure of our forest garden whilst in its winter state. A timely course for a number of the participants who are planning to plant in the next year. "Just to say thank-you for such a good day. So much valuable information. I feel more confident to plan a design before I start to plant up."

The pig course scheduled for the beginning of January was postponed due to the snow but did run at the end of January. 9 people spent the day learning about pig husbandry and a good couple of hours was spent with the pigs, who behaved themselves and enjoyed the tummy tickles. "A big thanks for a great day today, we all enjoyed it very much and got a lot out of your course. It answered and covered everything we wanted to know" said one participant.

Our apple juicing weekend was so popular last year we decided to spread the dates out in 2009, which also meant that people with early apples could make some juice too. New equipment also meant the process was more streamlined - no more chopping apples as the new 'shredder' will take whole fruit. It was nice to see people we only see once a year juicing, and to see some new faces. Looking forward to trying cider samples in the summer.

We got to know about the North Yorkshire Slow Food Convivium earlier in the year and their ethos of good, clean and fair food fits in well with our thoughts on how food should be raised and grown. So, we organised a day for their members, starting with a tour of the farm, pizza from our wood oven for lunch then an afternoon of juicing apples. It was beautiful weather, we had lunch outside and it took a bit of motivating to get people on to making some apple juice from the fruit they had brought with them, but they soon got in to the swing of washing, milling and pressing. We hope to do more with Slow Food in the future.

The Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) have an extensive programme of events throughout the year and they asked if we would host a visit to be of interest to smallholders. 40 people came on a glorious September day and had a tour of the farm, taking in the wood fired heating systems, charcoal burning, Forest Garden and the animals. Pizza lunch sat in the sunshine, made with ingredients mostly from the farm.

We've had lots of visitors to the farm in 2009, some for a general look round, some on a more formal visit. The group which came on September workday were from West Yorkshire and were looking at planting a forest garden. After a morning of looking round, talking about ways of achieving a large scale forest garden and picking raspberries and other fruit, we had lunch then got down to some serious mulching. A couple of hours later and 10 tons of manure had been moved, a fantastic days work - thanks to all of them.

A third pig keeping course on the farm in 2009, which co-incided with the arrival of Plunkys litter of piglets. After lots of tummy tickles, the participants helped to move Plunky away from her piglets to wean them, they were 8 weeks old and big enough to fend for themselves!

The second Forest Garden course of the year and another group of people interested in implementing some forest garden ideas in their gardens / allotments / woodlands - a wide range once again. Our forest garden was in full soft fruit production and we tasted our way around.

Two popular sausage making days were held on the farm in July. We use meat from our pigs, our home-made bread and, when possible, other ingredients from our garden to make delicious sausages. A family member of one of the participants who had a taste said "100/100, but the sage & onion a few points more because of the most unusual succulence of the oniony bits". High praise indeed!

Anna Poulton and Stuart Whitehead, who have a workshop at Old Sleningford, opened their doors as part of the North Yorkshire Open Studios. Work by other local artists including Hester Cox, who runs printmaking workshops at the farm, were also on display. The Forest Garden was also open with some of our rustic chairs for people to take a seat on.

A beautiful day for the pig keeping course in June, the piglets were very happy with the wallow the participants made for them.

Old Sleningford opened it's gates to visitors once again and everyone enjoyed the formal house gardens as well as our Forest Garden. The gardens are open as part of the Yellow Book gardens open for charity on the first weekend in June each year.

The first course for Plunky since she and her piglets arrived on the farm. They all behaved very well (pigs and partcipants!).

Edible Forest Gardening April 2009

Once again, there was a mix of creative and traditional chairs made on the 2009 chair making workshop. 5 people made 3 chairs using hazel for the frame and willow for the seat, arms and back. One chair even had a built in cup holder!

The threatened 80 mile an hour winds and 3 inches of rain thankfully didn't materialise for our annual Apple Juicing and Cider Making weekend. Over 90 people came with a variety of different apples and we made gallons and gallons of delicious juice. Some went home with instructions on cider making, others with instructions on how to make a press. Everyone got stuck in to washing, chopping, shredding and pressing the apples and everyone had a sample of juice as it came out of the press. We're already planning modifications to the press and additional equipment for next year so get it in your diary - the last weekend in October 2009.

A second Edible Forest Gardening course ran in October 2008. Using the Forest Garden and orchard at the farm, the 6 participants learnt how to utilise growing space to maximize productivity, without creating themselves too much work. As the Forest Garden at Old Sleningford matures, we anticipate there will be a greater demand for courses and information about this way of growing food and we will be organising more in the coming years.

For the past 4 years we have made suasages, bacon and hams from our pigs and we decided it was high time we shared some of our recipes and techniques with other people who are as passionate as us about food. The thing about making your own sausages, smoked or cured food is you can be 100% sure of what ingredients have gone in to them. No rusk, water, smoke flavours or preservatives go in to our food, just salt and natural flavours from herbs and spices. We hope we have encouraged all the course attendees to use natural ingredients too. An essential part of the courses is tasting some of the food, either made by the attendees or by us previously. This gives the opportunity to discuss flavours and textures and make suggestions for alterations or improvements to our recipes. We hope to run more of these courses in 2009, please contact us if you are interested in attending.

Old Sleningford welcomed a large number of people over the summer, who attended the Gardens Open for Charity weekend, the Yorkshire Gardens Trust summer picnic and a thank-you party for volunteers at Ripon Cathedral. Visitors were invited to look round the Forest Garden as part of their tour. Many people were intrigued and inspired by the way plants and trees were growing together, especially when they could pick the strawberrys and raspberrys that were just coming ripe. Rachel also hosted a visit from RHS Garden Harlow Carr. Matthew Wilson, the Curator and Head of Garden is planning a Forest Garden at Harlow Carr in partnership with Bettys and Taylors, and has asked Rachel to help design and plan the planting. The first planting is planned for winter 2008.

6 budding pig keepers came on the course to learn all about pig keeping and to decide if it was for them. They spent quite a bit of time with the pigs, who were very friendly, and they all went away with plans for what breed they would get and where they were going to live.

We had two pond puddling sessions, both on perfect days for the job - it was raining! Clay was dug up from the bottom of our field, where there is a lake already. The pond is in the wildlife area within the Forest Garden and will hopefully attract lots of beneficial insects and amphibians.

9 people joined the Edible Woodlands Course and had a very "informative and inspiring" day. There were lots of discussions about growing and planting crops for food and a couple of cold visits to the Forest Garden and orchard.

The participants on this course all went home with a beautiful and unique chair - handmade by themselves. Willow and hazel, grown on or near the farm, was used to create the chairs. The chair designs grew organically as the wood was joined together and bent in to shape. This is an annual workshop and will be run in February or March of each year.

The rain on Saturday didn't put off us tree planters, and by the end of Sunday 560 trees had been planted.

Another busy and productive day at our annual Apple Juicing in 2007. Over 60 people came and used the equipment to make around 400 gallons of juice!

Over the bank holiday weekend, we had a few people come to help make our pizza oven. Everyone got stuck in mixing the cob and forming the thick walls of the oven. The oven is now fully operational and we've found a pizza session is a real social affair as everyone gets involved in preparing the toppings, making pizzas and eating them.

It was a lovely day for the pig keeping course, so we spent lots of time outside with the pigs. As the photo shows, they weren't keen on being moved with the boards, but as soon as the food came out, they would do anything!

Thanks to a Tree Council grant, we were able to plant phase 3 of the Forest Garden. We also planted a shelter belt of poplar. Over 50 people came and helped over 3 days planting, which also entailed mulching with carpet, cardboard and straw and eating lots of nice food!