We can’t believe it’s already May! The winter flew by in a flurry of painting, digging, and chainsawing and we opened in March this year – the first time we haven’t been locked down! We enjoyed wonderful weather at Easter- in fact very little rain for about 6 weeks, so as I write this it is raining steadily. This will be so good for all of our vegetable garden, although I can almost hear the weeds growing!
Our new orchard is growing well, especially our new Quince trees – full of blossom, so fingers crossed for fruit! Also, our slightly older trees in the Forest Garden are producing lots of blossom. As we have to take down diseased Ash trees, we are thinking of planting a variety of cherries – the wild ones seem to do very well, so we feel it is worth experimenting.
I was delighted and very honoured to speak briefly (very briefly for those who know me!) at the South West Tourism Awards in Exeter, about winning awards last year, and what the subject of sustainability means to us a business. This of course is a subject that I could have talked about for the entire evening, but I feel at the moment it has become more important as we all try to save resources and cut our bills. What we have been experimenting with over the last few years, and no doubt seemed pretty odd and whacky to some, has suddenly become very relevant to the majority of us.
We are in a very lucky position to have been able to design and equip a building from scratch, and most people will not be in a position to do this. However, our own home is a 1920’s block built bungalow, powered by oil, so in effect we are in the same position here. At the moment we have decided that when the oil runs out (any time soon as it has been on order for 3 months) that’s it – we are having solar panels and battery storage installed, and we will be looking at a new cooker (this is the most painful part for me as I have loved our ancient Aga), and an alternative source of heating – probably timed storage radiators rather than air source heat pumps – we are not convinced of their efficiency & reliability in a salt laden atmosphere! Watch this space – we’ll let you know how we are getting on!
