Every year is different in this funny old world of farming - Britain didn't get the sunshine in late Spring and early Summer and consequently, the grain didn't swell and ripen to its fullest at the expected time.  Reports across the country were that both the winter barley and winter wheat crops were down in tonnage - and we were no exception.  

Coupled with the weather, most farmers reported major problems with black grass in cereal crops - a problem we encountered too, meaning the combine harvester had to cut much slower to gently ease areas of crop entangled with this unwelcome weed, through the combine reel.  Only a couple of time did Ben raise his eyes to the heavens, climb out and untangle the clump wedged.  We all really do need corn prices to rise to compensate for the lack of tonnage this year.  Fingers crossed.  We should hopefully finish cutting the milling wheat by 2nd September.

The oilseed rape crop has done surprisingly well despite the dry spring.  So plenty of our rapeseed oil for you all this coming year! 

The grapevines have looked the best ever this year.  So we are hoping for a bumper harvest.  We had three local brides choose our holiday cottage www.fulbeckgardenscottage.com as a base this Spring and early summer.  Our third bride, local girl Laura, approached us and asked if she could host a simple wedding celebration down in the gardens of the vineyard and cottage.  A lover of afternoon tea, her simple, but beautiful wedding had the perfect backdrop to the walled kitchen garden, with photos taken in the vineyard rows - you must take a look at our www.facebook.com/Ownsworths and @Ownsworths Twitter pages to see some pretty photos.  We were delighted when they asked us to supply them with some of our new sparkling white and sparkling blush wines from the vineyard which we put personalised labels on for them. They also chose to spend their wedding night in the cottage, which we dressed to perfection for our beautiful couple. Congratulations to Laura and Gary and we were delighted to play a small part in your very special day on 27th August.