Almost every small town has a "Farm Store". They are privately owned produce stores that try to sell as much local produce as possible. (The English are very adamant about buying locally grown or manufactured products.) Usually the farm stores are owned by a family who has a working farm. Whatever their farm does not produce, they try to buy locally. They then buy from other sources.
You can see the Bower Hinton Farm Store, the store that is within walking distance of our apartment, in the distance. This area of our village of Martock is called Bower Hinton, and the main road running through Martock is Bower Hinton Road. Bower Hinton is one of the oldest parts of the town, and the original buildings are several hundred years old. I am guessing that the buildings connected to the farm store are at least that old. The first building on the left is the home of the older man that owns the farm. The next building on the left is the former stable area. It looks like it could have had more than 20 horses there in the past. Now it is used as a garage area. The building on the right is used for storage. The farm has been in the family for a long time. About 20 years ago it was also a dairy. The sons of the old man run the farm now, and the daughters-in-law run the shop.
The farm has 20 acres dedicated to produce, and most of the rest is wheat. They grow tomatoes, corn, lettuce, cauliflower, zucchini, cucumber, onions, peppers, and more.
The three daughters of one of the women who runs the shop---Megan, Rachel, and Louise--- are always playing outside the shop when they are not at school. Lauren and Katelyn liked talking to them. These are a couple of pictures of Megan and Rachel playing in the hay---they were jumping down in the holes between the bales and then climbing back out. (The round bales that are left in the fields are all covered with plastic----there is special equipment to cover the bales)
6 comments:
Glad you have a place to buy fresh vegetables. How does it compare to Green's in Arlington? Keep the blogs coming. Can learn so much about England from them.
Tell GG about the prices at the farm shop! The girls playing in the hay reminds me of playing in CawCaw's barn with Jennifer, Chad, and Jerrel. Hay always reminds me of that awful feeling of having the wind knocked out of you - I jumped/fell off the hay bales the wrong way once. Strange the things you remember! Lauren and Katelyn would have loved to play in the hay with those girls!
Isn't hay itchy?
The fruit looks so good! Have you and Ron been eating healthy over there?
I love the photos! Thank you!!!
Steve
Does the farm fresh food taste a lot different than Kroger's produce?
The produce compares very well to Green's Produce at home. However, the prices are higher than the grocery stores, and the grocery store prices are 2x as high as home! (Grocery stores here try really hard to buy local products, too, so their products are good) So, because of prices, I buy very little from the Farm Store, even though I would really like to support them.
We eat about as healthy as at home, though I am not sure that we eat very healthy, since we have to have the sweets! I do tend to buy more prepared foods than at home because of not being able to find ingredients that I am used to.... and mostly because of our very limited fridge and freezer space. (We have a dorm-sized refrigerator!) We have to go to the store about every 3 days!
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