Saturday 28 September 2013

Sleepy puppies!

This how the puppies are spending this lovely evening! Isla (the gold puppy) is asleep on her back, she's obviously tired herself out from playing with all the different visitors that have been to the garden today! 










Getting Better!

Im glad to say tom, our four year old male Rhea, is back to his usual self! 
Whatever was wrong with him last week seems to have cleared up completely because he's back to being mischievous and pinching food out of our hands. 
Last week he seemed to be a bit under the weather but that's been and gone. Maybe it was just a bit of seasonal flu! 

                 
                                   He's a friendly bird really!

Four years and counting...

            

After being at the garden for four years, we finally have seen the grape vine produce a magnificent crop of black grapes. They are so delicious and tangy! The grape vine must be one to two hundred years old and yet it's taken years in our posession to see a decent crop. 
It's good that they taste good because we got grapes by the bucket full, well actually the vine full! 

              

The grapes are sweetest and least sour at the black/dark blue stage but if you pick one that's red/purple then beware they are so sour, It'll really give your taste buds a wake up call! 
The grapes will be available for you to pick by hand yourself, just ask one of our lovely volunteers about getting either a punnet or a little bag. Bringing your own bags/tubs to pick is always appreciated by us and the environment for recycling! Our homegrown completely organic grown grapes straight off of the vine will be priced at £5 per kilo. Ask one of our volunteers in the shop (our if they're working around the garden like they are most days) to weigh the grapes you've picked on the scales in the shop, they'll always be happy to help if you have any concerns or questions! 


             

Monday 23 September 2013

Poorly Tom

Sadly our male Rhea, Tom, isn't feeling great. He's become lame in his right leg.
We don't know why this is but we've had the vet in and they've told us just to put food and water next to him in his bed so that he doesn't have to go far for it. 
So hopefully he'll be back on his feet soon! 

Pup-date five weeks

The puppies are five weeks old today!
We've already began the weaning process but it seems that their not interested in the puppy milk we make up for them, they'd rather have their mothers milk. The only problems with this is that tusa, the mother, is all scraped and covered in scratches because the puppies teeth and claws are so sharp when their suckling. 
One thing they do seem to enjoy very much is cooked chicken and tuna chunks! From three weeks old they've been nearly biting our fingers off for the cooked meat!

 

Saturday 14 September 2013

Pup-date photos








Puppies, puppies and more puppies! An original pup-date!

So this Monday the puppies will be four weeks old! How time flies when you're being used as a teething chew toy for five little tykes! 
All five pups are up on their feet with their eyes and ears open, attacking and playing with anything that moves (including my feet!). 
Their teeth are developing so quickly and sadly so are their chewing habits. 
But all that aside their little bundles of fun and joy! Over the last week we've been experimenting by feeding the puppies cooked chicken and cooked fish, they nearly took our fingers off I think they prefer that to their mums milk!! 
More pup-dates to follow!






Saturday 31 August 2013

A Day In The Life... Of Tom and Barbara!




We set up our new surveillance camera in the hen pen last night to try and catch footage of the fox that's been terrorising our birds. No luck with that but Tom and Barbara gave us a little giggle with their interest in the camera and all of their posing and their curiosity about the camera.

The camera works with a motion sensor so when ever the birds moved it went off, so we actually got no footage at night but this morning there was a lot of footage to go through... All of Tom and Barbara of course.


Tuesday 6 August 2013

Peacock, Peahen and now Peachicks!

Last night We're glad to announce the arrival of six new additions to the Walled Garden family!
Now it may not be quite as important and royal as Kate and Wills new baby but Betty and Barney, our Peahen and Peacock of course, hatched out six beautiful little chicks last night. All are healthy and vibrant and will now be kept in the peacock box until their big and strong enough to avoid being eaten by certain intruders. (foxes, buzzards ect.) 
Last year Betty hatched out five chicks and sadly all were taken by the local foxes. This year though we plan to take extra precautions and make sure all are kept safe and sound! 


Laura our Spanish volunteer holding one of the new hatchlings.



Thursday 1 August 2013

Some Photo Updates of the Summer...
















Organically Grown Shop Produce

All of the produce in our shop is organically grown and free range.

Free Range Eggs: Per Dozen
Hen - £2.70 
Duck - £3.00
Quail- £3.00

Per Half Dozen
Hen - £1.35
Duck - £1.50

Fresh Free Range Eggs!

Free Range Meat:

Beef - £8.00/kg
Venison - £5.00/kg
Wild Boar - £9.00/kg

All of our free range meat from Balcorrach, our sister farm in Glenlivet. 

Fresh Produce:

Strawberry Jam 
8oz Jar - £1.75
  16oz Jar - £2.75

Broccoli - £2.50/kg
Baby Carrots - £3.00/kg
Strawberries - £4.00/kg
Rhubarb - £3.00/kg
Lettuce - £1.00/kg
Parsley/Spinach/Rocket/Mint Leaves - £6.00/kg

Also coming into season soon 

Cucumber
Blackberries
Red currants
White currants
Black currents
Raspberries 
Tomatoes 
Cabbage
Potatoes.






Delivery Available to Keith, Drummuir and Dufftown. 
Any enquiries contact Jenny at heronjenny@supanet.co.uk
or Emma at Emmaheron-smith@hotmail.co.uk

Saturday 20 July 2013

Heat wave Britain!

I think I can safely say this has been the warmest summer in years! Which has been amazing for all of us here at the walled garden (animals included)! All of crops are doing amazingly well, the currently ready crops are strawberries, lettuce, spinach, red currents, white currents, black currents and the tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers will soon be ripe for harvesting. We have our. Very special home made, home grown, organic strawberry jam up for sale in the shop here, as the taster I can proudly say its the best jam I have ever tasted! Thank you to Derek's sister, Helen Smith, for making the jam for us!
With this heat the amount of visitors at the garden is at an all time high, ice creams are selling by the dozen and the picnic benches are crammed full at lunch times!
The rhea are feeling very at home in this heat, rhea are originally from South America but have adapted to British temperatures, and so Tom and Barbra spend their days basking in the sun!
The ducks have migrated to the big pond beside the walled garden for the summer but they walk home every single night to be fed and put to their beds.
All the sheep and their lambs (including April and socks our two bottle fed lambs) are loving this weather with maybe the exception of Tulip who for some reason. Has still not lost her wool this summer (soay sheep lose their coats by shedding or well they are supposed to!).
Apart from all this heat and lovely sunshine (for the most part) the walled garden is still its peaceful, relaxing organic garden and I hope to see you all visiting soon!

For any further enquiries about he drummuir walled garden or the drummuir walled garden blog contact Emma at emmaheron-smith@hotmail.co.uk

Monday 10 June 2013








New Arrivals...

We've been very fortunate and our four soay sheep have given birth to six little bundles of fun! 
Maisy, Lambikans,Tulip and Angharad all gave birth at the end of May. 
All four ewes shortly before they gave birth.
Lambikans and Maisy only gave birth to one lamb each but Tulip and A
ngharad both gave birth to twins. 
Unfortunately Tulips couldn't handle both twins and so we had to take the smallest and weakest lamb away from her to bottle feed. 
The lamb we've named 'Socks' (due to the fact she has four uncommon white socks when most soay sheep are all brown) is doing very well. She's still small but she's feisty. She runs around the garden freely with the dogs and follows everyone about. She's very cuddly and loving! 
If you come the garden now you'll be able to see all the lambs playing together in the field and you might even be able to bottle feed socks!