Did you know this weekend is Open Farm Sunday?
Lots of farms around the UK will be open for you to visit, it has been going now for 16years... in fact it is as old as Son Bun, we have been to many over the years, riding tractors, sampling food, feeding the animals and much more.
Grandma Bun lived on a farm when she was young, and I love hearing her stories about her life on the farm- and the fact that her mum, my Grandma, made ALL the food for the 7 children and the farm workers. At Harvest time she had more mouths to feed with many workers needed.
My mum and her siblings would take baskets of food to them and sit on the hay bales.
Maybe that's where my love of food, and my interest in the environment has come from, leading me to study Geography and Food at University.
All my friends said I would be able to cook around the world, and I was the only student ever to combine the two! Now in the 2000's these 2 subject go together sooooo well.
Pick your own at a local farm this weekend...
My dissertation was how green is the pub lunch...looking at recycling, packaging, food sources, beer, condiments, menus and more.
10 years later and teaching food to my A'level students, the syllabus came up with food and the
environment, from
food miles/animal welfare
food mountains and food distribution
fairtrade/organic/seasonal foods
deforestation/intensification
food labels
I was in my element teaching this, my geography degree had helped me plan, prepare and teach this to my pupils.
Now running my own cookery school it is great talking to children about food and seeing if they know where it comes from.
Letting them play around with food, tasting it, talking about it helps them enjoy their food journey. The more they know, the more I find they will try.
We made sandwiches the other week and one little boy said he wanted to make a sandwich tomorrow now! His mum was shocked and said he never eat
s sandwiches.. a break through.
So if you have some time this weekend, go and visit a farm, see what the farmers are growing, animals they have, often they have a shop and try some goodies. Tractor rides are often part of the weekend and lots of local foods to buy. Buying local saves those food miles and also tastes better. Often people will say in January that the tomatoes don't taste too good, well they aren't in season... so will lack flavour and the full nutrients.
Maybe after going to a farm this weekend, come home and plant some seeds, just some herbs or tomatoes, courgettes are a good first one too, watch those seedings pop through and have your own mini farm this summer.
Potatoes are my favouri
te though, for every one seeded potato you plant, you will get 6-8 in return! A good investment and great digging them up after the 3 months.
So if you decide to take a trip look up www.farmsunday.org and see what's going on near you
Hope you enjoyed reading this, and makes you want to visit a farm nearby, maybe you actually live on one...Mrs Bun x