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I am very excited! The sun is shining. The vegetables are growing. And it’s almost time for the first Farm & Feast gathering of the year.
What is a Farm & Feast gathering? Well, there will be farming and there will be feasting!
We’ve been running these family-friendly events for the last three years - but this year it’s even more exciting – not only is this day for our CSA members to come and connect with the farm where their weekly veg is grown - it’s a day for our farm shop customers, our growing academy students and our volunteers to come to the farm. It’s for anyone who wants to learn more about how we grow our produce and is interested in connecting with the land, the seasons and their food. It’s about expanding the community of food citizens that know, support and enjoy everything that Laurelbank Farm has to offer.
Come along if:
You want to hang out at a beautiful farm for a day, meeting like-minded people and eating tasty food.
You want your kids to see exactly how simple and easy it can be to grow the food we all eat.
You want to learn about growing organic food, be a market gardener for a few hours, and get stuck in to the weeding, mulching and planting.
Despite what people think, I am a socially awkward person who has learnt how to manage over the years. I still find it hard to chat to people. But, I love the kind of day, where there are plenty of things to do – you can be quiet or not. You can chat or not. And so far, I have found that an amazing group of brilliant people are the ones who end up at the farm. How lucky am I?
10am - Arrive at Laurelbank Farm
Get settled and grab a cup of tea or coffee and a morning snack in the Gallery
Once we all have all arrived and settled in The Gallery (or the courtyard if the weather is good) I’ll talk through the plan for the day and do my little intro chat. This month the topic for discussion will be soil life – and the soil food web!
10:45 – Activities begin!
The grand moth trap opening – We are taking part in a moth biodiversity study this season. Over the month of June we’ll be catching moths in our moth trap (kindly on loan from the Mourne Gullion Strangford UNESCO Geopark) 8 times and providing some excellent baseline data to track biodiversity on the farm over the years. In short, you and your kids can learn all about moths – and see if we’e caught anything!
Squash and Courgettes – 1st June is the day I aim to plant all my squash and courgette plants (and unless the weather is terrible) that is exactly what we’ll do.
Sowing our Pollinator Field – We’ll be hand-sowing a field with a pollinator-friendly “green manure”. This is a crop that is not designed to be harvested and eaten, but is grown to improve the soil and in this case, also provide thousands of lovely flowers for our insect friends to feast on for the rest of the summer. We’ll be raking and throwing out handfuls of seed before the “big stomp” - where we’ll stomp around and make sure the seeds have good contact with the soil for optimum germination.
Strawberry hunting – Strawberry season will almost be upon us. Go and search among the 500 or so strawberry plants and see if you can be the lucky person to eat the first ripe strawberry of 2025!
1pm – Lunch is served
The pizza oven will be in full flow – and we’ll have plenty of other food to keep the hunger at bay (we can only cook one pizza at a time (though they only take a couple of minutes to cook).
The Menu
Homemade wood-fired pizza with:
Melted leeks & Young Buck
Beetroot & st Tola & dandelion hot honey
Tomato & mozzarella & basil
Nasturtium garlic bread
Beetroot houmous with Turkish onions
Garlic scape pasta bake
Laurelbank leaves with elderberry dressing
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Strawberry & rhubarb galette with freshly whipped cream
2:30pm - Back to our activities
After lunch (if you fancy it) we can finish off any odds and ends that remain.
3:30pm - Time to head home
The time: From 10am to around 3:30pm on Sunday 1st June 2025.
The place: Laurelbank Farm, 121 Middle Road, Saintfield, Co. Down, BT24 7LS
The cost: £25 per adult, £10 for kids (plus a small booking fee), free for babies / toddlers.
The refreshments: We’ll serve a hearty lunch and there will be plenty of tea, coffee & water to help yourself to throughout the day. Feel free to bring extra snacks for small children.
Dietary Requirements: Lunch will be suitable for vegetarians but if you have any other dietary requirements, please let us know so we can plan the menu around your needs.
What to bring: Bring suitable clothing for the weather. Bring sturdy, comfortable shoes if you have them. Just in case the sun pops out please bring along suncream and a hat for protection.
Cancellation Policy: If you need to cancel your booking, for whatever reason, please let us know as soon as possible. For full details of our cancellation policy please click here.
