NOTES FROM THE FARM - SEPTEMBER 2025
THE ARRIVAL OF AUTUMN AND THE BEGINNING OF A GLORIOUS HARVEST
As the intense heat of summer faded and the waning sun bathed the farm in warm, golden light; September arrived in the Cotswolds. The change in season marked the beginning of harvest with an abundance of organic crops brimming with colour and life, a change in rhythm and a fresh abundance in all corners of our busy, working farm.
A WELCOME CHANGE IN THE WEATHER
Our Farms Director, Richard Smith was grateful for rainfall early in the month. “Due to the dry weather, this has been the most challenging year I’ve had at Daylesford in 21” he said of farming without significant rainfall. “Although sheep always do well in hot summers and the lambs weaned in August grew at a phenomenal rate, our Lleyn, Merino, Kerry Hills and Rylands flock picked up beautifully with this nice new flush of grass” he said.
The refreshed fields also helped increase the nutrition for the ewes put into their tupping groups ready for breeding later in the autumn and allowed Richard’s team to make sileage. Over 900 bales were taken over 407 acres, which were left to dry and ferment for six weeks to provide our animals with high quality, organic feed this winter.
In the 28-acre Market Garden on our Cotswold farm, many of the crops continued to ripen early, following the long, dry summer. We savoured the last of the tomatoes, closing the doors on our tomato tunnels to preserve the heat so that they continued to produce around two hundred kilos a week. The fruit trees became heavy with apples, plums and quince in great volumes “it must be to do with the blossom period this year” said our head grower, Jez, “as there was very little frost. There are still half a ton of plums to harvest, which are going to be used to make plum cordial to make the most of the glut” and “we’ve not seen quinces like this on the trees here before” he said.
SAVOURING QUINCE
Highly fragrant and golden yellow, the quince in our Market Garden were hard to miss – despite only filling four trees, they were impressive, large and heavy. “ Not many people know what to do them” noted our head of menu development, Gaven Fuller “but they are one of my favourites of the season” he said, as he shared a simple recipe to inspire:
Simple Quince Sorbet
Peel and cut several quince into wedges, cover them in white wine and a generous sprinkling of sugar and simmer them gently for about two hours (leaving the pips and seeds in).
Strain the cooked fruit through a colander and remove the pips.
Pour the fruit into an ice cream beaker or ice cream machine and chill it for several hours. This creates a delicious, fluffy quince sorbet. An alternative is to continue cooking it down to make a quince jam to serve with cheese – if you do this, you might want to replace the sugar with preserving sugar at the beginning of the recipe.
AN ABUNDANCE OF APPLES & CIDER MAKING
Many of the high-grade organic heritage apples grown in the Market Garden were for sale in our farmshop as soon as they were picked, others made their way into our Orchard Salad where they were paired with our organic kale and glazed pecans. First developed by the Daylesford chefs at the beginning of Harvest season several years ago, our Orchard Salad remains a firm favourite and features at our deli counter and on the menu at our Michelin Green Star Restaurant, The Trough.
“Due to the early apple harvest, we’re making cider early too,” said Jez. “Making cider allows us to use all of the crop, including the out-grades, minimising waste. We’ll press 1,000 litres of juice at a time, starting on the last day of September.”
PUMPKINS GALORE
Jez and his team began harvesting the colourful organic squash and pumpkins nestled in their impressive two acre ‘patch’ in the Market Garden. “We’ve grown lots of red kuri, blue kuri and other onion squash such as green hokkaido, as well as varieties such as butternut, acorn and harlequin” he said of the varieties. “40% of the crop are crown prince” - a versatile variety with a steel blue skin, bright orange flesh and a sweet, nutty flavour. The harvested squash were delivered to the farmshop for sale, others were used in our kitchens, on our food to go counter and restaurants, whilst the small ornamental varieties such as delicata and Jack be little were used to decorate our Garden space and potting shed, alongside the seasonal plants we grow and sell.
PREPARING FOR THE CHANGE IN SEASON
With harvest season underway, the Market Garden team were busy lifting potatoes, making sure the windfalls of apples didn’t go to waste and removing all of the summer crops including climbing beans, cucumbers and tomatoes to make room for winter salads to be grown under cover. “The beetroot are a massive success” said Jez of his bumper crop “they are mind-blowingly good and used in our kitchens to make beetroot and bacon soup.” Almost ready for harvest by the end of the month were leeks, sprouting broccoli, Florence fennel and radish, along with all of the brassicas.
HOT PUDDINGS FOR COSY EVENINGS
As we started to celebrate the change of season with slow cooked meals, our head baker, Michael Engler developed a range of puddings that can be picked up in our farmshops and reheated for when we start to crave something warm and sweet at the end of a long lunch or an autumn supper.
Inspired by the fruit we grow in our Market Garden, his new Crumble recipe has a compote that will change with each season. For autumn, he’s enhanced the flavours of apple and blackberry crumble “by reducing the fruit right down in the cooking so it has a more intense flavour, a tartness and bright colour” Michael explained. The topping has a home cooked feel, incorporating a top crunchy layer with a nutty, malty flavour and that sweet, sticky spot where the fruit melts into the crumble layer. “It’s the perfect mix” said Michael “all ready to reheat and serve.”
Michael also brings a Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe to the farm that he’s refined over several years, and we all agree that it is simply perfect. Using whole pitted dates and pecans for intense flavour and texture, the pudding is rich and sweet. “It’s soaked in a creamy caramel sauce as soon as its cooked and again when its cooled so that when the pudding is heated at home it is moist and generously coated” he explained. “The sauce incorporates buttermilk straight from our Creamery” he added “which brings a tartness to the sauce and cuts through the sweetness of the pudding, whilst using the buttermilk from our dairy herd helps us to achieve zero waste.”
Finally, a new Bread & Butter Pudding has been created using as many ingredients as possible from our farm. “The base is made using brioche from our Bakery, which we generously butter and cover in our Seville Orange Marmelade, dark chocolate, chopped dried apricots and raisins. The pudding is soaked for a couple of hours in a generous amount of custard before being baked and sprinkled with Demerara sugar to give it a crunchy top. It’s a lovely classic pudding, with Daylesford flavours” he said.
Although busy making up to 500 crumbles a week alone, the Bakery team have also developed a new apple bun, using the glut of our apple windfalls, new chocolate brownie and tiffin recipes for our food to go counters at the farm, and more.
WHAT TO LOOK FORWARD TO NEXT MONTH…
Join us as we embrace the height of harvest season on the farm, one of our favourite times of the year.