To the End of the Ley Line
In late June, Josiah and Nick took a brief (but long) road trip to visit friends, growers and customers in the far South West of England, taking a few photos along the way..
Inside the Mill House
We're milling! Our new mill is up and running in the Hodmedod Mill House and we're stone-milling our own wholemeal flour, offering a wider range alongside our existing flours milled for us by Maple Farm in Suffolka and Shipton Mill in Gloucestershire.
Sheaf
At our Autumn 2019 farmer meeting we resolved to find new ways to communicate the changes that are happening on farms across the UK. Working with the Dark Mountain Project we sent three writers to three farms with no brief other than to reflect on what they found. This summer their work has been published in a beautifully illustrated short book called Sheaf.
YQ Wheat for Bakers
This photo from July 2017 marks an ending and a beginning. The end of a long search for bakers willing to work with the population wheats developed by Martin Wolfe. The start of a new phase that has seen YQ widely grown and used, alongside a blossoming of alternative grain systems in the UK.
A Grain Community
Kimberley Bell of Small Food Bakery reflects on four years of YQ grown for the bakery and the people-centred systems that have emerged and continue to emerge, around it.
Norfolk Chickpeas in a Changing Climate
Last year (field scale chickpea production year 2) was a real struggle: drought through much of the season, intense heat in late May, then extraordinary rainfall in August. This year (chickpea year 3) hasn’t started much better to be honest: a cold start and prolonged wet conditions are not what chickpeas like.
Organic Marrowfat Peas at Little Bytham
The new 2021 crop of organic marrowfat peas are coming through beautifully at The Grange, farmed by Guy and John Turner of Turners of Bytham. The cool wet weather in early May hasn’t provided the easiest start to the year for peas, but the marrowfats are looking excellent.
Hwyl fawr a phob lwc William!
We bid goodbye and good luck to William Hudson, one of Hodmedod’s three founders, who's off to Wales to join a farm business on the Gower.
A View from the Bean Store: Joe
Joe Gaze joined Hodmedod as our first employee when we moved into the original Bean Store in Halesworth in 2015. He's now Operations Manager and responsible for the day-to-day running of the business and our team of sixteen.
Pasta meets Pulses
We’ve sold a range of Pastificio Carleschi's superb pasta for almost a year now, but absolutely delighted to add our brand new Emmer & Fava Bean Sedani, the result of a collaborative project with Giovanni Carleschi.
Feeding the World
Farmers are under huge pressure; growing food isn’t easy and comes with many risks and uncertainties. When we ask farmers to consider agroecological approaches to production they’ll often say, ‘But what about my responsibility to feed the world?’ It’s a false premise.
The New Farmer's Almanac, Vol V
US organisation
Greenhorns
publishes a journal called The New Farmer’s Almanac biennially. It really is packed full of wonderful writing and illustration about the culture and practice of farming and living on the land.