Past Courses and Events

A late flurry of bookings meant the forest garden course could go ahead and 6 people came for the day to get ideas and inspiration for their plots. The walk round our forest garden was an opportunity to forage for leaves and fruit and gather seeds.

A group from Ripon Community Link have helped with the apple juicing for the past two years, and a good job they were able to help with the amount of apples there were to collect this year! We spent 2 days picking apples at Newby Hall, gathered some from Mickley and helped the Walled Garden Scheme in Ripon to make use of some of their apples too. The lads, who all have learning difficulties, then joined in with a days apple pressing and enjoyed a celebratory glass of juice.

Pasteurised apple juice, made from apples from the Walled Garden, is available at the Walled Garden Scheme , Palace Road in Ripon.

There was a huge apple crop in 2010 and loads of people wanted to make apple juice and cider, so we had some extra days this year as well as our big weekend. All in all we reckon about 150 people came and 7 tons of apples were juiced, 5.5 of them on 30th and 31st October! We also were able to pasteurise some of the juice (700 bottles) with our new pasteurising machine, partly paid for by the donations made last year by juicers. Pasteurised juice lasts for a year, which comes in handy for those with not much freezer space and we'll be offering to do this in future years too.

** If anyone came juicing in 2010 and hasn't had an email from us dated 17th November 2011, please get in touch as we have some very important news to tell you! **

The Permaculture Association LAND project is proving very popular with groups wanting to visit Old Sleningford. We have had groups from Clitheroe, Pudsey, Whitby and Leeds, all with the intention of growing food but all with different circumstances and requirements.

We suggest the groups come between 10am and 2pm or 11am and 3pm, which allows them plenty of time to look round the Forest Garden, visit the pigs, have lunch, then look at the raised beds, orchard, charcoal kiln and wood store. Groups tend to bring their own lunch but we can provide food for a small cost per person. We hope they all went away with some ideas and inspiration and had a good day out.

If you are a voluntary/community group with 10 or more people that want to visit, you may be eligible for travel expenses to be paid through the LAND project. Contact the Permaculture Association for more details.

The Stables Project from York visited Old Sleningford, organised through the LAND project. They were particularly interested in our wood fired pizza oven, as they are about to build one themselves. We had a wander to see the pigs and the Forest Garden before making pizzas for lunch. Everyone made their own, choosing the toppings they liked, and everyone managed to get theirs in to the oven from the peel without dropping it. After lunch, we had a walk by the lake and in to the woods where the rope swing and tree climbing finished the day off.

Through the LAND project, eligible groups that want to visit Old Sleningford Farm can claim travel expenses, and they'll also pay us some money to give the group a tour and put on any other activities they may be intersted in. See www.permaculture.org.uk/land for more information

Another full course for the pig keeping day on a sunny spring day. The pigs were enjoying the sunshine and dived straight in to the wallow the course participants made for them.

There certainly seems a growing interest for people wanting to keep their own livestock for food, some people come on the course even before they have some land, to ensure they are fully prepared to get some pigs as soon as possible. Our next course is 14th August when all being well, our new piglets will be just about to wean from their mums.

Another three fun days of sausage making were held during March and April, with 12 people getting to grips with mincing, stuffing and linking. We made a variety of flavours, incuding some salami and a dried garlic version, which are hung drying at the moment.

We've added a new page full of photographs to the website to show the process, just click on the play button to see a photo slide show.

The willow and hazel around Old Sleningford is now very abundant and therefore there was plenty of material to be able to run three chair making workshops this year. In total, 16 people came and made 10 chairs - all different shapes and sizes, and all beautiful and unique. Amazing considering everyone starts out with the same sorts of bits of wood.

So you can see the chair making progress, we've added a new page to the website with a photo gallery of all the chairs being made. Click on the play button to watch the slideshow.