New faces

We are delighted to welcome Fit to the Core into the Old Grain Loft at Bowhouse, where Suzy and her team will be operating their gym – which moved from St Monans to the newly renovated space in January. The building was used as a grain storage loft until the 1970s when it became a workshop for a local joinery firm, ATV Joiners for several years until they moved. In a typical East Neuk, small world way, it was ATV joiners who renovated the loft for its next phase as the gym. The next project at Bowhouse will see the renovation of the Old Mill Shed into a bakery, coffee roasters and piazza ready for summer 2018. We have also welcomed Di Gilpin to Comielaw where she brings a Scottish hand-knitting design studio making its own Lalland Lambswool, spun in Scotland and finished at Laxtons in Yorkshire. https://digilpin.com/.
 Peter Maniam has joined the team at Balcaskie where he will oversee the events at Bowhouse as they move to monthly markets. Peter and his wife Jenny run Rogue Village at Archerfield in East Lothian and Canteen amongst other events. His expertise in organising different events will be put to great use at Bowhouse.

Around the farm, the winter weather dominates work, with little winter ploughing carried out over the last month due to waterlogged soils, there remains some fieldwork to do. Ploughing over winter buries weed seeds and allows frost and rain to break down the soil, providing finer seedbeds in the spring for planting.

Livestock work remains priority, with daily bedding using straw and feed from our home-grown forages dictating the routine. We have now pregnancy diagnosed the cows and ewes so that they can be fed according to the number of calves/lambs they are carrying. Dung made over the winter needs to be carted from the cattle sheds to arable fields and heaped up ready for composting before spreading. The nutrients contained in the dung will provide all of the requirement for both grass and cereals in the organic rotation.