This Farming Life

What it means to be an organic farmer in Ireland today … Jenny Young writes about life and work on an organic mixed farm in Co Kildare - and selling its produce

At Castlefarm we are looking forward to drying off our cows for the winter, in early December. But for this month we are still milking them. The herd is out by day and in by night. By day they the last of the grass paddocks. By night they are indoors where they eat machine cut clover, brought in from fields that are too far away for the cows to graze.

Our herd is made up of Friesian/Jersey crossbreds. The milk our cows have been producing on this clover is very high in butterfat and protein. It is very frothy and creamy and we are delighted to be getting paid a decent price for it.

We are currently supplying The Village Dairy who sell it into the catering industry, in particular coffee shops. Apparently the coffee shops appreciate our milk as it makes very frothy cappuccinos!

We are delighted to be talking part in Wild and Slow in Macreddin this year. We are preparing a presentation on our foraging hedge, 800 metres of fruit and berry trees that have produced an interesting and abundant crop this year. The fabulous October weather gave us the opportunity to take lots of colourful pictures, before the birds had their feast.

We are really looking forward to participating in other workshops on the day, and of course have booked in to the Wild and Slow dinner. It is interesting and delicious to experience so much wild and foraged food, prepared so well by Evan Doyle and his team.

Talking of our love of food, we were lucky enough to spend a few days in Galway in October. We ate our way around the city enjoying fabulous food in Kai Café, Ard Bia and Cava Bodega.

The highlight was the tasting menu and unbelievably good service at Aniar. We even got to meet and chat with JP McMahon. The Village Dairy is one of his suppliers!

As well as eating good food we continue to produce it. We have collected our seasonal batch of apple juice from The Apple Farm in Tipperary. We had a great crop of apples this year and 800 kg of apples yielded 750 bottles of juice.

As well as milk, we also continue to produce organic eggs, honey, beef and cheese for the farm shop.

Castlefarm Shop is open every week normally on a Friday or Saturday but you need to sign up to facebook, emails or text alerts to keep up to date with opening days and farm specials. To receive our newsletter and news of new products by email please sign up to our email, or text updates or like us on facebook.

Castlefarm Shop, Narraghmore, Athy, Co Kildare, Email jenny@castlefarmshop.ie, log onto www.castlefarmshop.ie or telephone 087 678 5269 Follow us on facebook or on twitter @castlefarmjenny