We have some fresh meat packs available for collection this afternoon from the shop.
Pack 1 £50 (2 available)
2x 500g beef mince
500g lamb mince
Topside Roasting Joint
4 LARGE slices of lorne
Pack of pork sausages
4 Rump steaks
Pack 2 £45 (2 available)
500g lamb mince
Rack of lamb
Lamb chops
Rolled shoulder of lamb
4 Lamb and mint burgers
Message us to order one!
We took a few cows in this week as they are about to start calving. A couple of them beat us to it if you saw the story today!
Delighted that we have more venison for the shop on Saturday from right here on our farm. Haunch roasts, diced and loins. Also another batch of venison and juniper burgers.
There will also be loads of roast beef, topside and silverside. Perfect to go with the Achnagairn veg as we head into autumn and cooler weather.
We've got a deal on some beef - 1kg of mince and 1kg of diced for £18. This is fresh but will need to be used or frozen by Sunday. Available to pick up on Saturday.
All our burgers are hand pressed in our butchery unit on the farm 👇 using our own beef, lamb, venison or local pork.
We have 2 packs available to collect from the farm, fresh, tonight or tomorrow -
1.2kg Silverside roast
1kg beef mince
1kg diced beef
Pack of 4 beef burgers
Pack of pork sausages
Pack of beef sausages
Block of beef lorne
Total value of all individually is over £57, these packs are available for £50. Message us to book one.
*BOTH PACKS SOLD*
The most high pressure job on the farm, making sure it lands in the trailer! We started our harvest yesterday, getting a good 40 acre cut. This is quite early, mainly due to the dry weather. This barley is destined for Simpsons Malt Limited if it passes the tests required, the main one being nitrogen levels. From there it will head out to distilleries across Scotland. The straw is what we will use for bedding the cattle over the winter.
In the shop tomorrow we have plenty of BBQ goods, including beef burgers, pork and apple burgers, beef sausages, frozen lamb and mint burgers and pork sausages. If you would like any kept aside please send us a message. Hopefully the sun comes back out for the weekend!
As well as the first lamb of the season for the shop on Saturday, we also have all these fantastic steaks. All from our own farm, hung for over 28 days and butchered right here. Ribeyes, rumps, sirloins and fillets. Anyone else's idea of heaven right here 👇🙋♂️
This years turnips are through the ground. In a different place this year, as a break crop in a field at Allanfearn where we grow the malting barley. Break crops are used to try and save us growing the same crop year after year. Last year we had one field in forage rape/kale which was then fed to 40 cows during the winter. This year the turnips will again be used as feed for sheep over winter, as well as for the shop!
This highlights the benefit of being a mixed farm with livestock and arable. Growing the same crop year after year allows pests and disease to build up. Being able to grow forage crops and putting some fields into grass for grazing/silage lets us rotate crops in fields. In return the dung from the animals has the obvious benefits to the soil, increasing the organic matter and water retaining ability of it. This is particularly important at Allanfearn where the soil is very sandy and rain disappears very quickly during the summer.
One of the many reasons livestock are important to our food chain security.
Ever wonder what happens to the barley after the distilleries are finished with it in the whisky making process? Probably not... but here it is! This is what we call draff, and we are taking 200 tonnes in in the next few days to get stored under the silage, to eventually get fed to the cows during the winter. Recycling at its finest. Grown on farms in Scotland, malted in places like the malting facility down in the Longman in Inverness, sold to distilleries then back to farms.
Who needs a dog when you have a Jellybean to play with!
Donald has always had an interest in lambing the sheep, can't keep him away from them this year. Did this one all by himself apart from me checking halfway through to make sure it was all coming the right way.
Second lamb just out and the first one has already found the source of milk 🥛
10am which means it's beer o'clock. Stocked up for today's weather with Dog Falls Brewing Co beers. Everything you need for a BBQ - rolls, burgers, sausages, steaks, sauces and beers. Do it this weekend before it snows 👀
Can you tell I found the slow motion function on my new phone? Just seconds old this one.
Jellybean - one week old and loving running around playing games!
Heifers (first time calvers) coming in from the field on Friday morning just before the snow. In absolutely no rush at all. These will be calving from the middle of March so we're bringing them inside now to keep a closer eye on them, along with another 100 cows. It would be ideal to keep them outside all year round, but the mess it would make of the fields at this time of year would be hopeless and require expensive fixes and reseeding when it drys up. Hopefully by the time they start calving, the weather will have improved and we can get them out with their calves as soon as possible.
What a fantastic day again in the shop, one of the busiest days we've ever had! We sold an amazing 55 turnips, so we will be donating £55 to The Archie Foundation Highland. Thanks to everyone who came up.
There's still some haggis left, there's plenty of potatoes and I can get more turnips from the field, so if anyone would like a delivery in Inverness tomorrow or Monday evening, send us a message. There is a limited amount of our beef left - mince, diced or roasts, which can be added as well.
Ever wonder how long breeding pedigree cattle takes? Well here goes anyway!
We bought a new bull in October, he'll meet the cows at the start of December, his first calves will be born next September/October, and if the bulls are good enough to sell for breeding it'll be February 2024 before we have the first ones to sell! Any females we keep off him won't have their first calves with us until Spring 2025! It's a bit of a waiting game, but it's worth it for this moment.
Kids DIY advent calendars!
Kids DIY advent calendars for sale!
Kids can make, decorate and wrap their very own unique chocolate advent calendar using a festive silicone mould, their pick of white or milk chocolate, sprinkles, marshmallows and sweeties!
Lots of fun and guaranteed to get the kids (and you!) into the Christmas spirit!
Last weekend, Calum took one of our older tractors to a ploughing match in Easter Ross. This is where local ploughing enthusiasts compete to see who is the best. It is very technical, lots of marker posts and measuring tapes are involved! He finished a very respectable 4th out of a big entry of ploughs.
This tractor, a John Deere 3350, is older than Calum(by a good few years) and started its life at Balloch Farm, our neighbour at Allanfearn, in 1991. It came to us a few years later and is still used every winter on a machine to bed our cows with straw when they are inside. Calum has put a lot of effort into making it look the part again and polishing it.
Before it goes back to work for the winter, it will be parked at the shop this Saturday. If anyone has any tractor daft kids (big or small 👀), please come along for a look and a seat/photo in it.
#johndeere #ploughing #inverness #farmshop #supportlocal #shoplocal
Remember we are back to the usual Saturday opening this weekend. All the usual veg from Achnagairn Farm including potatoes, carrots, cauliflowers, cabbages, parsnips, beetroot, broccoli, leeks and brussel sprouts. Everything for a Sunday roast or just your weekly vegetable shop.
There will be fresh, local pork in the fridge, and the freezer is full of our own beef and lamb, including mince and diced beef and lamb. Roasts, steaks, sausages and burgers.
Restocked with Black Isle Biltong, joining Orkney Marshmallows and Bogrow Farm products on the table. With Dog Falls beer 🍺 and local cheese, if your planning an evening entertaining friends why not go for food with a local theme.
In the shop this Saturday, fresh beef AND lamb! All born and raised on our farm. Roasts, steaks, mince, sausages, burgers, diced. Come and see what we have available. Local, sustainable beef and lamb, direct from the producer.
There will also be homemade, Belgium chocolate, hot chocolate bombs with a Halloween theme!
Veg rack will be full again from Achnagairn Farm. Cauliflowers, leeks, broccoli, potatoes carrots, beetroot, romanesques, parsnips and cabbages. Turnips from our own field as well.
Full range of local Dog Falls Brewing Co beers back in stock, including this new, autumnal, Bramble On can!
Come check us out and see our other local goods, Saturday 9-5.
#invernessfarmshop #supportlocal #eatlocal #localbeef #locallamb #inverness
Loads of local veg in stock this morning from Achnagairn. Local pork in the fridge, some Murdoch butchers family steak pies, local cheese and Stornoway Black pudding. Organic free range eggs. Small amount of our own lamb in the freezer including lamb racks, diced lamb and legs.
Local beers, jams, honey, bread, coffee, charcuterie and home baking.
Open today at 9am until 5.
Still plenty of veg left for the afternoon shift. Open until 5.
And here's the second video, taken 2 days after the grass was cut. The rake at the start is putting 30ft of grass into one row for the forager. The forager and trailers belong to Mill 'n' Mix Ltd who spend the summer going around farms in the area lifting silage. Then it is all pushed into the pit by their massive loader and packed down before being cover until the winter.
The fields are already green again and growing rapidly in the warm wet conditions we have just now. We will cut them again to make more baled silage before September, then whatever grows after that will be grazed by sheep or cows.
Andy was back with his camera and drone when we were making silage here a couple of weeks ago. The first video is Calum mowing the grass, 20 foot at a time with the front and back mower. You can see the silage pit in the background at the start, with some draff in it. This is the distillery by-product that we store under the grass/silage until the winter time when it is mixed with the silage and fed to the cows. Second video of forager to follow.
Looks the the sun is sticking with us for the weekend again, and we will have another stock of bbq meats from Forbes Farm Fresh in the fridge. We've still got our own beef and lamb in the freezer, so remember if your after some burgers or sausages for Saturday night, get in early! Still a few roasting joints, plenty mince, diced and lorne beef. Lamb legs, shoulders, diced, racks and shanks available too.
Loads of Scottish veg starting to come in now including cauliflowers, asparagus and of course Scottish strawberries. Loads of Jersey Royal new potatoes as well.
💥We also have another freezer pack available to pick up this Saturday -
3x 500g beef mince
1x 500g diced beef
1x pack of 2 rump steaks
1x large lorne block
All for just £30
This is beef from our own farm, vacuum packed and frozen.💥
Saturday 9-5.