Trill Farm Garden
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News from Trill Farm Garden

Open Day 31st May

We are opening our gates to visitors on the 31st May - a chance to look around the garden or come on one of our tours. Chris (of the Old Dairy Kitchen) will be cooking a delicious spring paella from the garden, packed full our veggies, herbs and flowers (plus a rabbit and spring herb sausage as extra add on for meat eaters) and homemade sausages in a bap for the kids followed by an elderflower posset pot and strawberries (tickets to be purchased separately). This can be enjoyed whilst you wander around the garden. Chris will be donating all profits from the dinner to Shute Primary School.There will be tours running from 2:30 and 3:45, but feel free to just come along and enjoy the garden without joining onto a tour. There will be tea, coffee and a bar open.
This is a chance to come and have a look at how we do things here at Trill Farm Garden, and see the diversity of crops that we grow and some of the techniques that we use to grow them.

For more details and to book go to our Trill Farm Garden Open Day booking page.

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We are hiring!

Along with Springtail Farm we are looking to hire a part time employee for the 2025 season. Since the two farms are only fifteen minutes apart, and we are good friends with each other, sharing ideas, info and resources, we are teaming up in the hiring process also, in the hope that we can combine two part time work offers, into one, thus offering a more appealing full time position, with the opportunity to work at two independent market gardens. 

** Please follow this link to read more about the job offer and let us know in your application if you would like to apply for the combined role, or if it will suit you better to work with either one of us separately.Thanks!
*Deadline to apply is Friday 4th April, but please bear in mind that we may hire someone for this role before this date, depending on applicants.

New course dates for 2025

We are running our popular Salad Growing courses in the Spring and Autumn again this year, plus we have two dates for the always popular Introduction to Market Gardening Course. To find out more go to the Courses page.

New Introduction to Market Gardening Course date this October 2022

We have decided to run a two day Introduction to Market Gardening course with Lally and Tomas from Springtail Farm on October 12th and 13th. To find out more go to the booking page.

New course dates announced for 2021

We have just updated our courses for 2021 and booking is now available for Salad Growing: Spring & Summer, Salad Growing: Autumn & Winter and Introduction to Market Gardening.

More space for veg bag customers

We now have more capacity to make up more veg bags for delivery, so please get in touch if you are interested in getting veg from us by emailing [email protected]

Waiting list for box scheme

We have had huge demand for veg boxes in and around Axminster, Seaton and Lyme and we have had to stop taking new customers. If you are interested in getting our veg please email at [email protected] with your address and we can put you on a waiting list. 

NEW BOX SCHEME LAUNCHED!

You can now start placing orders of organic veg bags from us, with extra additional items like organic bread, eggs and even beer. Collection points are in Axminster, Lyme Regis, Seaton and Rousdon at the moment. Go to our box scheme page for more details and to order.

Buy our produce from Rousdon Village Bakery

We will be opening up a new shop outside Rousdon Village Bakery along with other local producers. This will start on Saturday 21st march and will be open daily from 10-2. We are also looking at setting up a local box scheme with drop off points in Axminster, Seaton and Lyme, but we currently have limited variety of produce available so looking at supplementing our own produce with other organic veg not grown at the farm. Let us know if you would be interested in this!!
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More course dates set for 2020

Check out the new course dates for Market Gardening, Salad Growing and Seed Production for 2020
Go to the courses page here

New course dates announced for 2019

We have new dates for our Market Gardening, Salad Growing and Seed Saving Courses. Go to the Trill Farm Garden Courses page to find out more.

Seed production at Trill Farm Garden

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New date for Market Gardening Course 2018

The LandBase 3 day Market Gardening Course held at Trill Farm Garden, Fesh and Green in Ottery St Mary and Charles Dowdings' Homeacres in Somerset will be running from 21st to 23rd April 2018. Tickets will be available very soon. For more details go to the LandBase Market Gardening page. There will also be a Growing Salad All Year course run in May, ore information at LandBase on the Salad Course page.

No stall on 22nd July...

Sorry we will not be able to run our stall next weekend (22nd July), but will be back the following week - with lots of tomatoes I reckon!

Veg stall starting in Lyme Regis...

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21st June 2017

We will be restarting our summer veg stall outside Town Mill Bakery on Saturday 24th June from 9:30 til 1:30. Come on down to get some cut flowers, salad, the first of the cucumbers, broad beans, beetroot and much much more. 

​The stall will run through the summer into Autumn, finishing around the end of October.


Early summer veg now available...

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17th May 2017
We are finally getting lots of early summer vegetables coming through from both the polytunnels and outside, which means that there is more available from our online shop. You can order for delivery to Lyme (Tuesdays and Fridays), Rousdon (Thursdays) or pick up from the farm (Wednesdays and Saturdays - to fit in with the farm lunches that Chris does at The Old Dairy Kitchen at Trill.

​You can choose just a salad bag, or a mixed bag, or select whatever you want from what we have on offer. 

Salad now available to order at Rousdon Village Bakery

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Go to the Trill Farm Garden online shop to order your salad to collect on a Thursday from Rousdon Village Bakery. Make sure you order by midday on Wednesday to get your order in on time. 

Collect your salad and vegetables from the farm on a Wednesday or Saturday and have lunch at the Old Dairy Kitchen

Chris runs the Old Dairy Kitchen at Trill, and opens the restaurant for lunches on a Wednesday and Saturday (booking available on the ODK website), so if you are coming down for lunch, why not collect your salad and vegetables from the garden shed. Orders need to be in the day before collection. Go to our Open Food Network page to visit our shop and complete your order.

Now selling our salad bags at Town Mill Bakery in Lyme Regis

We are now selling salad bags through our online shop for collection from Town Mill Bakery in Lyme Regis or from the farm every Tuesday. We will soon be having a collection point at Rousdon Village Bakery too.
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Market Gardening course at Trill Farm Garden

We have recently helped to setup an initiative called LandBase, which is a new centre for land based skills, based in Dorset. We will provide experience led, affordable, long and short-term courses for motivated landworkers, both current and aspiring
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We will be hosting one day of a three day Market Gardening course in April. Details below.

Course Date
8-10th April 2017

Course tutors

Ashley Wheeler
Ashley runs Trill Farm Garden with his partner Kate. They specialise in growing salads to sell to restaurants around Lyme Regis. Ashley is a founding member of Landworkers' Alliance.

Charles Dowding
Charles Dowding, runs a quarter acre, super intensive no dig garden in Somerset, selling salad bags and veg to local restaurants and shops. He writes and teaches extensively on growing vegetables, and on his speciality of no dig.

Hugh Chapman
​Hugh
 has been a field scale organic vegetable producer since 1984, for the last 30 years on a 10 acre smallholding in the Cerne valley near Dorchester, Dorset. Marketing as Longmeadow Organic Vegetables, was originally wholesale, then through a box scheme and farm shop.

Course detail
This workshop will not only cover much of the fundamental principles of crop production, but will also focus on how to run a successful market garden business. One of the critical aspects of running a market garden well is being organised, so record keeping and basic accounts will be talked about as well as crop planning, sowing schedules and crop rotations. The course will be suitable for people who are looking into starting up a small scale market gardening business, as well as those who have already started. Soil types as well as soil health and fertility will be talked about along with other technical aspects of growing vegetables such as propagation, cultivation, protected cropping, pests and disease, seed saving and harvesting, packing and storing vegetables.


The course will be run over three days (8th, 9th and 10th April 2017) and led by three different tutors at three different holdings.


After meeting at Monkton Wyld Court, the participants will go to Trill Farm Garden where Ashley runs a 2.5 acre smallholding with his partner Kate. Ashley will cover the following:
  • Setting up a market garden, including infrastructure needed
  • Selling to restaurants
  • Growing salad all year round
  • Propagating all your plants
  • Small scale growing techniques with minimal machinery
  • Making the most of a small plot by growing high value crops that grow well on your soil and can be easily marketed.
  • Protected cropping

On the second day, participants will go to Longmeadow Organics near Dorchester where Hugh and Patsy Chapman have been organic vegetable growers for well over 20 years. Hugh will cover the following:
  • An introduction to and history of our 30 years growing here at Longmeadow, and the previous 4 years in west Somerset, with big differences in soil types, altitude, climate, accessibility etc.
  • Field scale rotations, green manures, crop planning and primary cultivation techniques ,bed preparation, row widths, beds or ridges etc.
  • A brief history of field scale horticultural equipment, and a look at the latest tackle available for the small grower. Then a more detailed look of what we have here, its use in the field hopefully with a demonstration conditions allowing. this will cover setting up,sowing, planting, mechanical weeding,inter-row/bed cultivating, harvesting.
  • Suitable tractors, how to find them, basic maintenance, necessary adjustments and safety issues.
  • Field scale irrigation, pest control, crop covers.

On the final day of the course we will be visiting Homeacres, where Charles Dowding grows salad and vegetables using a no dig system. He will talk about the merits of using no dig in a market garden, covering the following:
  • small scale no dig
  • initial weed clearance using compost and/or polythene
  • being clear of pests, especially slugs
  • intensive cropping, early cropping and double cropping
  • low weed pressure
  • time management, setting beds up in winter for minimum time needed in summer
  • using a hotbed for propagation
  • share yield figures to assess profitability of certain veg
  • methods for growing and packing salad leaves 
  • selling methods - boxes, markets, direct sales.

Overall the course will cover three very different production systems from tutors with a combined experience of over 70 years of growing vegetables.

Accommodation will be at Monkton Wyld Court. For course prices click on the link below.
BOOK TICKETS FOR THE MARKET GARDENING COURSE HERE

Online sales coming soon...

We will soon be launching online sales so that you can order your salad and vegetable boxes online and either collect from the farm or collect from Lyme Regis. We will be using the Open Food Network as a platform for our sales. 
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  • Home
  • About us
  • News
  • Shop
  • Garden Open Day
  • Courses
    • Introduction to Market Gardening Course
    • Salad Growing: Spring & Summer
    • Salad Growing: Autumn & Winter
  • Trill Salad
  • Blog
  • Our Growing Methods
  • Contact
  • Reviews and press
  • Box scheme