All boxes are sold by weight,

Regular Box: Approx 4.5kg - £36.00

Will include one roasting joint - shoulder or leg, chops and sausages

Medium Box: Approx 6.5kg - £52.00

Will include two roasting joints - shoulder and leg, chops and sausages

All boxes are sold by weight, if you would like specific cuts please let us know when you order.

Choose from a selection of

Pork and apple sausages
Sweet Chilli sausages - more sweet than chilli
Pork and Leek sausages

And - arriving next week we'll have lots of lovely gammon, bacon and ham...

Christmas Specials!

Christmas is now upon us  and we have some lovely porky specials to keep you and the family going over the festive season - don't forget we deliver free of charge to Letchworth, Stotfold and Hitchin - Just to make things even easier!

Choose from a selection of

Pork and apple sausages
Sweet Chilli sausages - more sweet than chilli
Pork and Leek sausages

And - arriving next week we'll have lots of lovely gammon, bacon and ham...

Deck the halls with pigs in blankets!

Just give us a call on 07958655962 - we look forward to hearing from you!

Andre, Jane and Santi

How farmers give to charity...

I was chatting to my Dad the other day, he's a farmer in North West New South Wales in Australia and he told me something really quite lovely so I thought I'd share it here.

He runs an Angus cattle stud - fairly big by our standards here (its 5000 acres) which backs onto the Pilliga scrub (a big state owned forest basically). For  quite some time there had been a rogue bullock which no-one seemed to own, he was prone to knocking down fences and creating a general nuisance of himself. So much so that some farmers in the area had tried to do him in! Eventually he made it to Dad's property and began to run with his herd. Maybe it was old age, but maybe he'd just had enough of being a wild one and calmed down.

Dad managed to get him into a truck of other stock which he was sending in to Coonamble to be sold at auction. He was so big he ended up getting the highest price of all the cattle sent that day so he made it into the local paper - The Coonamble Times.

And instead of taking the money for himself - since Dad wasn't really his owner he decided to donate the lot to The Alzheimer's Society - What a bloke eh?

Anyway, thought that was quite lovely - maybe more of us should think about doing some random acts of kindness every now and then. Onya Dad x

Jane

Fresh Pork arriving next week... Taking orders now!

From this Monday we'll have lots of fresh roasting joints, chops, belly and other cuts ready for FREE delivery to within a 10 mile radius of Stotfold. Perfect to stock up before Christmas!

We'll also be sending a whole pig for curing which means just in time for Christmas we'll have fresh gammon steaks, bacon and ham...

We're taking orders now, just let us know what you need and we'll pack it up and bring it to your door - couldn't be easier!

Just give us a call - Andre and Jane 07958 655962

Thank you to everybody who visited us at the Food & Wine Festival.

A big thank you to the Tilehouse Rotary Hitchin for putting on the Wine and Food Festival in the Town Hall in Hitchin last weekend - we had a fantastic time! They made us feel very welcome - lots of tea and coffee and the occasional cup of mulled wine :-)

It was great to meet lots of locals and they must have loved our produce as we only had one pot of honey left and we sold out of sausages!

We're very grateful to everyone who took the time to come and have a chat and try out some local produce - we really enjoyed it and look forward to doing it all again soon. So look out for Cardona & Son - or just give us a call and we'll deliver some tasty pork to your door!

Andre, Jane & Santi (and Ben!)

\

The Hitchin Food and Wine Festival

We're off to The Hitchin Food and Wine Festival this weekend - On the

menu will be delicious Moroccan meatballs and the very best of Cardona &

Son sausages (Three varieties to choose from!) - all produced from local

British rare breed pork. We will also be selling the last of this year's

honey - be quick though as we're onto our last few jars... You will be

able to order your Christmas meat box with free delivery. Hope to see

you all there this Saturday and Sunday (19th & 20th November) 

Andre, Jane + Santi

Photographic Proof! Ben Nevis

At Ben Nevis summit! (that's me on the right...)

So - This little post is for all of those who needed photographic proof of our climb up Ben Nevis. I'd like to say a really big thank you to all of those who sponsored us - especially The Two Brewers in Stotfold and Cardona & Son clients who are new friends to us and were very generous and supportive. The climb was NOT a stroll (as it was described to us by many people who had obviously not climbed it!!), but was a fantastic challenge and the entire group raised over £45,000 for The Alzheimer's Society which will go towards research as well as support for sufferers of Alzheimer's and their families. 

Woop! So happy and cold!

My amazing friend Fotoulla who volunteered to climb with me - still smiling on the way up... 

On the way up and it looks deceptively dry... It rained for the most part! 

Moving on from The Rusty Gun...

After over a year spent setting up the farm and supplying pork to the kitchen at The Rusty Gun in St Ippolyts we've handed over the reigns - It was a strange feeling after spending so much time there and putting so much hard work in to think we won't be making the daily round trip anymore to check up on the pigs.

It was great to see the punters tucking in to our lovely pork and we enjoyed chatting to families in the garden about the pigs and explaining the importance of keeping the great British breeds going - there was no argument on a Sunday how amazing that crackling was!

But they say a change is as good as a holiday, and we're excited about growing our meat box delivery side of the business - we've had some fantastic feedback from local families about the quality of our pork, so we'll be continuing to source British rare breeds from the area as well as breed our own stock here in Stotfold.

So, with a fridge fully laden with delicious rare breed sausages we look forward to hearing from you all soon :-)

Andre, Jane and Santi

Bees under attack!

Tonight I went to visit one of my hives near Shuttleworth at my Bee buddy Margaret's place, I'd been a bit concerned about wasp activity around the hives so I thought I'd better go and check it out. Turns out, one of the hives is under full attack from wasps. I closed the entrance up to a space which would only fit one bee in, one bee out - but they still persisted. They're treating it like a hotel! I'm really worried this might affect the hive and bees quite badly, the colony may even collapse...

I took a fly swat with me, you know those ones shaped like a tennis raquet that zap unsuspecting flies and wasps? It worked quite well but didn't really seem to have any effect on the numbers of wasps there were so many...

I've decided the only thing left to do is to unite this colony with another so they are stronger and better equipped to fight against the wasps. This will give the colony a stronger chance of surviving the Winter and bringing us more honey in the New Year. I'll do this as soon as I can and hopefully (fingers crossed) it will do the trick.

Come and feed the piglets for charity!

We're raising money again for The Alzheimer's Society - I'm climbing Ben Nevis in a months time (lucky me!) and I'm trying to raise as much money as possible for this very worthy cause - for more info on why I've decided to climb the UK's highest mountain please see here: www.justgiving.com/janeandfotoulla

So, we'll be bringing along two lovely little Gloucester Old Spot piglets to The Two Brewers pub in Stotfold and selling bags of piglet food for £1.00 - All money raised will be donated to the charity. We'll be there to answer all your questions about rearing pigs for the table too - so feel free to come along just for a chat...

We'd like to say a really big thank you to The Two Brewers for being such a lovely bunch and to all their regulars who have been steadily filling a jug with their spare change to go towards our fundraising efforts, we really, really appreciate it!

Jane x

A Hog Roast Testimonial...

'Andre made a fantastic hog roast, the occasion was our engagement party with a hundred people attending. The cooking started in the morning and by early  evening our garden was filled with wonderful aromas. To accompany the meat, Andre made fantastic salads and dressings, also a delicious homemade chutney. Everyone loved it, even my teenage children... we just need an excuse to have another party now.'

Fiona + Mark

Clapham, South London

Gold from the garden...

Our first proper honey harvest - we've been waiting for this for so long! We got 24 jars in total this time around - super happy... 

Margaret is cutting the white capping off the super frames

nicely does it....

Gold is on its way

Into the spinner...

Stacking up

The best thing I've seen for days - we're all chuffed to bits! I wonder how many miles the bees had to fly to give us all this lovely honey, fascinating stuff. 

Making Sausages!

 I decided it was time to learn how to make sausages... With the help of Ben and Cheryl, Jane and I spent the day making some lovely pork, honey and harrisa home made sausages. Ben and Cheryl made some cracking lamb sausages full of Morrocan spices. Its good to get a better idea of how our butcher puts together our Cardona & Son sausages... Its no mean feat I tell you! 

Grinding the pork cuts... 

Not too much fat... 

Ben adding spices to his lamb sausage mix.

Almost there! 

Lovely stuff! 

The finished product! We were all pretty chuffed with our efforts... Tasty and home made. 

How To Hive A Swarm

The main trick to hiveing a swarms is to get the queen. I try to find the queen. If you know you see her and can make sure she ends up in the box, brush off the stragglers and leave. If you're not sure, then let them settle in.

 It helps if the box smells like lemon grass. Either put some lemongrass essential oil in it. Sometimes they will settle into the box. I just keep shaking them in until the stay. and losts of smoke on branch It usually works. 
They are not looking for an occupied house, they are looking for an empty or abandoned house. Old empty comb sometimes helps. 
Always wear protective equipment. Swarms don't usually get mean, but things are unpredictable.

I love using a skep.

This is a nuc box bees walking in.

Honey on its way! Taking Orders now...

Wow the bees have been working hard! Lots of honey stores coming in so I'm planning on harvesting in the next 2 weeks. I've just come home from moving 2 hives over to Graveley to my new apiary, I have lots of room if anyone out there would like to sponsor a hive or two.... I was geting over-crowded with bees in the garden, I now only have two nucs left which are waiting to be re-homed at a school in Ampthill. I've just got to keep an close eye on them to make sure they're good natured enough before the big move. Can't wait for this honey its going to be cracking!

The kids (in Letchworth) are alright...

Its not just pubs and restaurants thinking more about locally sourced produce - this morning we're off to St Nicholas's in Letchworth to deliver some Gloucester Old Spot sausages for their Summer Fair. Cardona and Son sausages are full of goodness and much lower in fat so are the perfect choice for families. Oh, and they taste pretty good too! Definitely worth a trip if you can make it...

A test shoot of how our Pork is cooked and served....

      Cheek

            Roast Belly

         

                          Leek  Sausages                                    Terrine

Our Second Honey Harvest!

Quick update to let you know how our bees are doing...

A few weeks ago we lost a swarm, and then as if by magic two weeks later a different turned up in Margaret's garden... What are the chances! Margaret managed to hive the swarm on her first attempt (amazing!) So now we have four colonies on the go. One in particular is doing really well and gave us 10 pounds of honey last weekend....

The other two are slowly building up and we'll hopefully be able to harvest later on in the year. The new swarm is coming along nicely too. We'll just have to be patient with these three.

Unfortunately our 10 pounds of honey only translated into 10 jars which have been snaffled up... We're taking orders for later in the year though so please get in touch if you fancy trying some out!

We're also looking for somewhere to keep one or two hives - close to Stotfold, so if anyone is interested please let us know....

Best, Andre + Jane

Smaller Orders Welcome!

We've been getting feedback that some of you would like to make smaller orders to try out our pork which is great! Always a good idea to try a little before stocking up your freezer. So, feel free to drop us a line with what you fancy and we'll get back to you with availability and price. Perhaps you'd like to try a roasting joint this long weekend? Or a pack of fat sausages? We look forward to hearing from you....

Andre and Jane

If you are interested in the piglets for sale

9 Tamworth x Saddleback Weaners for sale. Will be ready in 6 weeks time (June 24th) They'll be wormed and weaned and ready to go.

4 Gloucester Old Spot Weaners for sale. Will be ready in 4 weeks time (June 9th) Wormed and weaned also.

The parent sows and the boar are friendly and very good natured pigs, they are easy to handle and the sows have good mothering qualities and produce large litters.

We are based in the Hitchin area and would be happy for any prospective buyers to come and visit.

If you are interested in the piglets for sale as weaners whether you are interested in gilts or boars.

Please call Andre for more info

The Comet

Raising Money for The Alzheimer's Society this weekend...

This Saturday we will be at the newly re-opened Two Brewers in Stotfold with two of our finest Gloucester Old Spots helping celebrate a very ‘British’ Weekend.

The pub will have a gourmet barbeque as well as afternoon tea on offer during the day. We’ll be there promoting the preservation of British Rare Breed Pigs as well as raising money for our chosen charity The Alzheimer’s Society UK. Jane will be climbing Ben Nevis in September to raise money for the charity, so we’re offering all the chance on Saturday to feed our piglets for a small donation to this worthy cause.

15% of all orders placed in May for our Meat Boxes will also be donated to The Alzheimer’s Society.

For more info on Saturday's frivolities please give me a bell: 07958 655962

Hope to see you there!

Andre

Rare Breed Meat Boxes

The swarm that got away...

On today's inspection we found about 8 Queen cells so we carried out artificial swarming, we were feeling quite happy about the way it all went. We were having a nice cool drink and I glanced out the window and saw lots of bees and said to Margaret 'It looks like a swarm in the tree!' So I guess I  messed it up, so out we went to try and catch it... 

This is half of my bees from hive one that have swarmed after we had done an artificial swarm control. Ok, lets get them back into a hive... 

We make a plan...

We have cut the branch off and then placed them in a box with new frames... 

Here is the box with the bees inside, we've left it here hoping the rest will find their way back too and set up home.... But its not long until...

.... here they all are 10 minutes later in a hedge about 2 metres away. 

So we smoked them into a box and called for help and by the time help had arrived 

we just got sight of them on their way again, we rushed outside but they were nowhere to be seen. 

Hive Two:

 This is the Queen I had marked with a yellow spot last year that we'd been looking for. 

We just thought she was being elusive, but Andy found her and placed a Queen cage over her. She'd lost her yellow spot which is how we lost her!

Now here he goes. What you see in this image is capped brood in the centre, pollen on the outside edge and stores of honey by the scissor handles.

Holding her by her head 

He marks her thorax

Much better job than I did last year. 

Now the wing which I've never done.

Andy is the local Bee Guru from the Bee Association and has been a great help and support over the last year. We are grateful to have someone local to help us, they're a very important resource for new bee-keepers - Thanks Andy!