Did you make it along to the Halloween Party at The Medicine Garden on Saturday? if so you might have seen my daughter and I looking a bit spooky ...

Not sure about the glasses, but I guess it was quite important to be able to see where I was going!! We love halloween in our house ever since we lived in California for a couple of years and discovered how much fun it can be!

Thanks to everyone who came and chatted to me at my stall on the decking. Thanks especially to the two lovely men who helped me when my gazebo buckled in the wind and who kindly rescued me by taking it down! Thanks too to Trish from Cloudcocoland who donated the chocolate lollies that entrants to the pumpkin carving competition received. I will be selling her lollies once The Larder opens on 18th November, so don't forget to check out her Christmas themed ones as they will be great stocking fillers!

Lots more people took the opportunity to enter my draw for a Copas turkey crown and the winner will be announced on 26th November at The Larder's opening party. If you want to enter before then just drop me an email. You will have an opportunity to taste loads of our lovely food on 26th including some delicious pies from Harry's Pie Store, who are coming down to meet everyone and to talk about their lovely wares. You will also have the chance to raise money for Marie Curie nurses by entering our competition to name one of our chickens here at the garden. Find out more about her in my previous post. 

Hope you have a great evening tonight what ever you are doing and do drop in and see us after 18th November. 

We are very fond of our chickens here at The Medicine Garden, but only two of them have names! I am really pleased therefore that Paul and Mick have agreed that to celebrate the opening of The Larder I can run a competition to name this beauty..

What will it be? Fluffy? Omelette? At our opening party on 26th November come along any time between 10 and 4 and in exchange for a donation to Marie Curie Cancer Care you can suggest a name for her. These will all be put in a draw and the winning entry will make her the proud owner of what every Chicken is hoping for...her very own name!!

You can visit her beforehand to canvas her opinion by looking through our special viewing area in the fence behind our plant shelves in the courtyard.

Plans are afoot to increase the number of chickens on-site and we are hoping to be able to bring you our own Medicine Garden eggs very soon.

In the meantime do get those thinking hats on as the chicken is getting very excited!

I have just spent a fascinating couple of hours with James Dampier from Village Greens Farm Shop in Ockley. Despite having never met me before he kindly agreed to me coming down and picking his brains about the realities of setting up and running a farm shop.

James and his wife Catherine live about a mile from the shop and when it closed they saw the gap it left in the village. They decided to take the plunge and reopen it themselves. Their focus is on local produce. They grow fruit and vegetables on site and have their own bread oven and bee garden. They work with around 50 small suppliers and are proud that 18 of them are located within 10 miles of the shop.

What I especially loved was how much the shop is part of village life. They run bread making workshops in the village hall, they have an annual food festival and they even collect in windfall apples from local residents and in conjunction with Ringden Farm they press it into apple juice that is then sold in the shop. This year people collected over two tons of apples that would otherwise have mainly rotted!

I was pleased to discover some new local suppliers who I am hoping to tempt into The Larder very soon and I plan to work hard to develop the same community feel in store that they have achieved. Obviously, being based at The Medicine Garden is a huge advantage as it is already operating as a community space and hosts a number of regular free events. A food festival is also on the cards for next year, so I am planning on playing a big part in that.

On a smaller scale please bear The Larder in mind next time you have a glut of produce in your garden and I would love to be selling beans or plums from right on our doorstep. I am pleased that we are planning to increase the number of chickens on site so I can offer our own eggs and I hear plans may be afoot for pigs in the overflow car park so I might even be selling Medicine Garden pork before too long!

A big thank you to James for his time and if you are in the Ockley area do drop in and say hello. They have a Christmas Fair  6.30-8.30 at Ockley Village Hall on 25th November with free mince pies and punch so should be worth dropping by!

Well I have to say I am feeling quite excited at the moment!! The lease has been signed!!

I move in on 14th November and am aiming to be open by Friday 18th November as long as things go to plan. Please do pop by and say hello once I am open and I will have plenty of interesting things on offer to taste!

I am planning to have a little soiree to celebrate my opening on Saturday 26th November and would like to raise some money for Marie Curie Cancer care along the way. Any suggestions on how we might do that very welcome. So far I have thought of a guess the flavour of the cake, or guess the age of the cheese competition but if you have any better ideas do let me know ...ruth@themedicinegarden.com

See you soon!!