Julians Berry Farm and Cafe Newsletter #1 2010

The berry season is nearly here, welcome back!! Can you believe we have been at this location for 9 years now??!!

Opening. We will be opening on the 13th of October which is a Wednesday and gives the staff some time to practice their ice cream making and till work before the rush of Labour weekend. We have plenty of staff returning this year which is great. We really enjoy seeing these young people grow and develop into adults.

Website. We are finally online! Visit our new site www.juliansberryfarm.co.nz for recipes, seasons, info, specials and frequently asked questions!

Hydroponics. We have 10,000 plants growing in a hydroponics system this year. We are working with Ken McCauley who has a lot of experience growing lettuce and tomatoes and even pine trees in his glass houses using hydroponics. We have been picking since late August and have been enjoying the indoor nature of this experiment. We can pick in the rain, have music , concrete floor-no mud, no bending, heaps of trolleys so minimal lifting. It is fantastic.

Helicopter. We are pretty confident that we will be flying the helicopter again this year from boxing day onwards. The helicopter was hugely popular and we have had a lot of enquires about whether it is going to operate. At this stage we believe so.

Animal farm. The animal farm is looking great with a board walk and seating and shade for animals and people. The lambs are beautiful and the calf is gorgeous.

The Berry Farm is looking good with all the buds bursting and flowering underway. We are expecting plenty of strawberries and raspberries and the blueberries are looking great. We have a young block of 1500 blueberry plants that are starting to really produce. Our early cropping ones have a fantastic flavour and are good size, we are really pleased with these.

Facebook. We have a page on Facebook which is going well. I would recommend you joining us there as it is a great way to get early information about specials or when the Ranuis are ready or when we have our first pick of sweet corn.

Thank you to all our loyal and regular customers, we really appreciate your support. We are going to have another great season so we will see you at the Berry Farm.

Thanks Paul and Monica Julian <