Bread & Flowers Suppliers
NUNTON FARM MILK
We have 800 suppliers within 100 meters of our front door. Not many outfits could boast that statistic. Otherwise known as the ladies of the village, they comprise the Nunton Farm dairy herd, a good looking herd of Friesians, who regularly ply their way through the deep, lush, green grasses on the water meadow at the bottom of our garden on the banks of the river Ebble.
Having munched, lunched and ruminated for the best part of the day, they are led off to the milking parlour on the other side of the valley, where their diet and labour is converted into the most luscious milk, pasteurised but not homogenised and on sale in the car park of the Radnor Arms, Nunton. They very kindly deliver ours as we get through about 12 litres a week, using it for puddings and occasionally for homemade yoghurt.
The glass bottles it arrives in are taken away and recycled for the following weeks’ delivery, meaning we no longer throw 100 cubic meters of plastic into landfill annually, where it sits for twelve thousand years. That makes us and our clients very happy indeed.
@nuntonfarm
KENSONS FARM ORGANICS
On the road to Shaftesbury, down a quiet road towards Sutton Mandeville, lies the loveliest organic, somewhat shambolic, but only to my mind, group of fields and buildings which comprise this beautiful farm. We get through acres of their salad leaves, almost all year round and it’s a place I love to visit for inspiration and to treat myself to some of their exquisite cut flowers from time to time. It’s where you will find their ‘Veg Shed’ open to the public at certain times on certain days of the year.
It's run by Hugh and Liz Collins, an honest couple who clearly enjoy growing their produce and selling it locally at farmers markets in Shaftesbury and Salisbury, and direct from their farm. I wish we lived next door, we would be in there three times a week. They grow a wide range of seasonal vegetables, the quality of which is spectacular.
www.kensonsfarm.wordpress.com
MADDOX FARM ORGANICS
Not exactly local coming from Cullompton, Devon, but suppliers of the most beautiful edible flowers which arrive looking fresher, brighter and more alive than any I’ve found locally so far. They are friendly, funny, passionate and reliable and their deliveries are an absolute joy to open. We get our blue and white borage flowers from them, which we use to adorn the salad leaves from Kensons Farm. Little cucumber flavoured blue and white stars, scattered across vivid green leaves are a delight to behold. I guess we could grow our own but we would need a field full to get us through the season.
www.maddocksfarmorganics.co.uk
HENDERSON’S ARTISAN BAKERY
Paul Henderson opened his award-winning artisan bakery in Salisbury market square an age ago, well pre-pandemic and we were straight in there having a sniff around. Amazingly, lots of clients request ‘artisan bread’ and Paul supplies us mostly with sourdough, ciabatta and focaccia which do the trick. It’s also a café where he serves coffee and cakes and it’s a wonderful place to sit, under the trees and watch Salisbury come to life early in the morning. Not that I’ve ever got time for any of that on a Saturday morning when I dash in early to pick up my order for the events we have that day, and also pick up one of his absolutely scrumptious warm sausage rolls for breakfast, a guilty pleasure of mine.