Our Farm Shop is open Tuesday - Sunday!

Our Farm Shop is open Tuesday - Sunday!

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Produced at Castle Farm

Proud to be diverse

Lovingly and professionally grown, reared, nurtured, tended and harvested in a way that only a family farm knows best. Castle Farm is much more than just Lavender! We run a productive 1,000+ acre farm of arable crops, including wheat, oats, barley, beans and linseed, plus have our cattle herd, hop gardens, pumpkin patch, apple orchard, sunflowers and of course, Lavender. Active conservation has long been an integral part of our farming with regular hedge maintenance, woodland management and tree planting taking place each year. The farm devotes 10% of its area to be managed with wildlife and the environment having priority over food production.

Castle Farm Beef

Reared to high welfare standards and air-dried for 3 weeks, ensuring superb quality and taste.  Castle Farm has a Pedigree herd of Welsh Black Cattle. They are friendly, suitable for year-round outside management - an excleent heritage breed for a fully grass-fed diet.Our livestock manager, David, knows each animal individually and ensures that the cattle are always healthy and content.

 

How to buy

Castle Farm Beef is conveniently vacuum-packed as roasting joints, steaks, braising or mince and sold frozen from the shop, alongside delicious meat pies. Special cuts, such as ribs of beef, rolled sirloins, t-bone steaks or whole fillets, can be pre-ordered.Castle Farm Beef is Red Tractor Food approved – traceable, safe and farmed with care.

Castle Farm Hops

Traditionally, garlands of hops were hung afresh every year – for good luck – in the pubs and farmhouses of the hop-growing areas of the UK (Kent, Herefordshire and Worcestershire). In 1986 we began growing and marketing them nationwide specifically for interior use.

 

How to buy

The fully-grown bines are harvested from mid-August to mid-September when they are in their prime and have their freshest green colour. They are either sold as fresh-cut bines for immediate decorative use or dried in the dark in temperature- and humidity-controlled sheds to hold their colour. The decorative dried Hop Bines are approximately 3m (10ft) in length.

 

Hop Plants are also avaible from late Winter through to early Spring.

Castle Farm Apples

We grow a specialist apple variety – the Norfolk Royal – which is a wonderful sweet, big red eating apple and you can let the whole family join in at our Pick Your Own apple orchard in Kent.

 

You will also find our Cox apples, local Bramleys, pears, corn on the cob and the Kent Cob hazel nuts – a seasonal speciality, when the PYO orchard is open. Sign up to our e-newsletter and social media to be kept informed of orchard opening dates and times.

 

How to buy

The PYO Apple orchard is open weekends in September, check our socials or newsletter for dates. Ready picked apples are also availbe in the Farm Shop in September / October or until sold out.

 

Castle Farm Pumpkins

At Castle Farm, we have a beautiful pumpkin patch where we grow a variety of Pumpkins and Squashes.We cut by hand, and bring them outside the shop for you to be able to choose your perfect pumpkin for cooking, or just for decoration.

 

Our home-grown pumpkins come in a range of shapes and sizes from the tasty little ‘rolet’ that can be baked whole, to the versatile onion squash, the smooth grey-skinned ‘Crown Prince’, the stripey ‘Harlequin’, mini little ‘Gold Dust’ and traditional orange Hallowe’en varieties for carving.

 

How to buy

September to November/December depending on variety.To store: Keep in a cool, dry place for up to 1 month.

Castle Farm Lavender

About our Lavender

We are proud of the beautiful fragrance and consistent high quality of the Lavender and Lavandin oils which we grow and distill on our family farm near Sevenoaks. The pure essential oils are used in our own range of toiletries (soaps, hand creams etc), natural sleep products, candles, massage oils and food essences. They are also sold to fragrance houses for a host of other uses from everyday household products to exclusive perfumes.

During the summer months, we harvest bunches of lavender by hand, to sell fresh, and also to air dry for sale throughout the year. Bunches are used for interior decoration at home or for weddings and events.

Lavender through history

Lavender originates from Mediterranean regions. The name comes from the Latin lavare – to wash (which is also the origin of the word ‘laundry’) and is indicative of its use in Roman times as a fragrance and insect repellent. The oil has also been prized for centuries for its antiseptic and healing properties. English lavender has always been recognised for its fine quality and in medieval times it was a favoured strewing herb for scattering on the floors of houses to mask other, less fragrant aromas!

 

LAVENDER or LAVANDIN. Which to use?

We take special care to distinguish between Lavender and Lavandin in our products because they have distinctly different characteristics and uses – which are important to know when you are buying or using them.

 

LAVENDER

 

– Relaxing – Soothing – Soporific

Extracted from Lavandula angustifolia ‘Maillette’, our pure Castle Farm Lavender Oil is valued for its medicinal and soothing attributes as well as its fine fragrance. It has antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties, can act as a mild anaesthetic and has traditionally been associated with remedies for soothing headaches and tension and reducing stress. It is in high demand for use in aromatherapy, perfumery, skincare products and pharmaceuticals.

  • - Relax with a few drops in the bath or on a pillow.
  • - Massage gently into the forehead to help soothe headaches and reduce travel sickness.
  • - Use (with a base oil) in aromatherapy massages to help relieve muscular tension and painful joints or to induce relaxation.
  • Massages with lavender oil can be especially helpful to both patients and carers in cases of illness or dementia.
  • Put in an oil burner to purify the air – the volatile oils are highly effective at controlling airborne bacteria.
  • Ideal for sleep pillows and for culinary use and calming herbal teas

LAVANDIN

 

– Envigorating – Penetrating – Energising

Extracted from Lavandula x intermedia ‘Grosso’, a high-yielding variety, Kentish Lavandin Oil has a different chemical profile with about 10–12% camphor. This gives it a powerful uplifting scent so it can therefore act as a mild stimulant. Therapeutically it can be an aid to breathing – helping to clear a blocked nose – and the camphor also makes it an effective moth and mosquito repellent. Its uses are therefore in outdoor candles, general household products, hand-soaps, room and linen sprays, and therapies for easing breathing or tired, aching muscles. It is NOT appropriate for a relaxing bedtime bath!

  • Inhale a few drops on a handkerchief to help clear a stuffy nose, dispel sleepiness or aid concentration.
  • Massage (with a base oil) into aching, tired muscles.
  • Add to washing powder to scent clothes or bed linen and to help repel moths.
  • Deter flies by painting around the edge of window glass.
  • Rub into wrists and ankles as a mosquito repellent.
  • Add to candles at summer barbecues.

A Natural Sleep Range

Text

Restful sleep is critical to your

health, mind, well-being & mood.

The Hop is a member of the Cannabaceae family, traditionally used for relaxation and to treat insomnia. And we aren’t just talking about having a beer to send you to sleep! Read old books on herbal remedies and you will always find reference to both hops and lavender being good for sleep!At Castle Farm, it was therefore obvious to use our Kentish grown hops and lavender to develop an exclusive range of natural sleep aids – and they have proved incredibly popular with our customers, with many repeat orders and personal recommendations.

 

All-natural Sleepy Scent is a great alternative to sleeping pills. It acknowledges folk-lore and herbal traditions dating back for centuries which advocate the use of hop pillows to cure insomnia, but also leans on more recent scientific evidence which has proved that lavender calms the nervous system, thus reducing stress, inducing relaxation and improving sleep quality. In particular, feedback from Sleepy Scent users seems to suggest that it increases the speed of going to sleep and encourages deeper, longer periods of sleep in people suffering from sleep disorders.