Bonterre Blog

The Bonterre Big Build Exciting news to share for our Big Build! As many of you know, we’re fundraising to build a new kitchen, dining and activities space on the farm, allowing us to continue serving our growing community. We’re happy to share that planning permission is now in place and we’re officially good to go! Over the last few years the number of children attending our educational and therapeutic programmes has skyrocketed, and our current building structures (sheds and shipping containers) are now really holding us back.We need a proper central facility to allow us to cater for the…

At Bonterre we regularly provide placements for Occupational Therapy students, working to support people of all ages to overcome challenges and live their best life. The farm provides a great opportunity to put their learning into practice! Some recent students have written a post about their time with us which we’d love to share!”We are occupational therapy students who have recently completed our placement at Bonterre. We have been able to take part in supporting the children throughout the many activities the farm has to offer on a daily basis. This has ranged from animal care tasks to cooking lunch…

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been selected to take part in the customer vote for a project with the Tesco Stronger Starts scheme!Three groups in every community have been shortlisted to receive grant awards of up to £1500. Tesco customers can vote in store for the group they think should take away the top funding award in their local Tesco store. Please support us next time you shop at Tesco!Bonterre will be one of the groups on the shortlist in the Worcester and Droitwich areas from the start of April, with our Project ‘Cookery on the Farm’. We want…

For the last few years we’ve wanted to get our poultry roaming free in the orchard, producing fruit in balance with the birds and the natural environment on our site. After a huge effort to install fencing all around the orchard, we’ve done it! Our chickens and ducks now roam free across the orchard during the day, where they’ll help keep the bug population down, clear the fallen fruit, keep the weeds under control and provide some free fertiliser!Thanks to all those that have supported us by buying our produce and chicken and duck eggs from the stall by the…

We have some new arrivals to welcome to the farm, two lambs called Martin and Shaun. Their names were drawn at random from all those suggested by our students (even though we did tell them they were both girls…!) Both were born as one of three triplets to separate mothers, who couldn’t provide enough milk to support three lambs. After getting their first milk from mum, which contains vital antibodies to get their immune systems started, they came to Bonterre at only a few days old so that they could be bottle-fed. For the first couple of weeks they’ve been…

We’ve had some fantastic hand-made bug hotels donated by pupils at Aston Fields Middle School, Bromsgrove, thankyou so much! We’ve scattered them around our flower gardens and polytunnels where they’ll provide safe shelters for bees and hopefully attract some ladybirds and lacewings to help reduce the aphids that are eating our plants! Bug hotels provide great hidey holes for all sorts of insects and mini-beasts, giving warm and dry spaces to shelter, hide from predators and raise their young. They can be made from all kinds of different materials to fit in any space, making them great additions to support…