LEAF Open Farm Sunday Search

Jean Glennie, Hillhead of Ardo

For members of the public, the word ‘Christmas’ is rarely mentioned in June, but at Jean and Roger Glennie’s Open Farm Sunday event at Hillhead of Ardo in Methlick, Aberdeenshire, the festive period is a key focus with the aim to educate the local community on the ‘farming’ side of Christmas. Here, Jean explains more…

250 - 400 visitors

Tak­ing the leap

We often spoke about get­ting involved in Open Farm Sun­day pre-pan­dem­ic but always talked our­selves out of it. In 2021 we took the leap and signed up so we could share our pas­sion for what we do.

The event has not only allowed us to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty, wel­com­ing them onto our farm, free of charge, for a fun fam­i­ly day out, but it has giv­en us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell the full Christ­mas tree sto­ry. Christ­mas trees are a unique crop, requir­ing spe­cial­ist care 12 months of the year, some­thing they may nev­er think much about. 

Farm to festive

We have a 700 ‑acre arable enter­prise, run across owned, con­tract­ed and rent­ed land, grow­ing pre­dom­i­nant­ly spring bar­ley and oilseed rape. Although this would per­haps seem like the most obvi­ous area to open for a LEAF event, we decid­ed instead to focus on Christ­mas trees which would offer some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent in terms of a farm­ing story. 

We’ve plant­ed two hectares of Nord­mann Fir and Spruce trees and work along­side sev­er­al oth­er local Christ­mas tree grow­ers to pro­vide high-qual­i­ty trees with low car­bon foot­print to mem­bers of the pub­lic through our fes­tive sea­son­al shop on farm, as well as sup­ply­ing com­mer­cial and busi­ness outlets.

Help is at hand

I think one of the biggest deter­mi­nants for farm­ers not sign­ing up to Open Farm Sun­day is the wor­ry of being unpre­pared for mem­bers of the pub­lic com­ing on to their farm and think­ing that there will be noth­ing of inter­est to show, but remem­ber what is every day to us, is new and fas­ci­nat­ing to them.

You are in the dri­ving seat and the event can be as big, small, com­pli­cat­ed, or sim­ple as you want it to be. The team at LEAF and all the resources they pro­vide real­ly are fan­tas­tic – the risk assess­ments, sig­nage and Try­Book­ing, the free tick­et­ing sys­tem, made prepa­ra­tion for us less stress­ful, espe­cial­ly last year when the pan­dem­ic meant more restric­tions. We were still able to wel­come 350 vis­i­tors and had full con­trol of who was attend­ing and could con­tact them with updates or if there had been any change of plan.

Reduce the workload

Our first event was a real team effort and that is some­thing we will con­tin­ue with going for­ward. We decid­ed what was going where, but local busi­ness­es came along and helped – whether it was tak­ing their own equip­ment and stands or over­see­ing a stand or activ­i­ty we created. 

Each organ­i­sa­tion played their role in mak­ing the day inter­est­ing and infor­ma­tive for vis­i­tors, from the trac­tor deal­er­ship rep­re­sen­ta­tives talk­ing about equip­ment used with the grow­ing of Christ­mas trees, to the local her­itage soci­ety dis­play­ing antique farm­ing equip­ment from the past. 

Oth­er activ­i­ties includ­ed a vin­tage trac­tor dis­play and run round the plan­ta­tion and a scav­enger hunt, task­ing vis­i­tors with find­ing objects begin­ning with each let­ter of the alphabet. 

Each activ­i­ty wasn’t com­pli­cat­ed and didn’t take long to plan or set up. So, for any farmer out there think­ing of get­ting involved but sit­ting on the fence, don’t have any doubts – just do it! 

We can’t wait to wel­come vis­i­tors back this June and con­tin­ue to help pro­mote our indus­try through Open Farm Sunday.

Keen to take part and host an event this year? Reg­is­ter your event here.

Ques­tions? Con­tact the Open Farm Sun­day team: [email protected] or phone 07912 463151



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