Family fruit farm receive amazing support after vandalism

Yasmin Reid, 27, took over the running of Blagdon Fruit Farm in Weymouth around six years ago and has told of ‘the lovely response’ from people coming to support them following a devastating time.

As reported by the Echo, the family business was left ‘devastated’ last year after customers decided to ‘pick dozens of perfectly good strawberries, green strawberries which were not ripe yet, and whole stems of strawberries and simply threw them on the ground.’ Yasmin said: “I was doing my nightly checks and found that strawberries had been thrown in every row.

The outdoor crops were vandalised last year (Image: Hollie Carr)

“The response that we got was so lovely. People came out and supported us and this turned a really bad thing into a really positive thing, and we hope it won’t happen again.”

The family are now preparing to open the farm’s tearoom once again on May 24 and the pick your own (PYO) sessions should open once the crops have ripened in June.

Overall, there are around 13,000 strawberry plants on the farm and from flower they take about a month to grow and ripen.

Inside one of the polytunnels (Image: Hollie Carr)

This year the PYO opening has been delayed due to a ‘long and cold winter.’

Yasmin said: “It was a long cold winter which affects everything, you can’t get the machinery on the ground to do anything.”

The farmer’s nan and grandad Hugh and Sheila Lloyd started running the farm around 30 years ago and Yasmin added: “I get customers that were coming as children that are now coming in with their children.”

Yasmin took it over so that they could ‘see the farm continuing,’ but also as a way of providing a service to the local community, as well as ‘to show children where fresh fruit is grown and that it doesn’t just come from the supermarket.’

The farm really is a family affair as Yasmin’s parents, Mark and Sheila Reid also work there alongside her nan and grandad, uncle Mark Lloyd and her partner Dan White who sometimes helps out.

Yasmin explained that she started the tearoom when she was 15 which stemmed from her wanting to buy an iPad.

Outdoor seating at the tearoom (Image: Yasmin Reid)

She would often make fresh cream teas and decided to sell them at the farm.

After going to Kingston Mauward College to study horticulture and working a landscaping job she started selling plants at the farm which quickly progressed into a pick your own strawberries.

More PYO fruit (Image: Hollie Carr)

She said: “I put all my savings towards polytunnels for the pick your own.

“It’s quite a peaceful place and we have such a wonderful customer base.”

There is also a campsite at the farm which visitors can enjoy.