It was 75 years ago that turkeys and geese appeared at Peach Croft Farm, Radley. Three generations later drivers travelling along the Abingdon ring road can still see their turkeys and geese at this time of the year.

As Christmas approaches the farm will gradually fall silent, until December 22 and 23, when customers from all over Oxfordshire arrive to pick up their Christmas bird and festive vegetables. This annual event is a real social gathering, which is kicked off with a glass of mulled wine to be enjoyed as customers choose vegetables to go with their festive dinner. I always feel that once I have picked up my Peach Croft turkey that Christmas has really begun.

This year the Homewood family have good reason to raise their glasses, as they are celebrating the farm’s 75th anniversary and 75 years of production from 1937 when Frederick Charles Taylor began breeding turkeys. John and Nancy Homewood introduced geese on to the farm in 1982 when they fancied a change from turkey for their festive meal. Whilst John and Nancy have retired, leaving the running of the farm to their son Bill and his wife Kim, they are still involved, particularly at this time of the year, as are Bill and Kim’s three daughters: Nancy who is a vet, specialising in large farm animals, Hannah who works on the Great Tew Estate, having gained a degree in land management and Katie who aims to take a degree in catering. All three girls will be involved in selling the turkeys and helping keep the customers happy during the lead up to Christmas. They all admit that coming together as they do and working as a family this time of the year is great fun, even if somewhat exhausting.

Bill Homewood, who is a member of the British Goose Producers Association, says that their birds are grown naturally and slowly to full maturity and enjoy a completely natural diet that includes their own home-grown cereals. Peach Croft is an unusual farm insomuch as it is a traditional mixed farm that is going out of fashion these days. Three-quarters of this 650-acre farm produces grain, rapeseed, fruits and vegetables which sell at their pick your own. The rest of the land is divided into paddocks where their free-range turkey and geese can roam and enjoy being bedded down each night safe from marauding foxes – a process which takes at least two hours to complete as there are 8,000 turkeys and 2,700 geese.

The birds arrive at the farm when they are one day old, they are all slow-growing strains which will take six months to mature as the more intense methods are not for them. (Some breeders rear their birds in 12 weeks or less.) In the centre of the farm you will discover Wells Stores, run by the award- winning Gill Draycott, a cheesemonger whose knowledge of cheese is second to none. This is a delightful addition to the farm as it means customers can stock up with artisan breads and farmhouse cheeses and festive provisions. It’s here you also buy jars of goose fat that’s been rendered down from Homewood geese. The perfect fat to cook your roast potatoes.