Welcome to our February newsletter 

(Sorry it's late again!)

This month OFF the farm

One thing I’m adamant I want to do this year is to make sure I get off the farm to visit other farms and farmers who I want to learn from, so a few weeks ago I booked the day off, got up early and headed to probably the most influential farm in the country and somewhere I’d wanted to visit for years.

It was just before dawn and the frost was severe when I crossed the cattle grid and arrived at Knepp. The 3500 acre estate has been in the Burrell family for many generations but since Charlie Burrell took over from his grandparents in 1983 he found it impossible to turn a profit on the intensive arable and dairy farms the estate owned. The principal reason was the clay, 300m of it on top of rock. The soil was as hard as concrete in the summer and turned to porridge in the winter. In 2002 the decision was made to give up farming the land and allow nature to reclaim with minimal intervention.

The whole site is fenced and stocked with deer, ponies, cattle and pigs to mimic the natural relationships between vegetation and herbivore.

20 years later and the estate is crawling with wildlife that live on a patchwork of grass, trees and scrub. In the absence of large predators the livestock numbers are managed, with the surplus being harvested and the meat sold.

The habitats that have evolved now mean that Knepp is the only place in the country where both nightingale and turtle dove are increasing (both these birds are in serious threat of being lost from our countryside) and experts believe it’s probably home to the highest density of songbirds anywhere in England. As well as the thriving wildlife it is now profitable and employs more people than before the project started.

The owners of the estate are the first to admit that this is not the answer for all farmland but for soils that are unfarmable why fight nature? Knepp has been instrumental and led the way in wilding, with many farmers having been inspired by the opportunities to let nature take a bit of space back. Every farm has fiddly corners, wet spots and awkward bits where it’s inefficient to cultivate, so we should all embrace a little wildness.

I walked for the whole day and only saw a handful of people. It was amazing to stand in a woody glade at dawn accompanied by long horn cattle and deer with pigs rootling in the earth while each scrubby clump produced the sound of wrens, dunnock or great tit. Many ecologists now believe that ancient Britain was like this and not blanketed in dense woodland, more of an ever-changing kaleidoscope of pasture, scrub and trees know as wood pasture. Stood in the glade watching the cattle emerge from the trees it felt like I could have been in a time before humans wrecked the planet. The pigs may have been Tamworths – as wild boar were deemed too dangerous for a public site, and long horn cattle are a bit modern but perhaps the nearest ancestor we have to the Auroch (the ancient wild cattle that became extinct in 1627)  but I’m sure you get the idea!

Sheep 

Back on the farm we’ve started lambing, in fact we only have 2 left to lamb ! The continuation of dry weather (This was written before the storms over the last couple of days!) has meant that both the pregnant ewes and the ewes with lambs have been out grazing. Getting them outside, if weather permits, helps keep the shed cleaner and reduces the chance of respiratory diseases which can occur when stock is housed.

We keep the newly lambed ewes in individual pens for at least 24 hours to ensure they get that essential bond between them and to allow monitoring. When we release them, we tag the lambs with an electronic tag which allows a record to be stored with every detail of that sheep right through its life. They’re also weighed for our recording scheme and ringed, a process involving putting a rubber ring on the tail which painlessly causes it to drop off in a few weeks time. This helps to prevent flies being attracted which can cause major welfare issues later in life. Many people use the same rubber rings to castrate, but we don’t as we will retain a couple of ram lambs for breeding and we can run any remaining males with our rams once they get old enough to be problematic.

The video below shows some of the first born lambs enjoying a leg stretch out in the turkey paddock, they are around 7 days old.

Beef available to order now

Our next beef is available to order now through my brother Andy's website for collection on Saturday 5th March from either here (Park Farm) at the pop up shop or his farm at Waterhay.

Click the button below to be taken to his website for full details and to place an order.

WI talk

Last week I was invited to speak to the Bishopstone and Hinton Parva Women’s Institute. It was the first talk I’d done for many years and I was a little nervous but the crowd of 30 ladies were very interested and once I’d finished the questions came thick and fast which is normally a positive sign! The talk was entitled “Farming with Wildlife” which is a bit of an endless subject but I spoke about the various habitats we have and the types of wildlife that make their homes there.

I’d forgotten that it’s WI tradition that the speaker judges the competition so I also had to study the farming themed poetry and pick a winner.

There was an old farmer called Joe

Who kept his sheep out of the snow.

Spring he liked best,

Little time to rest,

Due to lambing – then watching lambs grow.

Pop-up shop returns - Saturday 5th March 10am - noon

For those of you who haven't been before, the photos above are a small selection of the things we stock and includes: Bread, lardy cakes and sweet treats from Marshalls bakery in Pewsey, a selection of British in season fruit and veg, Preserves and chutneys from Brinkworth, Eggs from Sherston, Milk from Purton, Butter & Yoghurt from Wroughton, Crisps in compostable packets, British Grains & pulses plus more!

We will have a selection of our own beef on the chill counter (if there is something specific you would like please contact Andy in advance to pre-order)

We also have a small amount of our pork in the freezer.

Thanks for taking the time to read and we hope we will see some of you soon

Best wishes

Chris & Lindsay