Spring on the farm

After a very full winter taking care of our woodlands and hedges, improving our infrastructure, feeding our cows and making big plans for the coming season we were very excited for the onset of spring this year.

In March we finished re-planting in our new hedgerows. Unfortunately many of the hedge plants we put in back in Winter 21-22 struggled with the hot summer and subsequent wet winters and didn't make it. We focused on replanting around 1000 plants in Roundabouts and still have a stretch left to do in Driffield Bank this Autumn. After the hot weather we're glad we didn't do them all at once!

This year our whole cropping area of 28Ha went into spring sown cereals. After outwintering the cows in Quarry Field it was part ploughed and part minimum tilled ready to plant Mariagertoba wheat for the South West Grain Network True South West Flour milled at Cann Mills and Spelt for Matthews Mill, Cotswold Flour. Over on Driffield Bank we had winter wheat last year and so followed this with a spring malting barley variety which we hope will go to the UK's only organic certified brewery, Stroud Brewery.

We laid two stretches of hedge in Pond Park (pictured above) and Roundabouts over the winter and it's been lovely to see the sap rising as they come into leaf. If you're driving down Tank Lane from Ampney St Peter towards Harnhill you will see the Pond Park stretch from the road - it looks a picture.

Calving got off to a flying start with nearly all our calves being born in April, just a few of the cows held on to calve in May. It seemed like we would have a clean sweep of heifers but we did have five or so bull calves thrown into the mix, a few of which were quite large..

As May got underway our herbal leys started to grow and look glorious, all sorts of different plants at different heights with different root systems. We stopped feeding hay in April which always feels like a big milestone.

The only drawback has been the lack of rain, we've all been doing many rain dances.. here's hoping for a nice summer with some H2O as well!