Veggie fields
It has been a very busy autumn, turning the rest of the polytunnels over from summer to winter crops and harvesting and storing the squash safely to keep the share looking bright and full in the new year. The polytunnels are now full of winter salad, bright new beautiful chard and perpetual spinach plants and some overwintering crops for the spring too (pak choi and spring greens).
The leeks have been an undeniable triumph. The early winter salad was a bit sad because of a plague of aphids that seems to migrate from the beautiful lime tree in the field here at Hawkwood each year. The sliver lining – we got to use our new hand lens for a bit of horticultural entomology!
Animal news
While we haven’t had any really prolonged cold weather yet the winter routine has started on the farm. Most of the cows are in the barn now and need feeding every day and bedding with fresh straw 2 or 3 times a week. We have moved some of the mother cows up to Hawkwood where they have settled into the barn and their new outside woodchip yard as well.
Our old fashioned Traditional Hereford’s originate from the Welsh Marches and are quite happy to be outside throughout the winter, in fact they prefer it. This is the reason we made an outside yard for the cattle at Hawkwood. We are trialling keeping some young stock outside over winter feeding them on the field. This is partly in preparation for loosing winter housing at Brookthorpe in future and partly to see if we can achieve a more natural open air wintering of the cows. If we can make it work, it potentially involves less labour, less buying in straw and less relying on so much tractor work to move and compost manure after winter housing.
The sheep now are hopefully all pregnant and expecting lambs at the beginning of April.
All being well, we should be expecting piglets in late January/early February. It’s a chilly time of year but they will be fine in a cosy stall with straw and a heat lamp.
