Veggie fields
The farm is busy, busy, busy! It feels a lot like fire fighting right now! As the year progresses there is always this feeling of quickening, the daylight hours get longer, the workload increases… and weeds stubbornly continue to regrow! After a day out in the fields we often leave work searching for a cool, dark corner to sit in.
Weather-wise, conditions for growing have so far been pretty good this year; we have had enough rainfall and the sun has been out just enough. Over the next few months we expect to be harvesting courgettes, tomatoes, beans, lettuce and many other leafy greens. July, August and September will hopefully be a time of abundance, the items in the vegetable share should increase as well as quantities.
Animal news
The lambs that were born in the spring are now nearly ready to be weaned! We have sheared the few sheep we have with fleeces. Our main flock are all wool shedding sheep, which means their fleeces fall out naturally.
The cows are enjoying the sunshine. We recently sold 7 as part of a new herd starting on the Isle of White! We moved to pedigree traditional Herefords to help maintain this rare breed, so it’s great to think another herd is starting up and among them are two home bread heifers of ours, Brookwood Juliet and Brookwood Meg.
The 12 piglets born at the end of January are now huge! The next litter of piglets is due in the second week of September.
We have made most of our winter feed for the cows in the form of hay and silage. We have a few more fields to make, they are mowed at the moment, fingers crossed the fine weather continues.
