In 2012 we set up life together as husband and wife and business partners. We had the opportunity to move back to the family farm and contract fatten outdoor bred pigs alongside our full time employment. In June 2019 we opened a small shop on the farm selling our homegrown pork locally butchered and in September 2019 we took back the grassland to manage, and graze our small herd of native Longhorn cattle. The future is looking exciting as we continue to expand what we have started keeping the environment at our core.
We trialed cropping small areas with grazeable cover crops in order to move away from monocultural agriculture, species within the diverse mixes help stimulate the good bacteria and fungi in the soil, provide food for worms and help release nutrients for the next crop. They aslo have the added benefit of providing winter habitat for farmland birds and forage for pollinators.
They also provided much needed winter grazing for a neighbours sheep whilst attracting an abundance of new wildlife as insects and pollinators were attracted to the flowers and winter cover for farmland birds and mammals.
We increased the livestock on the farm, purchasing a Longhorn Bull, Bill and welcoming our first calves on the farm. We also welcomed lambs and goats, with the aim of rotating livestock around the grass and arable land.
We began experimenting splitting the grassland into smaller fields to begin rotating the cattle and chicken. We were met with challenges with water supply and having enough power in electic fences to prevent escapees
In a bid to make the most of our grassland whilst we were replanning our rotatation paddocks we made silage from our river meadows to ensure a continuous supply of grass throughout the winter and without the need for concentrates.
Proved to be a difficult one, after a wet winter all the crops were drilled in the spring which meant they were ready later and were met with strong winds. Much of the oat crop had dropped to the ground before we had a weather window to harvest the crop.
We plan to expand upon our current goals of improving the soil, reducing reliance on artificial inputs whilst producing the healthiest crops we can. We will be improving our water and electricity supply to sucessfully divide the grassland into smaller paddocks so that we can reintroduce livestock and mob graze the whole farm. We also want to incorporate more trees and lengthen rest periods using diverse covers in the arable land and yet further increase our biodiversity and improving the health and resilience of our soil.