Village Farm is a working organic farm, so there’s usually lots going on here. Between looking after the animals and working the land, we try to find time now and again to keep you up to speed with what’s happening.
Posted on
Our newest cottage, Maran, is now open for business. It sleeps four people, in two luxurious bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. We're very pleased with the way it's looking and guests say that they particularly like the enclosed garden with its hot tub and eating area, offering privacy and space to relax, particularly on warm evenings. Find out more about Maran.
Posted on
Being organic means putting up with quite a lot of weeds, and now the wheat is combined it is clear to see that the stubble is infested with docks and dandelions. A conventional farmer could run over with a herbicide spray and sort the whole field in 20 minutes, for us though it takes a little longer.
The drag you see in the photo is lifting the weeds out of the soil, in the hope that the dry weather will shrivel and kill them all. This will take quite a few weeks and relies on dry weather. We may have to go over the field a dozen times before it is clean, but it will pay off by reducing weed competition for the following crop.
Posted on
Zoomed through Back Field with the combine. Sadly it only yielded 1T per acre. Which is rather disappointing as a good crop of organic wheat will produce twice this and a field of conventional wheat often does over 4T/acre.
The moisture was over 20% so this adds insult to injury; but I'm glad we cracked on, as now the grass can be sown. Today the plough is here (see photo) attracting hundreds of seagulls (but somehow I only seem to have photographed one!)
Our other field of wheat (Ainderby Road) was combined on the same day and produced nearly 2T per acre so we're happy about that. There is no rush to plough this field as it will have a spring crop (beans.)
Posted on
Today our neighbour arrived with his enormous combine to harvest our back field of organic wheat.
After spending a good hour transporting it and assembling the 20 foot header it began to rain, (not that it rains much in Sinderby!).
We made a start for about two minutes then discovered the resulting wheat was 22 percent moisture (it is supposed to be 15!) So the combine now sits in the field looking rather forlorn. (See photo.)
It is a bit of a rush to finish the back field as the next crop is due to be grass/clover, which likes to be safely in the ground by the end of August, so time is running out.