Hedge Planting

As part of our higher level stewardship status with Natural England, we are planting several new hedgerows around the farm. Last year we were caught out by the weather and many hedging plants were kept unplanted for such a long time that they are far from flourishing. This year we have been more cautious by planting at the soonest opportunity.


The new hedge above consists of native hedging species, including Hazel, Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Dog Rose and Holly, among others. When it is established it should prove a habitat for a variety of wildlife.

Doing it the old fashioned way...

Sometimes regression to apparently outmoded practices can seem little more than a marketing tactic. Most people are familiar with the benefits, particularly environmental, of organic farming and the positive effects on ecosystems of not using pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertiliser. However, glance at the picture of a little old man digging potatoes with a spade on the back of a packet of Tyrell's and you immediately know that, not only is that clearly not how Tyrell's harvest their spuds, but there could really be no concrete benefit of doing such a thing besides an enormously inflated end product price point.

Call me a cynic, but my eyes are opening to exceptions. The first job I remember getting properly involved with and paid for as a child was potato grading. Back then, potatoes were lifted mechanically and would arrive by the trailerload into the grading shed, where an apparently neverending cascade would come tumbling along a conveyor belt while as many as six people pored over the many thousand passing tubers, snatching away anything that was damaged, the wrong size, or going green.


Since going organic, our potato growing operations are being scaled back each year, largely on account of the unreliable price that organic potatoes are achieving from wholesalers and distributers and their susceptability to adverse-weather-induced harvesting disasters. It is nevertheless astonishing to compare our current harvesting method with what has gone before. Potatoes are still lifted mechanically but they are now left in their rows in the field. The potatoes are then graded by hand directly in to bags and any waste is left in the rows and worked back into the ground - it is, as Tim Rice would say, the Circle of Life.

Bertie is our new puppy. He tries to make himself useful.

Harvest Time: Leeks

It seems that there could somehow be nothing more British than the potato. The somewhat comically named "British Potato Council" markets the tuber as though it were as synonymous with britishness as Edward Elgar and substandard rail services. So much so that it is easy to forget our school history lessons, when we learned of the potato's first brave, diet-diversifying voyages across the Atlantic in the 15th and 16th centuries. In fact the potato only really attained its current level of popularity in Europe during the 19th century.

So what was everyone eating before that? The answer is quite simple: Mostly leeks. While still a popular vegetable, the leek is generally considered a little unusual now, mainly thanks to its unique piquant flavour. The leek was the Anglo-Saxon vegetable par excellence and dominated vegetable consumption for hundreds of years before the potato was even a twinkle in Francis Drake's eye, and yet now there is no "British Leek Council", nor bus-stop poster campaigns promoting the poor leek.



But we still love leeks, and have been hand picking them this very morning. The wet spell is over and leek-picking conditions couldn't be more perfect. Leeks are simply pulled out of the ground, sometimes with the assistance of a garden fork, and the roots, dry leaf ends and damaged outside leaves are trimmed and remove with a shrewd eye and a sharp knife right there in the field. They're then bundled into nets and sent off for sale as soon as possible, all by a small, skilled team.

Animal Spotlight: Bees

The bee is perhaps not the first thing that jumps into the mind when thinking about farm animals, but they are absolutely essential to the growing of many crops.

At Broadward Hall Farm, we maintain borders of wildflowers to attract and support bees. This bumble bee was enjoying our specially-planted Phacelia flowers so much it kindly allowed me to photograph it (after 45 minutes of trying).

Artisan organic beekeepers now keep hives on our land, which provides us with a valuable plant pollination service while also producing delicious organic meadow honey.

The Drought Ends

The long dry spell has come to a very definite end with some dramatic downpours. While the change in the weather is more than welcome in some respects, it doesn't make for the most comfortable onion and carrot picking conditions.

Excessive rain as we have had over the past few days also causes complications for crops such as potatoes which require mechanical harvesting, and can damage fragile cereals like wheat.

Today we are hand-picking carrots. Small organic retailers and market stalls can often be seen advertising 'muddy carrots'. Those with the mud left on are said to maintain their freshness and flavour better than washed carrots. As you can see, today's crop is very muddy indeed.

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