Weather . . . or not I’m sure I will have mentioned this before (if so I can’t recall when) but I often say to friends visiting from abroad that ‘we don’t have climate, only weather’: and so it has proved to be these last few weeks, especially the one straddling the end of September …
Rhino: a month in the life of an Oil Seed Rape plant Read More »
Weather or not Today (6th June) my heart is singing (quietly to itself, you understand) like the blackbird in the rain in our garden. We have had the best part of 20 hours of steady rain which, together with a couple of decent rains a week or so ago, at last brings some welcome relief …
Weather or not Provisional Met Office rainfall figures show that March 2011 was the driest for 60 years across the UK and for 100 years in some parts of eastern England. At the moment rainfall distribution is following last year’s pattern of a very dry spring which brings challenges on the farm (see below). How …
If you walk along the top of Crackle Hill and then downhill towards Polehanger you will notice a big difference between the wheat crops on view from the top of Crackle Hill, which are more advanced than the crops in the fields between the track and Nuns Wood, together with those ahead and beyond around …
Oakley: a month in the life of a wheat plant continued Read More »
Arable crop farming is by its very nature, seasonal and annually repetitive. I have now been compiling this diary for more than a year and should really be looking back to make sure that I don’t go over the same things as last year. But of course that is inevitable in the general sense. The …
Hands up who likes filling in forms? April / May is full of it for businesses. To start with there are the usual year end Tax Returns. I always get anxious when dealing with statutory bodies that make a thing of penalties being imposed if deadlines are missed; or that errors might lead to inspections. …
Easter will long be gone when you read this but, as I write, it is Good Friday and it is damp and cold. Last episode I confidently predicted spring, triggered by the annual appearance of our nesting duck. Since then our Chestnut tree leaves have just broken their sticky buds and the Wheatear has appeared …
As I write on March 13th, the influence of the long cold winter is still very evident. There are no daffodils in bloom down our farm drive yet, no leaves breaking bud in hedgerows generally, no bumble bees looking for nesting sites, only occasional seasonal birdsong when the sun breaks cover. We do have a …
The weeks of January are fast becoming a distant memory as Snowdrops and birdsong herald Spring, but the snow that fell and laid for an unusually long period for these parts put a soporific blanket over crops. By the middle of February as I write, however, they are starting to look up and ‘ think …
It is with considerable relief that I can report what you will have already been noticing on either side of the road as you drive out of the village and down the hill towards Shefford. The wheat is ‘ up ‘ and showing well in drilled rows! You might be surprised that I mention this …
