Manor Farm Newsletter

Autumn 2009

We were able to make some really good quality hay for the animals over winter. Despite not having as much intense sunshine as we would have liked, the hay is lovely and green and escaped being rained on. Our fattening cattle are still outside enjoying the autumn sunshine, grazing fresh grass. Over winter they will be fed hay or silage, as we find they grow well without the need for any concentrated feed. I think this is reflected in the quality and dark appearance of our meat you can buy in our farm shop. You can be assured that none of our meats are fed intensively at any time and are allowed to graze naturally on our farm during the growing season.

Graeme has cultivated all the cereal stubbles to kill autumn germinating weeds and to encourage other weed seed, such as Charlock to germinate. This helps reduce the weed seed bank and as such is an important autumn job on organic farms. However with such a dry autumn this has not been tremendously successful and we shall certainly have to wait for some decent rain before any ploughing and drilling can be done.

The ewes and lambs were weaned in the first week in August, the lambs do not seem at all bothered unlike some of the ewes, but given a couple of days peace is restored to the fields. We have just sorted the ewes into groups and put the rams in with them. Two of our rams have been particularly keen to get in with the "girls" as they kept getting out of their field. To prevent this we had to pen them up in one of the open yards near the shop as we knew they couldn’t jump out. Our collie, Pip thoroughly enjoys all the extra handling and sheep moving work that is involved at this time of year. The Jack Russell, Basil makes himself useful by yapping in the right places ... sometimes, but like all our dogs likes to think he is helping and is always enthusiastic. On this note our sheep dog trial we held here on 30th August attracted 55 dog entries and went smoothly but only 4 dogs managed to pen the sheep at the end. Our sheep seem a bit stubborn! Thank you to those who came to watch and we hoped you enjoyed it. Do send us your email details if you would like us to let you know when our next trial will be.

We have had four heifers calve recently, two with very dark mottling and the other two almost white. With our Longhorn bull we always get such a beautiful range of colours and markings. We have always used a Longhorn bull brought from the Blackbrook herd, very well known in the Longhorn breeding world. With the exception of our bull and a few pedigree Longhorn cows we breed all our own replacements for the beef herd so the cattle are well suited to our farm and we avoid bringing on to the farm any potential disease problems.

Our bronze and black turkeys are doing very well and are appreciating a dry autumn. We have had them on the farm since July, and as soon they have grown feathers to replace their chick-down they have access to range outside. We have always been pleased with the flavour of our turkeys and being old-fashioned strains seem to do very well on our extensive organic regime. Sorry, but we have now sold out of turkeys.

We are coming to the end of our own organic chickens for the year. Their mobile house has worked very well and the chickens clearly love their outside lifestyle. We will be having more chicks around February time in-between times the organic chickens will be from Wootton Farms, near Uttoxeter and Jo and Sue Bradley’s organic farm in Sutton Bonington.

The buzzards on the farm have successfully reared young and are very vocal. We see them a lot as we are walking around the farm checking the animals. This is a species that has increased greatly over the past 10 years, when we first took over the tenancy here in 1994 there were no buzzards at all! Our summer visiting swallows, swifts and house martins gave us much pleasure over the summer diving and swooping around the farm buildings and in the fields. Our older farm buildings and the mixed nature of our farming, helps preserve their habitat and the insects they need to successfully raise their broods. We now must look forward to their return from warmer parts next May.

Community Supported Agriculture is something we are thinking of having a go at in Long Whatton if I can find enough like-minded people. In a nutshell it involves voluntary communities of eaters. It could work like this. I find a couple of acres and enough people to share in the food production and harvest. It could work by employing a part time gardener to do all the main work with volunteers helping out periodically. The end result is those members get a share of the harvest. So instead of a trip to a supermarket, the food is fresh, virtually on your doorstep and you have been involved in some way with its production. It could then expand to encompass eggs and meat if the demand was there. There are lots of different models but I think it could work really well in Long Whatton, imagine the village could be self sufficient in veg with the whole community involved. No food miles, fresh healthy produce and a very productive use of land. Interested? Send me an email. We are planning to have a meeting to discuss it during November. Building a community supported farming system is not easy, but one, which I feel, is worth the effort and could have huge benefits for Long Whatton especially as oil starts to run out and prices rise.

An Organic Food Award was bestowed on our Sicilian sausages in the 2009 organic food awards. This is a really tough category and we were delighted to have been commended. So if you would like to try an award winning sausage please call in or we can mail order them.