Mother Nature
Once June arrives, we can start to relax and spend a couple of weeks waiting for the grass to grow whilst watching all the young life on the farm grow stronger on the abundant fresh spring and early summer grass. It is a time when, for a few weeks you can appreciate all the little wins from the hard work through a horrid, wet, mild winter!
This last winter has been a real challenge and if winters continue to be this wet, we will be looking at how our system can adapt to enable us to cope. We have had a good crop of lambs, but lambing them outside in early April was really tough and the wet weather took its tole on all the stock and the ground. As grass growers we have very resilient soil with good soil health - plenty of carbon trapped in it, loads of earthworms helping to recycle nutrients and helping to maintain good structure, allowing nutrients and water to flow through it freely. All the microscopic beasties are also doing their job, moving nutrients around the plant roots and making nutrients from the soil and the air available to the plants. But the guys cultivating their ground to grow crops have had a really hard time. Crops planted in the autumn have laid wet ever since, leading to the seeds rotting in the ground, or the plant being waterlogged in soil that has been packed so tight from being underwater for prolonged periods. That combined with a wet spring has made planting anything really difficult and will inevitably have a knock-on effect on yields, and ultimately availability and food prices on our shelves. Fingers crossed for a good summer and harvest, and let’s hope Mother Nature doesn’t throw us too many more curve balls this season!
Our little Patterdale dog Pixie had a brood of puppies this spring. Dad was a very handsome Border Terrier and they had four lovely healthy puppies. They arrived way back in March on a Lambing Live evening. Gemma burst into our lambing barn when I was talking to a group and announced Pixie was giving birth on our sofa! I made my excuses and hot-footed it from Lambing Live to Pupping Live! My main concern was to save the sofa from a point-of-no-return, but four healthy puppies arrived and Pixie has been a great mum. They have been full of beans and the boys have loved having the puppies to play with, but now they have found new homes and I am pleased to see the back of the endless newspapers and faint aroma of puppy poop in the house.
A young lad called Charles has been working for us for the last couple of years whilst he studies for his degree at Duchy College, but sadly, he has left us recently to work on another larger farm nearby. He worked with us on our sheep and beef hill farm and is now working on a large estate with arable and sheep operation in the South Hams. It is a great opportunity to learn in a different sector and I am sure he will learn lots from his new job. It is credit to him that he wants to broaden his horizons and we wish him well on his journey!
Mat Cole
Greenwell Farm