Farming
With the snow in December and with wet conditions since we have not been able to get out onto the ground, but fortunately there is little to do in the fields until the spring work comes around. Even the normally hard tracks are soft or breaking up, so much so that a timber lorry got stuck in January and couldn’t collect its load!
With the short hours of daylight, most of the time has been concentrated around the yard. Lorries come to collect wheat and oats (which are going to Mornflake Foods in Crewe to make porridge; in the past the other main market has been for high quality feed for Newmarket racehorses). This year we will be growing spring oats again.
These commodities are of course from last summer’s harvest. These lorries are rather like London busses, all is quiet then two or three turn up at once needing to be loaded, ready to go off to the mills.
The other big event has been our annual inspection for the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme. This enables all our produce to be certified under the “Red Tractor” label. I am pleased to say that we passed this with the Home Farm being approved as “ship shape and Bristol fashion”! This not only involves making sure everything complies with the scheme requirements, but also involves a great deal of office work over the year, so we can provide a “Paper trail” for all the inputs on the farm, fertilisers and sprays, what supplier they came from, on which field where they used and at what rate and in what conditions.
Hedge-cutting
As part of a drive for better efficiency across the farm we decided to sell our hedge-cutter and to contract out all our hedge-cutting; most of the roadside hedges have been very beautifully trimmed, though the ground is too wet to cut most of the internal hedges. As mentioned in previous years, hedges - other than on roadsides - are cut in rotation, in accordance with our Higher Level Environmental Stewardship Scheme (HLS). Hedges are trimmed during the winter months, and as far as possible after the birds have had most of the berries. By trimming on rotation some of the hedges are left to fruit for longer. This also enables biennial plants to flourish.
Paddock Fencing
Last year we re-fenced one paddock with a new metal fencing system, which is proved to be much more satisfactory than the conventional post and wire fences, so we intend to expand this system around the Home Farm.
Gaddesden Estate Ride and monthly “Park & Rides”
The inclement winter weather has meant that the ride has been used much less than usual, which has prevented the need to close it due to ground conditions. We will again be holding our very popular “Park & Ride” events on the last Sunday of the summer months (though not in June as we have another event on the estate).
Filming
Before Christmas we were visited by a production company who used one of our buildings to make a documentary film about the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and two people who survived that awful camp came here to participate.
Water End Meadows and Gaddesden Estate Ride
For legal reasons we close the access to the Water End Meadows along the River Gade between Water End and Great Gaddesden for 36 hours every year. This year the closure will be between 6pm on 12th and 6 am on 14th March. This does not apply to public rights of way. For similar reasons the Ride will be closed over the same period. There is a notice about this, elsewhere in the Newsletter.
Property
We currently have two office units of 586 and 516 square feet available to let at the Home Farm Business Centre. If you are interested, please apply to [email protected] or ring 01442252421 .
Otherwise on the property front we are repairing gutters and tiles and slates which were damaged in the recent gales, we are making plans for routine summer maintenance.
Forestry
The government has announced new support for forestry within 35 miles of the HS2 corridor and we are looking into the proposals to see if there is anything that might apply to the woodlands here. In the meantime, we are planning to re-plant a block of Big Wood which had bad wind damage a few years ago.
NGH
With the snow in December and with wet conditions since we have not been able to get out onto the ground, but fortunately there is little to do in the fields until the spring work comes around. Even the normally hard tracks are soft or breaking up, so much so that a timber lorry got stuck in January and couldn’t collect its load!
With the short hours of daylight, most of the time has been concentrated around the yard. Lorries come to collect wheat and oats (which are going to Mornflake Foods in Crewe to make porridge; in the past the other main market has been for high quality feed for Newmarket racehorses). This year we will be growing spring oats again.
These commodities are of course from last summer’s harvest. These lorries are rather like London busses, all is quiet then two or three turn up at once needing to be loaded, ready to go off to the mills.
The other big event has been our annual inspection for the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme. This enables all our produce to be certified under the “Red Tractor” label. I am pleased to say that we passed this with the Home Farm being approved as “ship shape and Bristol fashion”! This not only involves making sure everything complies with the scheme requirements, but also involves a great deal of office work over the year, so we can provide a “Paper trail” for all the inputs on the farm, fertilisers and sprays, what supplier they came from, on which field where they used and at what rate and in what conditions.
Hedge-cutting
As part of a drive for better efficiency across the farm we decided to sell our hedge-cutter and to contract out all our hedge-cutting; most of the roadside hedges have been very beautifully trimmed, though the ground is too wet to cut most of the internal hedges. As mentioned in previous years, hedges - other than on roadsides - are cut in rotation, in accordance with our Higher Level Environmental Stewardship Scheme (HLS). Hedges are trimmed during the winter months, and as far as possible after the birds have had most of the berries. By trimming on rotation some of the hedges are left to fruit for longer. This also enables biennial plants to flourish.
Paddock Fencing
Last year we re-fenced one paddock with a new metal fencing system, which is proved to be much more satisfactory than the conventional post and wire fences, so we intend to expand this system around the Home Farm.
Gaddesden Estate Ride and monthly “Park & Rides”
The inclement winter weather has meant that the ride has been used much less than usual, which has prevented the need to close it due to ground conditions. We will again be holding our very popular “Park & Ride” events on the last Sunday of the summer months (though not in June as we have another event on the estate).
Filming
Before Christmas we were visited by a production company who used one of our buildings to make a documentary film about the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and two people who survived that awful camp came here to participate.
Water End Meadows and Gaddesden Estate Ride
For legal reasons we close the access to the Water End Meadows along the River Gade between Water End and Great Gaddesden for 36 hours every year. This year the closure will be between 6pm on 12th and 6 am on 14th March. This does not apply to public rights of way. For similar reasons the Ride will be closed over the same period. There is a notice about this, elsewhere in the Newsletter.
Property
We currently have two office units of 586 and 516 square feet available to let at the Home Farm Business Centre. If you are interested, please apply to [email protected] or ring 01442252421 .
Otherwise on the property front we are repairing gutters and tiles and slates which were damaged in the recent gales, we are making plans for routine summer maintenance.
Forestry
The government has announced new support for forestry within 35 miles of the HS2 corridor and we are looking into the proposals to see if there is anything that might apply to the woodlands here. In the meantime, we are planning to re-plant a block of Big Wood which had bad wind damage a few years ago.
NGH