Spirits are high, crops are growing, the requested week of sun alternating with the week of showers has happened over the last month, its all looking up. And, every farmers’ favourite TV show released a new series: Clarksons Farm – we can farm in the day and watch it in the evening. Perfect.
Our cereal crops are looking good and really getting going this time of year, it genuinely still surprises me how quickly they change at the moment. The sugarbeet has got off to a good start too and is starting to come up well. Tom has been busy this month applying some fertilizer to feed the crops and spraying plant protection products where necessary. Generally, its looking good but one thing you might notice is blackgrass poking its head up above the crop. This is a really tricky weed for us to manage as we cannot do much about it once it is in the crop. It can cause a significant yield drop and we need to use an Integrated Pest Management approach to help manage it. This includes a good rotation and delayed drilling (later planting) of wheat in the autumn.
I walked around the main farm block in Foxton yesterday on a sunny Sunday and was brilliant to hear the skylarks singing their hearts out and see the hares everywhere running (…and eating the sugarbeet). The hedge that was laid in the winter is starting to spring back into life and the new hedge has new shoots emerging. It is a nice time to be out.
This month also saw the inaugural Women in Farming Awards at the House of Commons. I was lucky enough to attend and really enjoyed the evening celebrating the many talented women contributing great things in this industry. June also brings Open Farm Sunday (https://farmsunday.org/) to the masses! It is on the 9th June and loads of farms across the country open to the public. We are not opening this year as we will be helping at the Allerton event in Leicestershire where I work (all very welcome!) but the nearest to Barrington is RSPB’s Hope Farm in Knapwell. Do take a look if you or your family would like the opportunity to get out on farm. Both of these events make me think and miss my old boss and friend Caroline Drummond, who died two years ago this month. Caroline ran LEAF for thirty years, started Open Farm Sunday and was a great woman in farming. I say again this year that if you want to be inspired by what one person can do for the environment in (a too short) lifetime then look her up.
More of the same weather for June would be great (but a sunny day for Tom and I’s wedding please!