Organic Farming

If you read on you will discover why Vine House Farm is farming organically.

In 1982 I started recording the breeding birds on my farm. By 1992 I had recorded such a big drop of breeding Skylarks and Corn Buntings it worried me. I started to feed birds in the winter in a big way and the results were spectacular so I had an open day for local people to come and see the spectacle. Several people were so impressed with the amount of birds that they asked me if they could buy some bird seed. The next year I did the same, invited the public to see the spectacle. Again I gave all the proceeds to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and again people asked me if I could sell them bird seed so there we were selling bird seed without even trying.

For the summer I started to treat my setaside in a wildlife friendly way. That was only on 10% of my land. After 4 years of that I thought that it might be better for the birds and easier for me if I farmed organically, so that is what I now do on Vine House Farm and I am in the process of converting more land to organic production.

By recording the birds on the farm it has completely altered my way of farming. I am the largest sunflower grower in the UK and probably the largest grower of millet in the UK, growing over 400 acres of bird seed and I am growing vegetables and other crops organically.

The main crops I grow organically are potatoes, dwarf beans, courgettes, sweetcorn, wheat and another 20 varieties of vegetables for the farm shop.

Where can you buy our organic crops?

Potatoes
Most of the potatoes go to Waitrose. They are a red variety called Romano and a white variety called Sante. We also sell them in the farm shop.

Dwarf Beans
It was 6 years ago when we started growing dwarf beans for Waitrose. for the past 3 years we have been the sole supplier to Waitrose and Marks and Spencer of organic dwarf beans in the English season. (End of July til mid September) We also supply Abel and Cole and River Nene box schemes.

Courgettes
Marks and Spencer take both conventionally sized and baby courgettes. Sainsburys are also taking our baby courgettes in 2007. Waitrose do not sell any of my courgettes. Abel and Cole and River Nene box schemes also use them in their boxes

Sweetcorn
I have not been able to interest Waitrose or Marks and Spencer in my sweetcorn as they already had existing growers when I started to grow sweetcorn. It can be found in Asda and in 2007 we are supplying 80% of Asdas organic requirement. Abel and Cole and River Nene box schemes both take a lot of our sweetcorn.

How can you tell whose produce you are buying in the supermarkets.

Produce in Marks and Spencer has the growers name on it.

Waitrose label their produce by county so my produce will have Lincs or Lincolnshire on it. Growers names appear on the back of the bags of potatoes in Waitrose but the growers picture on the bag doesn't mean that they are his potatoes in the bag.