I think most of us have been disappointed with the weather in July, I dare say we have had less sunshine than average. At least the temperature has been well above the average for the last 50 years, but average for the last 10 years. It has been disappointing because we have had more rain than usual, 69mm against an average of 49mm and it all fell in the first half of July.

August is statistically our wettest month, but it is when we don’t need the rain because it is harvest time, a time when we need sunshine as dry crops go through the combine harvester so much easier than damp crops.

As usual I have been in charge of rogueing the organic crops for wild oats, a job that takes most of July, on and off. It means walking up and down the fields about eight yards apart. I keep telling the lads, that they can’t get a much better job for getting paid to have a walk in the countryside! All our organic crops of wheat, barley or oats are grown for seed, for other organic farmers to sow next year or, as far as oats are concerned, to make organic porridge oats, which we sell in our Farm Shop. Wild oats are a tall plant which, if not controlled quickly, increase in number reducing the yield of the crop that they are growing in. Their seeds are similar in size to wheat or barley and can’t be taken out of a sample of wheat, barley or oats.

The year before I was married, 1966, my father had a grain store built here at Deeping St Nicholas. It has been of good service over the past 58 years, but it is now a bit small and there is not enough headroom, so we have added more height and length and it is now ready for its first crop.

We have started the harvest with the winter barley. Yields in general are less than normal, but the crops on light land have done better than those on the heavy land, which is what we expected. The light land is usually more free-draining than the heavy land, which became waterlogged during the winter.

Sixty years ago farming was far more simple; we would drill the crop and keep an eye on it to make sure birds were not pecking the seeds out, there would be a weed killer we could apply and of course that would want applying at the correct time. Not every crop needs nitrogen, but if it did that would also need applying at the correct time. After that, the crop would be left alone, as there wasn’t much else we could do.

Today, with all the chemicals available to us, crop husbandry has become a complicated job. For the last 40 years, we have been employing an agronomist, who is a specialist in growing healthy crops and getting the maximum yield. He will be walking across our fields every 10 days, or more often if needed, to know when to apply the herbicides, growth regulator and the fungicides. He may well give advice on the rotation of crops as well.

Blackbird

As usual I have been in charge of rogueing the organic crops for wild oats, a job that takes most of July, on and off. It means walking up and down the fields about eight yards apart. I keep telling the lads, that they can’t get a much better job for getting paid to have a walk in the countryside! All our organic crops of wheat, barley or oats are grown for seed, for other organic farmers to sow next year or, as far as oats are concerned, to make organic porridge oats, which we sell in our Farm Shop. Wild oats are a tall plant which, if not controlled quickly, increase in number reducing the yield of the crop that they are growing in. Their seeds are similar in size to wheat or barley and can’t be taken out of a sample of wheat, barley or oats.

The year before I was married, 1966, my father had a grain store built here at Deeping St Nicholas. It has been of good service over the past 58 years, but it is now a bit small and there is not enough headroom, so we have added more height and length and it is now ready for its first crop.

We have started the harvest with the winter barley. Yields in general are less than normal, but the crops on light land have done better than those on the heavy land, which is what we expected. The light land is usually more free-draining than the heavy land, which became waterlogged during the winter.

Sixty years ago farming was far more simple; we would drill the crop and keep an eye on it to make sure birds were not pecking the seeds out, there would be a weed killer we could apply and of course that would want applying at the correct time. Not every crop needs nitrogen, but if it did that would also need applying at the correct time. After that, the crop would be left alone, as there wasn’t much else we could do.

Today, with all the chemicals available to us, crop husbandry has become a complicated job. For the last 40 years, we have been employing an agronomist, who is a specialist in growing healthy crops and getting the maximum yield. He will be walking across our fields every 10 days, or more often if needed, to know when to apply the herbicides, growth regulator and the fungicides. He may well give advice on the rotation of crops as well.

With the breeding season nearly over, how many young birds can you see in your garden and were they all reared in your garden? For most species, those questions couldn’t be answered. The male Blackbird will have moved its young away from your garden as it didn’t want them competing with its own food source, and the same goes for the Robin. The Blue and Great Tits will have left when they fledged, because after three weeks of looking for insects in your garden, there won’t be many left, so they will take the family away to find new food sources. There will be visiting Tits to your garden, but you’ll not know if they were bred in your nest box.

There are however two species that have bred in my garden this year that I can say how many young they have bred, they are Mallard and Moorhen. A Mallard arrived one day in April, in the pond by the Farmhouse, with eight day-old ducklings. Two days later, she only had six, but all six survived to flying stage. Meanwhile, the Moorhen had been sitting on eggs in the floating house and reared one youngster and later reared another brood of four. In the past, the young from the first brood have helped rear the second brood but not so this year. In fact, his mother has fallen out with him and is constantly trying to see him off!

In May, another Mallard appeared with 10 ducklings. She kept coming back and visiting with her brood of six young, which can now fly. I feel very satisfied to have been able to host two Mallard that have each reared six ducklings, as I see too often that a brood of Mallard ducklings dwindle down to none.
On the farm, the Bittern that was booming in April did not manage to attract a female that bred in our ponds, whether it attracted a female and went and nested elsewhere I don’t know.

In those same ponds, I found several Reed Warblers nests and found one with a Cuckoo’s egg in it. It left the nest on July 31st and on August 1st, I could hear it begging for food nearby. Cuthbert, our sponsored Cuckoo is currently on the Atlantic coast, close to the Portuguese border. Any day now, he is likely to cross the Mediterranean and the Sahara, all in one flight. Then he will fatten up in the Sahel, before going on to overwinter on the Congo. You can follow Cuthbert’s travel updates on our website, or the BTO website to see the journeys of all the tracked Cuckoos.

The Turtle Dove Trust raised enough money, thanks to those who donated, to buy 20 trackers to attach to the Turtle Doves we have bred. They will have time to get used to the trackers before we let them go, which will be sometime in the first two weeks of August. Trevor Lay, our aviculturist, has bred more than 600 Turtle Doves this summer. They will be taken to various release pens on wildlife-friendly farms, in East Anglia. The project is ongoing; donations to the Turtle Dove Trust are very welcome and can be made via turtledovetrust.org.uk/donations or by cheque posted to Robert Brown, Secretary, 10 Church Lane, Wicklewood, Wymondham, NR18 9QH.