
A very dry first half of the month, but a wet second half brought the monthly rainfall 10mm above the average to 59.7mm. Temperatures were also above my 50-year average of 6.4°C, with November’s average of 7.1°C. We have now had 24 months of above average temperatures and when averaged out, these 24 months have been 1.2°C above my 50-year average!

In last month’s newsletter, I said a week of dry weather would make a lot of difference to our soil conditions and two weeks would be even better, because some of our fields were far too wet. In fact, we had three weeks of dry weather which made all the difference, all the potatoes were lifted, and all the wheat drilling was finished. Those three weeks were a real bonus for farmers in this area.
We finished picking potatoes on November 7th, a week later than planned. Yields have been good, and all our stores were filled up. We have already sold about 400 tons, mainly to Tesco, because whilst the potatoes themselves would keep, the skin finish would slowly deteriorate, so they wouldn’t look attractive enough to go into supermarkets, if we had kept them for another two or three months.
The most profitable crop we can grow is potatoes, but it’s also the crop that can make the largest loss – growing potatoes is generally not good for the soil, especially in a wet year. They are the crop that needs the most attention, in fact year round attention so if we can’t make a good profit by growing them, then we ought not to be growing them.
The best crop for the soil is peas, as it puts nitrogen into the soil and is harvested in July or August. The second-best crop for the soil is beans, but they get harvested a little later and are not very profitable. Wheat is generally a good crop; it can be grown every other year unlike peas and potatoes that can only be grown every six years, and it is always needed for bread and for feeding chickens and pigs.
Rape is the best crop for wildlife; more birds nest and feed in it than any other crop. It has the most flowers and there are more nutrients in a broad leaf, compared to grass leaved plants. Pigeons are a real nuisance on rape and pea crops because they eat the leaves, but they are never any trouble on wheat and barley crops.
Millet, canary seed and sunflowers are also good for wildlife as they are only sprayed with a herbicide, fungicides have not been developed for them as they are minority crops.
To introduce a new chemical for farmers to use probably costs a chemical firm £100 million as there are so many things to prove. This includes considerations about wildlife and the environment, therefore there needs to be a lot of acres growing to make it worthwhile and there just aren’t enough acres of millet, canary seed and sunflowers in the world to pay for all the research needed to introduce a new chemical.


Forty years ago, plenty of Redwings and Fieldfares would have arrived here by the middle of October. This year, although I saw a flock of about 100 Fieldfares flying over the Farmhouse on October 16th, it was November 2nd before we had them on the farm. They were devouring berries on our hedges and have been about ever since, but I suspect that they only stop in one place for a few days before moving south and west.
I should think that the flock of birds that I saw on October 16th was just one flock of many, because later in October I saw cider apple orchards full of Fieldfares and Redwings, in Herefordshire. They had probably flown over us as we had no apples here.
Birds are very good at remembering food sources; they probably spend 75% of their waking life looking for food and those that can’t remember may well go hungry and not survive. It is, of course, survival of the fittest out there.
Our wetland has been short of Wigeon these last few weeks, but there are about 400 there now, plus a small flock of Redshank. We always used to have Redshank wintering in the Fen, but I haven’t seen any for the last 15 years, so they were a very welcome sight.
Barn Owls have had a good summer, they reared an average of two per brood in June which isn’t great, but as most of them decided to have a second brood, they laid up to six more eggs.
That means voles must’ve had a good spring and reared more young themselves. The Owls went on to rear an average of three in their second brood and that will more than bring up the number of pairs in our parish to occupy all the nest boxes we have installed.
Tree Sparrows have also had a good summer, rearing enough young to fill all the nest boxes that we have up for them on our farm, but again this summer there were fewer nest boxes occupied. I have a few thoughts as to why they are declining – if there is a big concentration of wildlife, it attracts predators and they will eventually reduce the population – I have seen it happen with other species. If there is a large population of a single species then a disease can spread through the flock, quickly reducing numbers.
We’ve seen that happen quite recently with avian flu that swept through some sea bird colonies, two or three years ago. Another possibility is that, over the years, nest holes in trees and buildings may have been filled and so they’d had to move on. None of these things have happened on our farm, thankfully.
Our wildlife has been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years and one or more of these situations might have been happening to Tree Sparrows. They now move on after a few years, further than our groups of nest boxes which are about two miles apart.
We were delighted to win the award for the Best Farm Shop in Lincolnshire Life’s Taste of Excellence Awards. Our commitment to championing local suppliers was a deciding factor, and as we were nominated and voted for by our customers, we’d like to say a massive thank you to all!
