A farmer’s daybook is where they note everything going on with their herd; milk yields, health, behaviours, emotional states. Our online daybook is where you can keep up to date with the latest goings-on on the farm.
Maya, Miriam and Louisa kicked the year off by attending the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
The farm and garden team have just planted almost a thousand plants on the farm to create a new hedge.
It has long been a policy of Biodynamic husbandry to keep cattle with horns. As well as the aesthetic value, the horns have an important function in the life of the cow.
Your choice to shop directly with your local farms is more important than you may realise.
Approaching the halfway mark in my 2-year placement here at Old Plaw Hatch Farm, the coming of the shorter days has allowed me to reflect on what has been one hell of a ride this past year.
Growing vegetables in a political climate that has very little understanding of how food actually gets from the producer to anyone’s kitchen table (let alone the unpredictability of that same climate) means we are very grateful to the crops that have been successes, and we move on quickly from those that were or are, to put it bluntly, failures. Let me briefly talk you through our growing year so far…
Recently we’ve seen a real surge in new customers and have also noticed that existing customers are coming much more frequently and seem to be doing the majority of their food shopping with us. These changes are rarely down to one thing, and I believe at the moment there are several reasons.
Firstly, because we would really love you to. Of course, at an AGM there is the dry procedural stuff, it’s a legal requirement, but there is so much more. It’s an opportunity to hear directly from the people who grow your food.
The summer is flying by and we have already started to get the first harvests off the fields like onions, potatoes and squash. The Spring was very late this year, however, Summer is not over yet.
This February, all the members of the Plaw Hatch management group took part in a 3-day Holistic Management Course. Holistic Management, like biodynamics, is about working with the whole farm organism and with, rather than against, ecosystem processes.
Read MoreLambing is pretty much the most important time of the shepherding year. This lambing we have had just over 90 lambs born in 3 weeks.
Read MoreWool is a wonderful fibre but is much underused in fashion and textiles. When it is, farmers get a woeful amount per fleece. Bella, who volunteered with us earlier in the year, is hoping the work of the Fibreshed movement is starting to change this.
Read MoreOver the summer I have started to take Pip the sheepdog out with me and we’re starting to work together well.
Read MoreLambing went by very quickly this year, with 55 ewes lambing in just under three weeks! Miriam Fuller, who came back from being a full time Agriculture student to run lambing, gives an insight into her experience.
Read MoreScanning is an important point in the shepherding year, allowing our farmers to prepare for the coming lambing that is now just over a month away.
Read MoreMiriam is moving onto exciting pastures new. We’ll miss her but are looking forward to hearing about her future adventures!
Read MoreAlthough they are very sweet and so friendly, shepherds always start out a lambing season hoping not to have any bottle fed lambs. We have five this year!
Read MoreThe ewes have been scanned and we’re expecting 109 lambs in six weeks! This year, Gala put our two new Shetland, Icelandic and Poll Dorset cross rams in with some of the flock, so we’re all excited to see their multicoloured lambs.
Read MoreIn the many debates that erupt every January about food it can be easy to forget that farmers are people and that they eat too. Gala Bailey-Barker, shepherd of the Plaw Hatch Flock, doesn’t eat meat when she’s not cooking at home unless she know where it has come from. In her words “I choose to eat meat and would always rather eat an animal I have known than one I haven’t.”
Read MoreFarmer and shepherd, Gala Bailey-Barker, reports on her experience of shearing this year and being able to get hands on with the flock.
Read More
What we’re doing for our cows and customers.