February is often the coldest month of the year here and we valued the frosts, which are increasingly rare these days, we had in January. Hopefully, we will have a few more before spring. One of the biggest benefits of a series of hard frosts is the impact on the fields that have been ploughed and left bare over the winter. In these situations, the ground is ploughed in a way to make it ‘stand up’ and so maximise the surface area subjected to frost. The frost gets into the water molecules in the soil and the resulting freezing/thawing process naturally breaks up the soil. When we come to sow a crop in the spring, this ‘frost shatter’ will enable us to create the perfect fine seedbed required for the small seeds.
Winter ploughing for this reason has been a feature of good farming practice since the plough was first invented (the first evidence of ploughing dates back to c.3800bc on a site in the Czech Republic). But a combination of the quest to address climate change and the demands of our organic farming system, has meant that we only have a couple of fields that are ‘winter ploughed’ this year in favour of growing a winter ‘cover crop.’ Cover crops are not destined for harvest or sale, but they can perform a valuable function as part of a sustainable farming system.
A healthy soil health is critical to the ability to grow anything. One tablespoon of healthy soil has more individual organisms than the total number of humans on earth; but a neglected soil can be almost devoid of life. There are a number of aspects to maintaining soil health and one is maintaining biomass levels which are crucial to maintaining structure and providing the feed for these billions of micro-organisms. Increasing biomass levels is also a way of locking up carbon in the soil and thus balancing the carbon equation. Cover crops can help provide this biomass. We sow our cover crops, ranging from mustard to turnips, in the autumn after harvest and these will be grazed off by sheep before a spring crop (barley, wheat or maize) is sown. These cover crops grow fast over the winter and thus create a lot of biomass. Grazing by sheep returns the biomass to the soil through their poo which is also in a form that increases the benefit to the soil. Sheep don’t run on fossil fuel either!
There is another benefit to cover crops which we, as organic farmers, particularly value. We don’t, of course, use the usual artificial fossil fuel based nitrate fertilisers that provide an instant boost to crop growth. Our fertility comes from our manures, composts, and legumes such as clover. Building fertility takes years but the benefit can be lost quickly if land is left bare too often when rain can wash the nutrients in the soil away. Cover crops take up the soil nutrients into their plant matter, hold them safely for us and then they are returned back to the soil through the back end of a sheep! This is good for the soil, good for our crops, good for ground water quality, good for carbon capture and the sheep seem to be happy with the arrangement too!
You may have heard by now that we are planning on a new project to sell our organic milk through a vending machine in Oving Jubilee Hall car park. Our milk will be pasteurised on the farm but not homogenised i.e. safe, healthy, and still as nature intended.
There are environmental benefits of being able to source local and organic of course, but we also hope to reduce packaging as well as ‘food miles.’ People can bring their own containers or buy their own glass bottles. The real point is zero plastic, but glass bottles also have an indefinite life and can be used repeatedly.
More people want to know where their food is coming from, and we plan to have open days or tractor/trailer tours around the farm and specifically so everyone can meet our cows.
This project is still in the ‘design stage’ and won’t be up and running for some time. But if you’re interested in how this develops, you can receive news as we progress by signing up to receive email updates here: www.woodhornfarm.co.uk
In the meantime, I leave you with a couple of important questions (and answers):
Why do cows have hooves instead of feet?
They lack toes (lactose).
Why was the cow afraid?
She was a cow-herd.
John Pitts
Recent Comments