Carrots, predominantly early season, are grown on 40ha (above left). Early brown onion sets, planted in mid-January, begin to emerge in early March (above right).
but it yielded less compared with, say, stubble turnips – which are very cheap to establish compared with Italian rye grass, which is ex- pensive, but which is growing very well now. The crops will soon be sprayed off and ploughed in, and it will be interesting to see what comes up in the following sugar beet crop. “We’ll do the trial again on a bigger scale.”
Selling direct The sheep – 250 Poll Dorset ewes – were introduced in part
to help increase soil organic mat- ter. They lamb outdoors in Sep- tember and October, which fi ts in well with the farming calen- dar and the Easter lamb market, and graze on grass for a couple of months before moving on to cover crops. The farm’s shepherd dou- bles up as a tractor driver in the summer months. “We supply to farm shops and to Direct Meats, and demand for lamb is rising so we will probably increase our numbers. I was talk- ing to some London chefs recent- ly, through Direct Meats, togeth-
er with Jeremy Durrant, from EW Davies Farms. Provenance, health and welfare is very impor- tant to them. We are both LEAF demonstration farms, and have the same breed of sheep and sim- ilar grazing management, but our fl ocks lamb a month apart, so together we can offer a con- sistent supply.” Pigs, kept on 50ha of the light-
est land rented to a local farmer, are also part of the arable rota- tion, providing organic matter, phosphorus and potassium, and clearing up volunteer potatoes.
Wantisden Hall Farms is no stranger to diversifi cation, with well established wedding and events venue Wantisden Valley, as well as Bentwaters Park and warehousing and haulage busi- ness Debach Enterprises run by the family. Now a new venture, Wantisden Parks, set in mead- ows along the Butley Creek, is being prepared for its fi rst sea- son of camping and glamping.
CONTACTS
W:
wantisden.co.uk Twitter: @WantisdenHallFa Instagram: wantisdenhall
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