July 2011

During July the fields around us all turned blue!  It’s quite an unusual colour to see in the countryside, but does create a beautiful effect set against the bright green hedgerows and the blue sky above!  To the south, we overlook a field of borage that has flowers of a beautiful cerulean blue . The crop was planted by our beekeeping neighbour: borage nectar produces a honey that is light and delicate in flavour, and being a late flowering crop is often the last honey in the season.  Borage is also a rich source of fatty acids, especially GLA, which is used in treating inflammatory disorders.  The only other major honey crop that flowers later is heather, so next month the hives will be taken up to the Welsh heathlands to make heather honey, which has a highly distinctive strong taste.

In the other direction, on a southwest-facing slope, is a field of linseed with delicate sky-blue flowers – in a light breeze, the slim stems wave, creating the effect of a land-locked rippling sea.  Linseed is mostly grown as a ‘cash-crop’ (though it’s also used in livestock feedstuffs); the seeds produce oil with unique properties, making it invaluable in the manufacture of oil paints, putty, wood hardener (used in the making of cricket bats) and linoleum flooring.

These kinds of ‘novel’ crops have been in and out of fashion for some years, but are of interest to smallholders with a few acres of accessible land, as a niche crop sold to a specialised market can be a profitable enterprise.  But it’s best to do a lot  of homework first, especially into yields, prices and costs – and advisable to have a contract in place with a buyer, rather than rely on the open market.

There are other very sound reasons for considering growing diversified crops:  lupins, for example, are very high in protein (38%-40%), which compares well with soya beans that constitute a large proportion of the protein fed to livestock.  The majority of soya imported into the UK has been grown on cleared rainforest, and much of this as a GM crop.  Furthermore, soya requires additional processing – ‘de-fatting and toasting’ – before it can be fed to non-ruminant livestock, whereas unprocessed, homegrown lupins can, with caution, be fed to both ruminant and monogastric livestock (and humans!).  Food for thought, perhaps, for those seeking a more sustainable model for food production?



Ragwort Awareness Week took place during July, and created a bit of a stir between those who consider it to be a deadly threat to livestock, particularly horses, and those who consider it to be an ecologically valuable plant.  The plant in question is Senecio jacobaea, not the much prettier Oxford Ragwort, which rarely causes a problem.  Of course, both parties have a valid viewpoint: alkaloids contained in the plant will cause irreversible liver damage to grazing horses, cattle and sheep, the poison is cumulative and deadly in hay as its bitter taste is lost as the plant wilts; ragwort is also the essential food source for many invertebrates, the best-known being the Cinnabar moth.  So it’s clear that a little common sense is required.  The plant has a value, but is a danger to grazing animals: therefore, it should be allowed to flourish in areas where it cannot be inadvertently grazed, and eradicated from grazing land – and scenes like the one below, must be banished forever.



Regular readers of this diary will know that I’ve been complaining about the lack of rain in these parts pretty well since February, so another whinge won’t come as a total surprise!  According to NADIS (http://www.nadis.org.uk/), between March and May our area received about 40% of the regional average rainfall (tho’ it seems a lot less than that to me!); since then we have barely had a drop.



Our pond, on which Moorhens usually raise
two clutches of eggs, has turned from this:                 … to this:

No Moorhens, no Moorhen chicks, no dragonflies – and goodness knows where all the newts and other pond life has gone.

Having sacrificed our hayfield to grazing in May due to lack of grass growth making a successful haymaking unlikely, we have benefited from an additional 7 acres of grass for the sheep, which I thought would have been more than adequate to keep our small flock happy through the summer months.  Well, things haven’t quite turned out as hoped:  firstly, we didn’t have the clean ‘aftermath’, or re-growth, following the hay cut to wean our lambs onto – though, on the plus side, since there has been no rain the gut worm eggs on the pasture have desiccated and the lambs’ Faecal Egg Counts (FECs) have remained low throughout the season.  That’s the good news.  The other side of the coin is that we’re already running out of grass, and what there is left is parched, and browning.

For the time being, our lambs are looking great.  At 15 weeks old, we already have quite a few that are ‘finished’ and ready to go, which is quick even for Hampshire Down lambs, that are renowned for fast growth rates (and much more importantly, for outstanding flavour!).  So this year we shall be sending them off as lambs, rather than keeping them on-farm until next spring, when we would normally produce hogget.

And finally, at the end of the month, we had some new arrivals …