August 2006


	Newsletter - August 2006


	All through June I have been wading in long grass on my twice daily journey to open and to shut-up the chickens. Horseground is made up of Timothy, Cocksfoot, Meadow grass and Creeping Bent and I have to tread carefully like a prancing horse, to avoid stepping on butterflies.




	Timothy

			Cocksfoot




		Chalkhill Blue



			Meadow grass


	Horseground is home to the Chalkhill Blue and the Meadow Brown, the Marbled White and the delta-wing Cinnabar moth. These creatures are the living signs of diversity; of a mixed and lively pasture; signs of the balance of nature allowed to exercise itself without restraint.


	Cinnabar Moth


	Meadow Brown

CHICKEN MOVE

On Saturday 26th July we moved the chicken huts off Horseground (now the Cinnabar moth can live in peace away from all those “beaks”), and onto Drove End field.

We enlisted the help of a vehicle recovery truck from Salisbury and each hut was easily and swiftly craned into the air onto the lorry and delivered to the new site.


	We were surrounded by cheerful helpers and the morning paddled along in deep humidity until the entire contents of a towering cumulus cloud dropped onto Horseground drenching the good doctor and all his followers.


	The chickens were released from their crates into their new homes and they settled in without complaint. Now they face a different view; new neighbours and a different set of predators.

LEEKS GALORE

On Midsummer’s Day we planted the first wave of leeks.

22 people turned out in the warm summer sun. 16 rows went into the ground and then were watered in by “Bertha”, the trusty Land Rover, with her bustling water pump and fresh water drawn from our new standpipe connected up the day before (talk about last minute Bournemouth and District Water Company!!)

Weary leek planters were rewarded by a fantastic tea of fresh scones with cream and enough cakes to grace a “WI” stall. I still feel a bit heavy thinking about it. It was a great day and we left the field a stone heavier and we left the fuse-wire thin leeks to an uncertain future.

The next day as if by order, it rained and it rained all day long. Leeks, your future is assured.

For the record and for those of you who think in straight lines we have a total of 1 kilometre of leeks, 3 kilometres of onions and 1 acre of potatoes.

Best look out those leek and potato soup recipes for the winter of 2006-07.

RAINFALL

That Sunday (25 June) it rained. I mean it rained so hard that all outside activity ceased. We have had plenty of rain since the cold late spring. All through May and June it kept raining. Frequently our new cabbage plants were watered from “above”. Now in July we are catching our share of thunder deluges.

Dig under the spuds in Drove End and you find damp soil. A certain friend of mine has always maintained that the annual rainfall comes to the valley at some point in the year. A dry spring is followed by a wet summer. The hot dry summer of 1976 ended on October 12th in a colossal downpour which carried on until Christmas.

In the next Newsletter we shall include rainfall ovbservations from an anonymous expert who shall be called “The Gauge”.

BORAGE

Rob Shepherd has done an interesting thing within our Parish.

This season he has planted 7 acres of Borage (Borago officinalis) in the middle of a large field at Kite’s Nest.

Surrounded by a moat of spring barley, this wonderfully colourful crop of plants roared into flower to the thrum of a billion bees.

If you grow borage in your garden you will know how beautiful it is.

If you don’t then you must next year. Apply to Rob for a handful of seed. The plant is grown for its oily seed which is used as a medicine.

Gerrard, author and plantsman, said “those in our time do use the flour in salads, to exhilarate and make the mind glad. There be also many things made of them, used for the comfort of the heart, to drive away sorrow”.

No more sorrow in Martin, we’ve got 7 acres!

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS

We are very excited to welcome Graham Harvey and Professor Jules Pretty to be Associate Members of Futurefarms.

Both men are leading authors in the field of sustainable and small-scale farming and will advise and help us on the road to finding our food in our own fields.

Look up their books on our website under “Reading List” www.futurefarms.org.uk

THE TURN OF THE YEAR

The grain harvest began on St Swithin’s day, the patron saint of heavy rain.

If it rains a drop on St. Swithin’s day it will continuously rain for 40 days and 40 nights thereafter.

Well it didn’t!!!

But I noticed in tandem with the harvest was the flower of the willow herb in the hedgerows. Willow herb or Fireweed, named so because it quickly carpeted the bomb sites after the last war, (Chamerion Angustifolium) flowers now in gorgeous pink clusters on long spikes reaching skywards to signal the turn of the year; the move from crops-in-flower to crops-in-seed; from high summer with its thick breath of leafy growth to the first seeds and fruits of the season.

Garden peas; golden oats; the first ripe tomatoes in the tunnel greenhouse; the first delicious French beans, all heralded in by the stabbing flower stalk of the fireweed.

There is a healthy patch of willow herb at the top of Millogen Hill as you begin to descend into “downtown” Tidpit.

PIG STORY

We have raised pigs in a tight windy corner on Toyd Down. We have fattened pigs at the far end of Folliots Farmyard. Now we are preparing to consolidate our pig operation onto Drove End Field.

In due course we hope to keep sows and to actually breed our own pigs from scratch. Until that happy day we must be content to buy in weaners (piglets at 6 -8 weeks old) and fatten them for 22 weeks and then turn them into food for the village.

Our butchery connection in Breamore is changing into a more efficient organisation run by Price the Butcher in Fordingbridge. We look forward in September to a better and more consistent product, better labelled and consistently priced.

Our pigs are fed on whey from Ashmore Cheese in Cranborne with waste vegetables and armfuls of weeds such as ‘fat hen’ with a twice daily ration of barley meal and ground maize (non-GM).The food from Agriblends ‘Grimsdyke’ contains no antibiotics and no growth promoters of any sort.

Pigs are the most fantastic creatures to look after. The more you come and watch them at Drove End, the more fascinated you will become.

GENERAL NOTES

Have you or any of your family encountered a particularly vicious stinging nettle? We think the annual nettle we find at Tidpit is ‘extreme’ and unusual.
If you are interested in the ultimate ‘STING’ contact us.

The best smell of June/July is the flower of the lime tree. What is your best scent? - Heaven scent !!

Bye for now, until the next issue in October.


	Nick

	*Forthcoming Events* Potato Lifting 14th October 2006 commencing at 10.00 am! Come along and join us at Drove End field for a wonderful ‘free’ cream tea on the 14th October 2006. Open Day 14th October 2006 commencing at 2.00 pm. We are holding an ‘open day’ at Drove End field for you to visit us and see what we are doing to provide fresh produce for the village. We hope you will come along and join us for a cake and cup of tea. *Don’t forget* Our Market is open every Saturday between 10.30am and 12.30pm, in the Blandford Hall in the centre of the village. NEXT ISSUE ; Rainfall figures from the ‘Gauge’; Fascinating story of Ashmore Cheese; Cost of raising a Pig.