Innovation: Fun but potentially painful I was recently nominated for the BBC’s food and Farming Awards under the “Farming for the Future” category. Awards are not really in my comfort zone and I thought hard about whether I wanted to accept the nomination. What convinced me to accept the nomination was the fact that the …
Dec 2023 Like all farmers I am an eternal optimist and have decided to roll the dice again with another year of cropping. Things will be better next year? Hopefully! This autumn I think we have been lucky down in Kent. I didn’t start raining until the 12th of October and the soils were very …
As I sit here on the last day of May writing this article it is blowing a gale outside and has been for quite a long time now. Our soils have gone from drenched at the beginning of May to having the life sucked out of them at the end of the month. It really …
January 2023 French Style Harvest Since my last article in May harvest has been and gone (very quickly) and all the winter crops have been established and are looking well. This harvest it felt like we were farming in France. Most was done by the end of the first week in August and due to …
From Drought to Deluge I am sitting here today (May 24th) listening to Thunderstorms outside. In the last 6 days we have had around 50ml of rain which has been very appreciated. This time last week it was 26 degrees, and the crops were wilting and looking very drought stressed, amazing the difference a week …
Nuffield Farming Scholar Andy Howard reflects on his Nuffield Scholarship and what it has enabled him to achieve since… There were two key moments that got my Nuffield journey to the starting point. The first was sitting in a car with my friend and local farmer Tom Sewell, who was at that time in the …
Every year you learn something new and the last two years have been tough, and we have learnt a lot! This shows in our machinery purchases over this period. We have bought a mole plough, a drain jetter, a set of rolls with paddles and a Tech Neat Outcast catch crop spreader. These are all …
As I write at the end of February it is finally starting to feel like spring. I have even managed to go out without wellies and a coat for the first time in months. Since my last article in September, we have had rain, lots of it! 650mm since 24th of September. Parts of the …
Clean Slate Harvest has been and gone and was fairly straight forward here in Kent, all bar the Linseed came in dry. Harvest ended well with the Linseed and the Lentils performing well, previous to them it was a real mixed bag. Glad to being starting with a clean slate for harvest 2021. I had …
A few weeks ago I was really falling out of love with growing wheat. Like all difficult times you get the chance to re-assess what you do and I believe we need a complete re-think of wheat growing in the UK. Since my last article in the December edition it continued to rain, about 680mm …
