First Ploughing of the Field

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We could hardly contain our excitement! We’d been told by a neighbouring farmer who works many of the fields around us that they’d be ploughing the one behind us soon. Panic had already set in – we’re still waiting on the solicitors to make the purchase but our good neighbour who is selling us an acre portion of the large 46 acre field has suggested we let the ploughs work our land over as well, to get rid of the left over rape seed stubs, but we must catch them before they sow the wheat seed!

So when Gary, our neighbour, and I noticed the tractor and plough pootling over the large field to begin ploughing it was exciting for us – somehow made it all the more real. Up until now I’d spent hours on the evening scouring books and websites for inspiration. John Seymour’s ‘The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency’ has been the bible of course, but various others have been a great source of ideas.

As the plough worked around the edge of the field and into the distance, Gary pointed out that they didn’t seem to be doing a great job as they’d only just about dinted the surface! As ploughing expert number 2, I stated that they were probably just dragging the plough to where they would start properly. Later, telling our famer neighbour next door about this, he chuckled to himself and told his young padawans that this was called ‘sub-soiling’ and is needed to soften the ground up where the plough will eventually be dropped into the hard ground to begin new furrows. Like I’ve said – much to learn 😉

Map of Acre Field

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Acre FieldWe have finally been given an outline of the acre field, which we can access through a narrow 10ft corridor from the back of the house. We’re still waiting for the solicitors to finalise things, but the farmer we’re buying from has been kind enough to allow us to mark it out as best we can and sow grass seed before the winter chills come in.

Our initial thoughts are to divide it into equal quarters – the North East corner will have around 30 half-standard orchard trees, a quite traditional orchard set up in the East Midlands or so I’m led to believe. Under this we can graze chickens or geese, nothing too boisterous that will knock over the more delicate trees and eat the low hanging fruit!

The South East corner will contain around 20 standard orchard trees, forming a traditional orchard. Under this we can graze pretty much anything apart from bullock elephants, the trees will live much longer – outliving us I’m sure – but will be harder to harvest. Because of their longevity they will be fantastic for wildlife – bats, lesser spotted woodpeckers, the various insects that will make their homes, and also provide cover for the smaller mammals the local little owl couple like to eat.

The South West corner will be left to ley. This, along with the standard orchard quarter, will provide enough grass for a couple of dairy sheep in the future. We’ll grow the ley for one harvest of hay before opening it for grazing. This way we’ll have some of our own winter food for the sheep. I’m hoping to get around 20 small bales (2′ x 2′ x 4′) from this, but we’ll see when it happens!

The North West corner will be our food garden as it’s nearest the house. In this we will put aside at least one third for our own vegetables and soft fruit. The rest will be left for possible future use for more fodder crops. We’re talking of possibly sinking a borehole for water, jointly with our neighbour, as being in the Trent Wash you need only dig 2-3ft down to reach surface water! We’re surrounded by working and old disused wells, so figure we’ll have no problem gaining our own off-grid water supply for the odd ocassion we’ll need to irrigate the crops. In reality, we’ve only needed to water our small patch outside the house in September’s dry spell – the rest of the year has been fine.