Follow The Farm

My name is Jim Liddiard, and I am the working farm manager for Blackwood Farming Company which is based at Weston Farm, Weston Colley. I live in Northbrook with my long-suffering wife Fiona, 3 lively young children and a menagerie of demanding pets! Blackwood Farming grows arable crops on just over 1600 acres, or 650 hectares in new money. We currently plant a rotation of wheat and barley, with ‘break’ crops of oats, linseed and beans.

No doubt many of you have long enjoyed living in such beautiful countryside, and thanks to the recent pandemic it’s great to see even more people walking the lanes and footpaths. Hopefully as you are out and about on your daily exercise this contribution may help you ‘join the dots’ so to speak as we move through the farming calendar.

January

As an arable operation we hope to take a breather in December and January, after a long busy period from July to October (harvesting, cultivating and then sowing winter crops). Farming has been less affected than most businesses by Covid-19 restrictions, as for most of the year it is a fairly solitary occupation, but we still had to change some of our habits. Despite this, and despite eight inches of rain in October (five inches in the first few days) we managed to complete our planned 2020 autumn sowing before the weather really closed in and soils became too wet to work on. This allowed us to enjoy a ‘normal’ December and January, even taking some holiday over Christmas, in marked contrast to the previous year, when due to continuously wet conditions we were still trying to sow autumn crops until March!

January’s tasks include: Ή Conservation works take place such as coppicing and trimming of hedges, before spring growth and before birds start nesting again; in future years we plan to fill some hedgerow gaps with new planting, to create more continuous corridors for wildlife. Ή Farm maintenance of buildings, tracks, fences and machinery. Ή There would normally be some training courses or conferences to attend, but these are currently on hold for the obvious reason, partly replaced by Zoom meetings. Ή It’s also a good time to hide in a cosy Farm

Office and catch up with some paperwork!

The main focus this month has been on hedge trimming, as you may have noticed. Two common questions I get asked are:

Why are some hedges trimmed and some not? And, Why don’t you cut them earlier?

There is a lot of good advice available (and some rules as well) on hedge management, but the main points are to avoid cutting until birds have flown the nest and do not cut the hedge too often; roadside hedges may be trimmed more frequently for road safety reasons. We try to cut our field hedges in alternate years, or even every third year if possible. This maximises cover and food supply for all the creatures who depend on the hedgerow habitat. If hedges are left for too long they become very difficult to manage, and you risk losing both the purpose of the hedge and all its wonderful biodiversity as it grows too tall.

This year we didn’t start trimming until January as there seemed to be a bounty of berries still available for all manner of little beasties to live off.

We favour trimming hedges to an ‘A’ shape, as this allows light into the base