Farm News | March 28, 2025
Food Production Expanding Into Middle Field
We’re about to start work preparing the ‘Middle Field’ aka Skylark Field to go into food production, along with more within the deer fenced area. Find out about the plans…
In April, we are expanding the area of the farm under food production. This includes development within the deer-fenced area of the Market Garden (the area with the polytunnels) and the field just north of there – what we call the ‘middle field’ or Skylark Field on the map. We will prepare the agroforestry alley area inside the deer fence and the Skylark Field by ploughing and then sowing a long-term cover crop of nitrogen fixing, deep rooting flowering plants to enhance the biodiversity in the soil, and break up some of the compaction in the field from years of grazing.
The cover crops will be a mixture of grasses, deep rooting herbs and wild flowers. They are essential in any agroecological food growing system – protecting the soil from erosion and leaching, building fertility and diversity in the soil, suppressing weeds and creating diversity and food for beneficial insects above ground. They will also provide large swathes of beautiful mixtures of species and flowers for everyone to enjoy!
These cover crops will prepare the ground for the next step. In the agroforestry area inside the deer fence, we will be moving into field scale veg production next year (alongside the veg beds already in action for our CSA veg bags). And in the middle field we will be sowing our grains and pulses. The middle field will also have agroforestry strips added over the coming years.
This is such an important step for us to be able to develop our farm and increase the amount of food feeding our local communities. In the coming years we’ll build a rotation of field scale vegetable cropping, grains and legumes across these fields. It will be a beautiful, productive landscape.
We know folk walk in these fields at the moment, but we hope everyone will understand this was always part of the plan for bringing the farm back to food production. If you’re visiting the farm for a walk, please keep an eye out for our contractors who’ll be coming to help us plough and sow in April/May – make sure you keep safe when machinery is moving around, and that you know the Outdoor Access Code for crop fields.