Sweet clover

Sweet clover is grown as a green manure - to suppress weeds, fix
nitrogen and build organic matter in the soil. It's an amazing plant,
growing really tall and producing masses of yellow or white flowers that
bees and other insects love.

This field has plants that are in excess of 7ft tall and show no signs
of stopping yet! They also have very deep roots, which is ideal on our
sandy soils. Searching for water deep down, they are also bringing up
minerals and nutrients from lower down in the soil profile.

Next spring we will gently cultivate this field and all the organic
matter in this crop will give a massive benefit to the following crop.

Staff training

In the current climate of a lack of skilled labour for farms, we decided
it would be a good policy to invest in new staff from an early age.
Hopefully the time invested in training now will pay dividends in years
to come. We also thought it would be good to start now because in a few
years the unhelpful concept of 'school' will somewhat get in the way of
practical training.

Organic growing is certainly a long term business....

Stunning colours today

The spring continues to bring cold winds, but today also brought amazing visibility and stunning colours. Scilly at its best!

Some photos from the glashouse

The centre of operations is full of lovely looking little plants. The
season is well and truly in swing!

In the polytunnel now...

...there are leaves coming on the vines and the Oxalis plants (weeds) are in flower and looking beautiful.

Spring is here, even if outside it's feeling colder than it has all winter!

Blackbirds

We like Blackbirds, a lot. They seem to be very intelligent birds, as demonstrated by this one that is a regular visitor to the glasshouse. He knows that it's a potential source of food, and if the weather's poor he can get in out of the wind and rain. Hopefully he also eats a few slugs and snails too.

Our friend 'Mr Blackbird'

But they seem to have a curiosity for humans that not many birds appear to possess. He will happily sit for a few minutes very close around us, just watching and observing, as though being thoughtful and reflective. Then he'll fly outside and sit in the hedge, singing one of the most beautiful songs of all the birds - perhaps bettered only by the song thrush.

This blackbird - and I'm fairly sure it's the same one, was our daughter's first real encounter with wildlife (aside from trying to eat wild plants!). She was in her play pen, in the glasshouse, when in he came and started hopping around just a couple of feet away. Immediately she was captivated, not frightened at all, and has loved seeing him ever since.

So here's a thanks to the humble blackbird for enriching our lives. Oh, and it even gave name to our house....

Building carbon in farm soils

One of my passions is about the potential of farm soils to increase their carbon content. Soil contains organic matter, which is largely comprised of carbon. When we add organic matter to our soils, through green manures, manures, composts and other materials, we are literally nourishing the soil ecosystem.

The benefits for the farmer or grower is soil that contains more biological activity, holds more moisture - yet drains better, has a better structure and is more fertile. This translates in to not just higher yields - and therefore hopefully higher profits, but more importantly it is building up the soil 'capital bank' that enables good production on the land to continue for many years to come.

 
For society, these higher carbon soils mean there is literally more life on the land, upon which people walk, cycle, sit or just admire. More life in the soil means more above it - flowers, insects, birds, animals. Biodiversity above and below ground are completely intertwined. Furthermore the quality of food coming from fertile, carbon rich soils is superior to that of depleted soils, resulting in increased health from consuming such food.

For the planet, every bit of carbon that is locked up in the soil (and it is quite a stable place), means less CO2 in the atmosphere. Whilst farming is one of the largest sources of man-made greenhouse gases, it also has the potential to become one of the greatest tools we have to turn the tide on climate change. 
This carbon sequestration (absorption) has tremendous potential to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels.

What I hope you can see is that by focussing our energies on building carbon in soils (farms, gardens, forests - it all counts), we can make fantastic positive changes, indeed this is a win-win-win situation!

For more about this topic please read some soil carbon resources on the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit website, and this article I wrote for Farming Matters magazine