New Zealand Lambers

Arable
Andy started to sow organic Spring Beans around the middle of the month. We have grown organic beans for the past 2 years without much success, hopefully this year we will have a better yield! He has also sown the Paragon spring wheat on one of the farms next to the coast. We have also spread the first application of fertiliser on the Oil Seed Rape, Winter Wheat and Winter Barley, grown on the part of the farm that has yet to be converted to organic status. The use of these artificial fertilisers and chemicals will slowly diminish as the whole farming enterprise turns organic. At the end of the month we comb harrowed all the fields we had previously spread FYM on. This is done to break up any large lumps to prevent them from rotting out the grass below, and so creating a space for weeds to establish. We also had a contractor in at the start of the month to chip more wood for the 2 biomass boilers we have on the estate.
This wood is stored inside ready to be used next winter.

Livestock
Early lambing has started and for the moment seems to be going well. Ross has been working with the 2 seasonal helpers from New Zealand. Lachlan and Lucy have been a great help and definitely know what they are doing. The calving also started in the middle of the month. There are 260 spring calvers and the 1st calf arrived on the 20th. As you can see this is a busy time, we don’t have to look far for a job!