The farm through the seasons – February

The days are getting longer, and signs of Spring are peeping through here in Yorkshire, time for our monthly insight into what we do here on the farm. February traditionally brings another quieter month, the maintenance and upkeep continues, and the farm team have been out and about repairing the fencing around the farm; quite some area!

The weather has been favourable so far this year, so the month will see our spring barley being planted, along with spring beans. This is only our second year of planting beans, and we are hoping for a yield as good as last year’s crop. The weather plays a huge part in deciding when to get crops into the ground and fully plays its part during the whole of the growing cycle of all our crops, not just our oil seed rape.

Recently we have chosen to move towards a regenerative farming system, capturing more carbon by improving soil health. We do this by keeping living roots in the soil at all times. The crops we are planting now are stubble turnips which we use for sheep feed. It is our intention to eventually utilise cover crops wherever a spring crop is planted.

During the month we have been out in the field scanning our flock of ewes to determine if they are pregnant, and if so, how many lambs they are carrying so our shepherding team can be prepared in the upcoming lambing season. Most will be carrying twin lambs, with the occasional lamb being born as a single, or as a triplet. We will certainly be kept busy during Spring!

So, for now a bit of calm pre lambing season, and we can enjoy the slightly longer (although not always warmer) days as Spring starts to make a break through here on the Yorkshire Wolds.