Darvills Hill Farm reports by Charlotte Downing

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1. Tree planting at Darvill’s Hill Farm by Charlotte Downing

A great deal has happened in everyone’s lives since November 2019, when 60 friends and family helped us plant 2200 trees at our small farm on Flowers Bottom lane. However, in the life cycle of the trees we planted, it has been just one growing season which started with relentless rain in early 2020, then the long, hot, dry spring and summer. So, it has proved to be a challenging year even for the trees. We continued on our tree planting mission over the last year and have added a further 1000 trees, including 150 oaks from the ‘Save the Oaks’ campaign (www.savetheoaks.org) and we aim to continue planting more trees each year.  

We have been mulching the saplings during February and March, to keep the grass from competing them, and doing a check on their health at the same time. It has been amazing to find that about 95% of the trees have taken root and, although early in the season, some are already starting to bud. We would welcome anyone who would like to come and check in on the trees they planted.

We are now planning to expand our carbon sequestering enterprise beyond tree planting, diversifying the farm’s ecology at the same time. We will be improving the hedgerows by in-planting towards the end of the year and during this grass growing season we are undertaking holistic planned grazing with our small flock of 40 Soay and Herdwick sheep. This process allows the sheep to use their natural ability to manage grasses to improve the farm’s soil organic content, capturing more of that pesky carbon in the process.

We are slowly immersing ourselves in the world of regenerative farming and would love to hear from anyone interested in this approach to improving our community ecosystem.

2. Musical Sheep at Darvills Hill Farm by Charlotte Downing

Recently a neighbour asked if I was playing musical sheep as they had notice I keep moving our flock of rare breed sheep into a fresh paddock every three days. I agreed it looked it bit odd, especially as I have discovered that if I clap my hands a couple of times, and call “Come on then”, the flock mobilise themselves and calmly walk into the next paddock.

I was sceptical of my shepherding ability when I embarked on this approach to grazing in the Spring.  I figured I would need to engage the services of a sheep dog, or if you have been following Jeremy Clarkson on ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ (Amazon Prime), a drone. However, as much as I would like to think that this magical compliance comes from my skill as a novice shepherd, it is more likely to come from the sheep’s ancient instinct to find new pasture.

The idea behind this steady movement of livestock is that by allowing grazing for only short periods of time, with vegetation and manure being trampled into the ground and a longer recovery time, soil health is improved.  Essentially, we are working with nature to draw down and store carbon in the soil and improve biodiversity

This was brought into sharp focus for me this year when I learnt that there is less than three percent of species rich grassland left in the UK and that we are fortunate enough to have some of this rare habitat at the farm. I am hopeful that this game of musical sheep will, in the coming years, continue to protect and enhance the Flowers Bottom Lane wildflower meadows.

Ps If you are interested in finding out more about the importance of soil in improving the health of the planet, I would recommend the 2020 Netflix documentary “Kiss the Ground”. It is worth a view.

3. 'Field of Dreams' and Fledglings at Darvills Hill Farm by Charlotte Downing

I went to Groundswell recently, a regenerative agriculture festival in Hitchin. Yes, these things do exist, with DJ Andy Cato of Groove Armada / Wild Farmed Wheat fame headlining at the Earthworm Arms on Wednesday night. What's not to love? It is a rapidly growing event from a handful of farmers chewing the fat around a campfire nine years ago, to a two-day extravaganza attended by over 6000 people with an interest in food production and the environment, with the regeneration of soil at the heart of it all.

One of the great questions posed while I was listening to the impeccable Annie Landlass of Soil Mentor talk about indicators for good soil health, specifically high numbers of earthworms was ‘How do they get there in the first place?’ I suggested to my nearest neighbour, that maybe it was like the Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams and the immortal line ‘If you build it, he will come’ Unsurprisingly, they looked at me blankly and edged away. I think Kevin was onto something though, if you create the right conditions and have some patience, after a while things do just seem to show up.

Four years on from when we first started to mindfully graze our sheep, plant trees and regenerate hedges it feels like we are starting to have our own small groundswell. We are finding more earthworms when we're doing our soil sampling, the taller, wilder plant life in the meadows and hedges has created space for more small mammals such as voles to inhabit, which have in turn created the opportunity for some apex predators to move in. We were ridiculously excited when an inspection of our barn owl boxes by Bucks Owl and Raptor Group (BORG) this summer found three Barn owlets getting ready to fledge.

For better or worse, human beings, like earthworms and owls, are a keystone species, that is we have a disproportionate effect on the natural environment relative to our abundance. One of the great things we've discovered though is that you don't have to use lots of inputs or energy to have a positive effect, you do need to pay attention though and have fun dancing to some of Groove Armada’s classics in the process.

Ps We have arranged with the fabulous team at Oxmoor Farm, Great Hampden to put on a community screening of the film ‘Six inches of soil’ on Friday 13^th September 2024. Tickets are free. Small plates of locally sourced food by chef Paddy Maynard of Oxmoor Farm, and drinks will be available to buy (and eat!) from 4pm.

The film (which runs for 96 mins) will start at 7pm, followed by a half hour question-and-answer session with a panel of fantastic Chiltern farmers and producers who themselves are working hard to provide an alternative to the UK’s industrial food system.

Tickets on sale via the Oxmoor Farm. ebsite www.oxmoorfarm.co.uk/the-barn/

See you there!

4. A Word on Flerds by Charlotte Downing

For the past four years our small family farm, at the far end of Flowers Bottom Lane, has been home to a flock of mixed rare breed ewes, their lambs and our two Soay rams Chesyne (the One and Only) and more recently Ken Enough. Our ambition however has always been to bring cattle back onto the farm and finally, having installed all the necessary infrastructure in the way of fencing, gates, water and cattle crush (a medieval looking but necessary animal handling system), we are ready to welcome a handful of bovine boys.

I wasn't entirely confident about what we would get if I mixed our flock of sheep with a herd of cows, but I was reassured by You Tube sensation and relentlessly optimistic regenerative Missouri farmer Greg Judy, that it is something called a ‘flerd’.

This word was only recently added to the Oxford English dictionary but it describes a process that has been around for millennia, and for as long as grassland habitats have been in existence. In the wild, diverse varieties of herbivores form a cohesive unit grazing and moving together, to keep safe from predators. When animals were domesticated, they were still grazed together as farmers instinctively understood that cattle and sheep have different grazing methods which are not only compatible, but positively enhance the biodiversity in the soil and pastures on which they are kept.

This traditional knowledge has got a little lost in recent decades in the race to intensify agriculture, however it is becoming more commonplace again. Our ambition to work with nature, creating more space for diversity on the farm means we are well placed to undertake this form of pastoralism. Our cattle will be a slow growing, hardy breed as they will be living outdoors on pasture all year round, just as nature intended. Once our ewes have finished lambing this May, we will slowly be introducing them to their ruminant relatives. I’m now wondering what you get if you mix a brood of chickens with a flerd? Answers on a postcard please.