Darvills Hill Farm reports by Charlotte Downing

click Darvills Hill Farm for the history and Deeds

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click Farming pre 1823 for this era

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