We aim to grow all our produce on the farm. There are, however, times in the year when we have to buy certain vegetables from wholesale suppliers. This for example will happen with potatoes, carrots and onions in the winter, although we grow the crops in season and have them as fresh produce we do not have sufficient storage to keep them throughout the winter. When we buy vegetables in, we endeavor to ensure that we source from the UK only and that food miles are kept to an absolute minimum.

Seeding begins in January and continues throughout the year to give us a continuous supply of plants. Every seed has to be hand planted. Thousands of seedlings are raised in the poly tunnel on a heated bench, this warms the soil and helps us to control moisture. Plants stay in the propagation tunnel until they are big enough to go outside and be hardened off ready for planting in the field or poly tunnels.

Poly tunnels are extremely important within our organic system allowing us to grow crops year round. We are able to grow three different crops a year within each poly tunnel. In spring and early summer we use them to bring on our early crops of new potatoes, broad beans, garlic, peas and courgettes before our outside main crops are ready. In summer we grow the exotic vegetables which require a consistent high humidity to crop successfully i.e. tomatoes, cucumbers, chilies, peppers, aubergines.

In winter the poly tunnels house our popular winter salad leaves which require protection from frosts.

The rotation of plants families between the tunnels is important for four main reasons.

1. To build nutrient levels between crops. Changing crops each year allows to soil to replenish nutrients. Leguminous plants such as peas and beans are able to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil, making it available for the next crop of plants.

2. Soil pests and diseases tend to attack specific plant families, so by rotating crops the pests' life-cycles are broken and build-up is reduced.

3. Alternating between deep-rooted and fibrous-rooted crops improves soil structure.

4. Some crops (e.g. potatoes and squashes) can suppress weeds, minimizing problems for following crops.

As an organic farm we don’t use chemicals to eradicate pests and diseases from the soil. We use best practice methods instead such as crop rotation and select disease resistant plant varieties where possible.

We rotate crops in the vegetable fields as we do in the poly tunnels. Each plant family is planted in a different block each year this helps to prevent pests and diseases building up in the soil. In the vegetable fields we grow large scale crops such as potatoes, sweet corn, broad beans, carrots etc.

The majority of the work is carried out using a tractor compared to the poly tunnels where work is carried out manually.

We protect our newly planted crops with the use of fleeces, these prevent damage from pigeons, deer and rabbits. Despite the use of high fences surrounding the field the deer and rabbits always manage to break in.

We use stale seedbeds to help eradicate weeds. Once the crop had been harvested the ground is power harrowed using a tractor, this breaks up the soil to a fine tilth. The weeds are allowed to establish and then are destroyed by flame weeding. This doesn't’t disturb any weed seeds in the soil and the new crop of vegetables can be planted on top.

This helps to reduce the amount of weed competition our vegetable plants have to encounter. This method however only really works for vegetables planted later on in the summer, when the weeds have had a chance to flourish.

Not using any insecticides in organic farming allows the predatory insects such as ladybirds to flourish. We then rely on these to eat pests such as aphids.

Comfrey and nettles are important plants within an organic system. They are used to make ‘tea’ which is given to the plants as a liquid fertilizer as they contain high levels of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K). Both plants will grow back after harvesting and can provide an almost continuous supply of nutrient rich fertilizer.

To make this ‘tea’ we fill a water butt with as many leaves as possible then add water and leave for six weeks to ferment. The result is a very smelly liquid which we dilute and feed to tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers during fruit formation.

The flowers of comfrey and nettles also attract Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Red Admiral and Comma butterflies as well as ladybirds, lacewings and hover flies which are important predatory insects eating pests such as greenfly.

Manure is another extremely important input of organic farming. Dung from the poultry houses is mixed with that of in-wintered sheep and stabled horses.

The manure heap is then turned once in the summer and then again autumn to allow oxygen to be introduced. The composting procedure heats it to 60C, breaking down the organic matter so that our carbon: nitrogen ratio stacks in favour of readily available nitrogen, and killing weed seeds and harmful pathogens. Soil structure is further improved by microbiological activity, including the activity of earthworms.

Proper composting and utilization is essential, in that our ground is not very strong and we grow a lot of vegetables. We spread on the vegetable field and in the poly tunnels in the spring.

All the produce is picked by hand when it is perfect for the shop and boxscheme, we do not grade and vegetables on 'looks' therefore it is not uncommon to find a misshapen carrot lurking in your box ! We have no wastage as any uneaten vegetables are fed to the animals and staff !