25th June 2023

 

Dear All,

I gratefully received Father’s Day presents in the form of the latest Barbara Kingsolver book and a complete afternoon tea of scones, clotted cream, jam, cakes and courgette slab through the post!

 

 

 

Loot!

After a swim on Monday morning, we drove down to Essex for an elderly cousin’s reunion. Wendy had driven Peter & Annemarie. Mary, Graham and David all assembled at Dovercourt Weatherspoon’s for lunch and were joined by Muriel for tea. David gave us a conducted tour of the farm at Beaumont and the winter crops looked really well. Peter & Annemarie are both rather frail now and daughter Wendy is their official carer.

 

 

Dovercourt Lighthouse

 

 

Muriel, David, Mike & Graham

 

 

Mary, Peter, Annemarie & Kate

 

 

Graham & Wendy

 

On Tuesday it was gardening including harvesting overwintered garlic and shallots and digging Broad Bean land. Arthur & Grace came after school as usual.

 

 

Garlic & Shallot harvest

 

Ex NIAB employees were invited back for a talk about the future of NIAB by the new Director Mario Caccomo who hails from Argentina. He painted a fairly rosy picture of their achievements and their turnover has risen from £8.8 in 2014 to £30 m now. They are working closely with Cambridge University and their Mission Statement is to produce more food

·         With less synthetic inputs of pesticides and fertilisers

·         On less land

·         While reducing Greenhouse gases

·         And adapting to climate change

Example projects are reduced gluten wheat for bread and stabilising legume yields. Meanwhile they have taken over East Malling Fruit Research station and Strawberries are performing very well.

My old boss Bill Chowings was down from Norfolk for a few days and after attending the meeting we entertained him for dinner.

Our Thursday walk this week started at Horseheath and took in West Wickham and Burton End. It was plenty hot enough so 8 miles was enough!. The winter cereal crops were very good here as well.

 

 

Leaving Horseheath

 

 

Winter Barley

 

 

Yen Hall Farm, Burton End

 

 

Cracks

On Friday we thought we would have an expedition to Warboys for PYO Strawberries to replace those the badger had predated. We had checked their web site and it claimed they were open all day but when we arrived at 10am there was a notice “Sorry not open until 12,30” – a wasted 34-mile round trip. We got a few over ripe ones from a farm shop for jam and topped up the fresh fruit from Tesco’s.

Kate has been busy picking Red Currants all week and water carting for the allotment has continued.

 

 

Red Currants

 

 

Water operation

I judged Stapleford Fruit & vegetable Show on Saturday morning, as usual it was not a great display and not too many difficult decisions. I watched Over 2nds beat Girton 2nds on the very dry Green then in the evening we were invited to Kate & Gordon’s at Haddenham for drinks on the lawn.

love

 

Mike & Kate