Flat Out Farming®: Summer in full swing!
2023 is just whizzing by, and as we approach July all our minds are very much on the upcoming harvest. We don’t have any Oil Seed Rape, which would be ready in July, so we’re expecting to start around the first week of August, although that totally depends on the weather and how fast things mature.
We’ve put on our T3, so that should be it for spraying when it comes to the wheat, the next big task is combine prep, moving stuff around to make the space for the harvest and hay baling. It looks as though a lot of the baling has been done further down the country, but we’ve held off and it’s a bit of a ‘do we, don’t we’ situation at the moment, as little bits of rain are forecast and they might come to something, but likely will come to nothing. The process takes quite a few days – again weather dependent – as we turn the hay to get it to dry out.
Last year’s hay baling with the John Deere 6930 and our 570 baby baler!
Like many we’ve been holding back last season’s harvest in the hope of an increase in value, although at present wheat prices are pretty static (and very low) in comparison to the huge spend on this year’s crops. The restriction and then flooding the market of crops from the Ukraine has had a big influence on this, and everyone appears to be waiting for the situation to stabilise, although as many head to harvest they’ll need to clear out their sheds to make some space. ‘It’s complicated’ is about the only way to describe it, and it’s vital to make good decisions now for the health of the business – but in such a volatile market it’s difficult to know what and when is right when it comes to selling grain/buying inputs and most we’ve spoken to have been stung by the expectation of increased grain prices, and not the crazy amount of money we’ve spent on fertiliser. More on that another day!
It's also the busiest time of the year for our holiday cottages, and it’s been lovely to welcome so many people to the farm over the last few months. It’s a challenge to fit in the communication with everyone and to give the service we’d like to provide, but we do our best and have had some fantastic feedback, which makes it so worthwhile. We’re updating our biggest barn with some new showers, a new smoke alarm system and soon some new curtains – it’s not ideal having it out of action at this time of year, but we’ve been trying to get a bit of help to get those jobs done and now is the time! Hopefully it will be back up and running soon, but we have opened The Stables after a big refurb, and so far so thumbs up from the guests.
Anyways that’s just about it for now! We did make it to Cereals, the main agricultural event for arable farming, recently, and for a lovely day out clay shooting, which was quite an experience at Otby Lakes, which is about an hour from here – the time off the farm was much appreciated. Soon we’ll be baling hay, and the weeks will romp by as we head into the daunting task of getting this year’s harvest in. It’ll be all systems go in no time….
Catch you soon
Jen & James
