Wheat is growing

What a difference a year makes.... we have never planted winter wheat twice in the same calendar year before ... This time it has established well.

Combine has arrived

The wheat has been harvested thanks to a week of fairly good weather. Oats and beans to go!

Wheat is growing

Wheat is growing fast and we are lucky to have a harvest due in four weeks time when you look at the plight of people in other parts of the world.

Wheat in the store

After all the rain we have finally got the wheat in the grain store to feed the chickens for the coming season. Hurray!!

Photos from a walk

The wheat is growing - harvest is only ten weeks away!

The beans are in flower - they had a slow start

Wildflowers too

Wheat starting to grow

The wheat is starting to grow as the soil warms up

More autumn pictures

Here are some more autumn photographs from the farm. Sam, the pup is growing fast, we have been drying our wheat so we can use it for animal feed and the leaves look just beautiful!

Wet Harvest

We have been able to harvest the oil seed rape, but we are still waiting for better weather to harvest the wheat. Fingers crossed we might see a change in the next week or so. More news soon.

June photos

Here is a picture post from the farm - everything is growing and spring has moved into summer.

The wheat is growing!


Special sunset - the sun caught the clouds beautifully

The trees have all filled out now and are majestic.

The wheat is growing

The wheat that was planted in the autumn is growing in the fields. With some warmth and spring sunshine it will be well on track!

February sun

Well the warm weather has got the wheat growing in the fields, the daffodils are in bloom on the drive and the birds are all busy pairing up on the farm.

Wheat harvesting yesteryear

This photograph shows how they used to harvest wheat on the farm in, we think, the 1920's- very different from today!

Tipping the wheat in the grain store

We have already cleaned out the grain store ready for the wheat. The tractor and trailer reverse into the store and the grain is tipped onto the floor. The wheat stays there then until we need it for the chickens and then it is put back onto the trailer and taken around to the chicken houses and put into the bins that hold their feed.

Wheat - harvest

These three photos show the combine in action - the header is moving through the crop, inside the machine the wheat and the straw are separated - can you see the straw coming out of the back? When the combine is full of wheat, the wheat is put into a trailer and the tractor takes the trailer to the grain store. We store our wheat on the farm for our chickens to eat - zero food miles!

Wheat - moving the combine

When we move the combine to a new field it will not go through the gates on the farm, as it is too wide with the header on the front. You can see in the first photo that we take the header off the front of the combine and put it onto a trailer that is pulled by a tractor. The header is the part of the combine that cuts down the wheat and draws the plant into the combine so that we can separate the wheat from the straw. When we get into the new field the tractor and trailer and the combine are manouvered so that the combine driver can put the header back onto the combine. It is a very big machine and the driver has to be very accurate as he (or she) approaches the trailer. See second photo!

Harvesting the wheat

This picture shows the damage that the heavy rain has made on the crop, flattening it in places. On our farm the fields are the relatively small, compared to the large fields in East Anglia - see the old hedges around the edge - this makes combining a little more tricky for us. The combine starts by going around the field and you can see the straw that has been left behind. This will be baled up later with a baling machine. It has been sold to other farmers who will use it on their farms for their sheep and cattle.

Walking around the wheat fields

The wheat was nearly ready to be harvested and then it rained again! We check if the wheat is ready by rubbing an ear in our hands - blowing away the chaff and looking at, and biting, the wheat kernel. You can tell how ripe the wheat is by the colour and and how hard it is when you bite it. If you think it is nearly ready then you can check with a moisture meter.

Why is it important - if we harvest the wheat when it is too wet and then store it the wheat will deteriorate and can go mouldy. This could make it inedible for people and animals. We have to mechanically dry the wheat if it is too wet and this adds to the harvest costs so a farmer keeps checking and hoping it comes right.

It will need a few days to dry out when the sun finally comes out.

Wheat - growing well

The wheat is growing well - good news if we want to eat bread, biscuits, cakes etc !

We are growing feed wheat which is fed to livestock.

Mind you if you look at the top picture you can see where the rabbits were helping themselves earlier on in the year - at the field edge!