Wiggly wigglers Podcast

As I have written many times before on this blog in 2007 I was awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust Scholarship to study water issues. We has our conference a couple of weeks ago in Exeter where all the 2007 scholars returned and presented their findings.
One of my fellow 2007 scholars is Heather Gorringe, founder of Wiggly Wigglers a mail order eco gardening products company. Those six words to not begin to express the scope and breadth of the business so do check out the website. The company is also the first ever winner of the Global Dell Small Business Excellence Award. They received their award because of their pioneering work using social media to extend the success of their business and also to communicate the essence of their business mission and their shared, and opposing, hopes and opinions on environmental an sustainability issues through blogging and their podcasts.
Heather's study was how rural businesses and farmers can benefit from social media. At the conference Heather captured some of our conversation that we had over a cup of tea and has broadcast it as part of her latest podcast - number 0158 to be precise. We were musing over why water is important globally and locally, why should we care, whether we coerce or enable people to have less of an impact on the environment and many other things, plus I tell a joke at the end which is most uncharacteristic.
Do check it out and let me know what you think.

Autumn Time at Benbow Pond

Autumn has really come to the farm now and here are some photos of the Benbow Pond. We don't get as many visitors at this time of year so I thought I would post some photos.

Nuffield Conference 2008

This weekend (31st October/1st November) I spoke at the Annual Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust Conference for returning scholars. Twenty-two scholars presented on a range of topics from Care Farming (farming supporting vulnerable individuals in society), to carbon footprint, farmers and social media, farming techniques, soil biology, marketing, seasonality and my topic .. water security.

It was a fabulous weekend and it was great to see my year group shine through with their knowledge, their discoveries and their enthusiasm. It was a fascinating insight into new technologies, new approaches and a positive future for the UK agricultural industry.

First posted at The Human Imprint

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!

So wet we can't harvest the potatoes

It has been so wet this autumn that we have been unable to harvest the potatoes from the field. It is a waste of food on the one hand, but the amount of fuel that would be needed to harvest them, the damage it would cause to the soil and the fact that it would probably cost more to harvest the potatoes than they are worth means that they will stay in the field.

Autumn on the farm

More photos to follow

Planting for a new crop

We have taken the big step to plant this year without ploughing. This decision will affect our yield so it is a bit of a gamble but I hope one that pays off in many ways. Ploughing and turning the soil over means that carbon dioxide is naturally released into the atmosphere. This carbon dioxide is then taken up by the plants again as they grow. The carbon cycle is a natural cycle of how carbon is taken up in plants, animals and humans and then released to be reused again. I tried to find a simple, but informative diagram to demonstrate this process.

You can't use this method for all crops but it is appropriate for for arable crops - wheat, oil seed rape, etc. I will keep you posted on how the decision works out. Maybe in the future we will even be able to claim carbon credits for less cultivation of the soil as we will be storing more carbon in the soil which will in a small way offset carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.