| all ready for harvest 2009 |
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At last we have finished the winter drilling and most of the autumn chemical applications have been carried out. We have been mostly aiming our spraying at controlling weeds, although there have been some cases where we have had to control pests as well. Slugs have been our biggest bug bare partly because the wet conditions in harvest made the ideal breading conditions for slugs, and also because we were unable to consolidate the ground enough after planting the seeds. We are now getting to the stage where the weather is helping us by driving the slugs deeper into the soil and away from the leaves of my crops.
I am now spending more of my time in the office catching up on paperwork, and trying to figure out a way forward. We still have crops to plant in the spring but we have options about which crops we grow. Today I have spent my time revisiting the Budget for next year which has proved to be a frightening experience it is amazing how a few pennies here and a spot of yield there can make a massive difference to the bottom line. Our biggest worry is fertiliser where we have seen the price double in one growing season while the suppliers of the product have reduced to 1 main player with a couple of other companies trying to get a look in.
Since my last blog we have had the harvest supper which was a great night for us all. In the end we had 90 people turn up from the local farming community. My sister (Vicky May cooking) cooked us a great meal, and we arranged three skittles alleys for an inter-farm skittles competition the winners were sydminton court farm. And we also had a winner for the golden tyre which sadly stayed on the estate again. I recon its because we’re too honest. I hope that everybody has a great Christmas and that the New Year can bring us some certainty for the future.
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