Thought some of you soil geeks might be interested in this report @Bronagh O'kane

Adding batches of new trees each winter. Species used; Oak, Spindle, Willow sp.,Wild Cherry, Bird Cherry, Wild Service Tree, Silver Birch,Alder, Scots Pine, Plum/Pear/Apple trees.

Looking like another tricky year for getting any thrive into our lambs off grass only. How are other people faring with stock fattening off pasture this year?

Our flax is crap this year. We were late going in, blame the rain. We probably hadn't prepared the field as well as we should but I think there is more to it. The fibre that is there is really fine. Below are the soil test results from 2021 and the fields are marked where the flax did really in 2

We've been doing some number crunching for our veg box scheme. We've found some of the stats and guides on OOOOBY very useful. "In November there were 67 hubs actively trading on Ooooby with combined sales of £740k. In round figures, that’s an average of £11k per hub per month, or £132k per year.

Thanks to amazing help from @Lezley Mawhinney our Veg Box Scheme is now going live. Please like and share and support as best you can. If you are in the Mid Ulster Area, get your friends and family signed up. https://www.instagram.com/thevegcollectiveni https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=615

A few of us are involved in a little project looking at the potential for a results based approach to future agri-environment schemes in Northern Ireland. This would be a bit different to previous schemes here, such as EFS, which have largely been action based. A good example of a results based ap

In planning for our new weekly veg box scheme in Mid Ulster we had a look around at different options for handling orders. We did a detailed comparison of what they would cost us in the long run, looking at wordpress, wix, shopify and OOOOBY (Out of our own back yards). We got a free demo from the

We recently hosted the final of the Innovation Competition at CAFRE. We had 8 students pitching their sustainable ideas to a panel of judges. We've been working with them over the last while to bring their ideas to life and they were just awesome! The winner was Sarah Podhorova with her system fo

Got the results back for our first crop of red clover silage cut in May 23. Was sown Sept 23 after winter wheat. Protein perhaps not quite as I hoped it might be but maybe clover wasn't established enough to be pumping the N. Received a light dressing of N (18kg/ha) to try and compensate for this. H

I've recently become interested in holistic management, the Allan Savory 3LM course. I bought the book and its DEEP! Starts with finance, whatever anyones view on money is, we can't deny its a tool. 'Holistic financial planning is the process through which you will reduce the grand notion of holi

Tristan da Cunha – Head of Agriculture Tristan da Cunha – We are recruiting for a Head of Agriculture! Come work on Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island in the world!   About the role We are looking for a suitably experienced hands-on working farmer who will head up the busy Agricultur

Hey folks, can anyone recommend a good supplier of vegetable seeds that are based in or at least deliver to Northern Ireland? I am a market gardener on quarter of an acre so I am not planting huge quantities. However I would use a fair amount of lettuce, carrot, rocket, beetroot & mizuna. I would a

Interesting article below... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/09/farming-is-a-dirty-word-now-the-woman-helping-farmers-navigate-a-grim-uncertain-future Couple of quotes stood out for me "And cumulatively, the consensus is that many farmers are done. Done with the insistence that f

Hi Guys I hope everyone is well and has having a great Christmas. It is with a heavy heart that I am selling my herd of 100% grass fed cow herd. The sale is due to a change in farming policy. • All Animals have never eaten anything grain related. • Native Angus, Stabiliser, Galloway genetics. •

Fround this in my camera roll, long grass grazed in calf fleckvieh heifers, 14 days between the first and second clip (28th of June and 12th of July) last break didn’t get grazed quite as close as ideal due to a TB test. Love how quickly we can see the regrowth even in the less and pretty residuals,

Our Dexter cattle grazing our recently reseeded, herbal ley.

We used to cut this meadow for hay but haven't in the last 4 years, it's been grazed a little, late in the season. It always had lots of irises, meadowsweet, vetches, orchids and birds foot trefoil but since we stopped mowing we have seen increasing amounts of scabious. Maybe it was there and we ju

Hi, has anyone got any recommendations of where I can send some soil to get it tested? I am growing a lot of different vegetables so I would be keen to get a detailed test that includes sampling for elements like boron. Many thanks

We've been fencing off some of our poorer hedges for a few years now in a bid to get them back into better nick. Interesting to see how the edges near the hedge compare to last years reseeded ground a metre or so out...

Many thanks to the team at GrowIN for my prize - the trail outdoor camera. Something which I wanted for a long time! Suspecting that we had a visitor to our bin, I set up the camera to attempt to capture whatever it was. With a bit of trial and error, some of the better footage is attached.

We have been having an ongoing healthy debate in our veg box scheme about whether to deliver or not. There is no doubt we will get a lot more customers if we deliver, if we don't we will be missing out. On the other hand deliveries are expensive in time and money. In such a rural area we could sp

We are going for it! AJ's Farm Shop, Rock Farm and Creeve Cottage are amongst the growers coming together this summer to offer a veg box scheme. We have worked out a planting plan that should provide enough produce for 100 boxes - that's a lot easier with a group of growers. We'll bring it all to

There was a great webinar recently about research on feeding willow to lambs. https://youtu.be/WdrTDKMRPLc?si=BXaxUERhc_xs4GEV This was the second in their series. The first is most likely on their YouTube channel too. Worth a watch 👍

Following a Grow In event a while back a small group of growers kept the conversation going about trying to do something collectively around the Cookstown / Magherafelt area. At the meeting we had growers who were looking at routes to market and a farm shop, all within a few miles of each - it see

I reckoned this might be of some use to someone on here, systems been running about 2 years last year watering 80ish ewes and lambs from a well at an out farm 12 miles from home and the year before it was watering 60 diary cows pumping from a stream for a day grazing every round really just to test

I did a workshop at Oxford Real Farming Conference at the start of the month talking about the potential for fibre crops on farms. It was a really interesting discussion bringing together folk who are passionate about regnerative, hyperlocal textile supply and folk who are supporting the decarbonis

We are five Electrical and Electronic Masters students from Queens University Belfast, and we're thrilled to unveil our latest creation – EweAlert by FlockSense! We're conducting a survey to gather insights that will refine our solution. Your input is priceless, and we'd love for you to take a mo

Having a small trial of bale grazing here using 16 cow/calf pairs on a field of 4 acres or so. The field has been rested since it was last grazed in May/June. It is also just about our driest field and its on a slope so hopefully it should give us some interesting results. Currently cattle have be

Monitoring soil and plant growth in different trial beds. Photo 1. Tree mulch - I am hoping for an increase in water retention and bigger yields. I will update in spring. (Is the competition still going? 🙈 I can try and do another post in 2023)