Farm Update - May 2016
James Florey
Beef Availability
This month we will have our delicious, fresh beef available for delivery on Tuesday 17th May or alternatively orders can be collected from the farmhouse on Sunday 15th May. Please visit our website here to see the full range of products we have available, everything from a 500g pack of mince to our Large Oxford selection box.
In addition to this we will also be attending the Witney Festival of Food and Drink on Sunday 21st May. Please do pop down and see us there where you will be able to purchase our full range of fresh products plus a couple of little extras! For more information on the event please click on the link here.
Cattle
Calving is almost done for the Spring with just a handful left to calve. With the weather finally warming up and the grass growing we will start to turn cattle out into the fields next week. There really isn't a better sight than seeing the cows with their calves skipping around the fields of fresh grass for the first time! This grass is the key ingredient in producing our amazing grass fed beef!
Since our last update our Stock Bull, Northmoor's Legend, has moved on to his new home and so too has one of our young bulls, Northmoor's Oscar; who has headed off to a farm in Wales. We have had to buy in a new bull to replace Legend and are pleased to say that Stonegrove Rocket will be joining us in June. We'll have plenty of pictures of him to share with you when he arrives!
Arable
The planting of our crops has been a bit stop-start this Spring and everything has gone in a little later than planned, purely down to the wet weather and waterlogged soils. However, we have now managed to get everything drilled with the wheat and barley already showing through the ground, and the beans not too far behind. The wheat we are growing is a variety called Mulika which will hopefully produce a grain suitable for bread making. Not all varieties of wheat are able to be used for making bread and are instead used for animal feed or maybe biscuits. In order for us to produce a grain suitable for making bread we have to meet a strict set of criteria regarding its protein content among other things. We can control the protein content to some degree by deciding how much fertiliser to apply to the crop and when to apply it. The wheat crop has so far had two doses of fertiliser and will have another one in a couple of months time.
New Arrival
Calves are not the only new arrivals here at Rectory Farm! On Friday 29th April, my wife Fiona gave birth to our beautiful daughter, Martha Elizabeth Annabel Florey. Both are now home and doing well and we're looking forward to introducing Martha to farming life!