Is it wrong to be thinking about chocolate when you’re out for a walk? The reason I’m saying this is that last night we visited our trees that were planted a few years ago – if you have followed us for a while then you may remember them; we planted hazel trees, oak trees, holly trees, sweet chestnuts and many more. In fact, we planted a few thousand trees and dug a pond and it’s become rather a wildlife haven too. I heard my first skylark there and I’ve shared a few photos of the trees and pond over the years, and how it has developed. Tonight, however, on our visit I noticed a development, much to my delight! The hazel trees are starting to produce fruit, well cobnuts to be precise. I’ve looked it up and cobnuts are commercial hazelnuts, but ones that are grown to be eaten before they...

In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agroecosystem—an ecological system managed and shaped by humans. This is the dictionary definition and I hope to explain a bit further what they are and how we use them on our farm. We have planted a cover crop in place of our failed oilseed rape crops in some of our fields. Many of you will remember during the lockdown I posted photos of what should have been flourishing crops, but they were sadly droughted off, as were many of our crops during the longest ever drought known in this area. It was too late to plant the same crop again so Chris decided on this specific mixture of cover crop and planted...