So there’s now an acre of beautifully ploughed and prepared land, ready for grass seed. You can just about make out the far South East corner by way of the little pole with a rag attached to it, centre picture. After much advice I’ve decided to put in a permanent paddock in terms of grass seeds as I don’t fancy resowing that often between fruit trees. A local farmer has sold me a couple of acre bags (yes – seed is sold in acre bags!) of a ryegrass mix. Whilst the paddock at the back of our house has white clover in it as a nitrogen fixer, it was suggested by our neighbour farmer that we may want to sow a clover-free mix else it may take over!

The ryegrass mix will make great hay and be good for grazing by both sheep and chickens, but I plan to add some red clover, which I believe is beneficial to chickens, next spring. I also hear this is not as hardy as the white variety so won’t act like a triffid, taking over everything! We’ll have to resow it every spring but I’d rather that than a field full of white clover.

You might have noticed there are a lot of  ‘I believe’s’ and ‘So I’ve been told’s’ – there’s much to learn, much to unlearn, and probably even more to relearn in the future!

My first lesson today was being introduced to this amazing contraption – a Fiddle Drill. Both farmers helping us along in our venture have giggled (in a manly way of course) when seeing our reaction to them miming playing a fiddle whilst dancing a little jig. Essentially you fill the bag with seed, set the slider to how much seed you want to come out and for every pace forward you make one sweep of the bow. In theory this will broadcast seed about 2 yards left and right, on a calm day, and save more time than if broadcast by hand. Sounds a bit like rubbing your stomach whilst patting your head to me, but it’ll be fun trying! This particular fiddle drill is believe to be around 80 years old and still going strong.

I’m hoping tomorrow will be dry enough later to sow the seed, after which it will need harrowing with a light spike harrow (we’ve been offered one where I have to play the part of the ox) and then rolled to tamp it all down (we have been volunteered help with that part 🙂 ).

As far as how much seed to sow goes, when I asked the question I was told if there are 5 seeds under your hand when you lay your palm face down on the ground, then that’s plenty. It’ll give room for each grass root to spread and become stronger in the future. If the weather stays this warm (around 15 degrees at the moment) then we could get some good growth before Christmas!

We have finally been given an outline of the acre field, which we can access through a narrow 10ft corridor from the back of the house. We’re still waiting for the solicitors to finalise things, but the farmer we’re buying from has been kind enough to allow us to mark it out as best we can and sow grass seed before the winter chills come in.

Our initial thoughts are to divide it into equal quarters – the North East corner will have around 30 half-standard orchard trees, a quite traditional orchard set up in the East Midlands or so I’m led to believe. Under this we can graze chickens or geese, nothing too boisterous that will knock over the more delicate trees and eat the low hanging fruit!

The South East corner will contain around 20 standard orchard trees, forming a traditional orchard. Under this we can graze pretty much anything apart from bullock elephants, the trees will live much longer – outliving us I’m sure – but will be harder to harvest. Because of their longevity they will be fantastic for wildlife – bats, lesser spotted woodpeckers, the various insects that will make their homes, and also provide cover for the smaller mammals the local little owl couple like to eat.

The South West corner will be left to ley. This, along with the standard orchard quarter, will provide enough grass for a couple of dairy sheep in the future. We’ll grow the ley for one harvest of hay before opening it for grazing. This way we’ll have some of our own winter food for the sheep. I’m hoping to get around 20 small bales (2′ x 2′ x 4′) from this, but we’ll see when it happens!

The North West corner will be our food garden as it’s nearest the house. In this we will put aside at least one third for our own vegetables and soft fruit. The rest will be left for possible future use for more fodder crops. We’re talking of possibly sinking a borehole for water, jointly with our neighbour, as being in the Trent Wash you need only dig 2-3ft down to reach surface water! We’re surrounded by working and old disused wells, so figure we’ll have no problem gaining our own off-grid water supply for the odd ocassion we’ll need to irrigate the crops. In reality, we’ve only needed to water our small patch outside the house in September’s dry spell – the rest of the year has been fine.