Land & nature

Farming with the hedges, not against them.

We grow food on thin chalk, and we look after what lives around it: laying the old hedges, leaving wide flower margins and keeping the soil covered and undisturbed.

26 km

Hedgerow we keep

Acres of wildflower margin

Skylark pairs counted

Years of no-till fields

What we do

Four jobs that never make the harvest figures.

Winter

Hedge-laying

We lay a stretch of old hedge every winter: cut, bent and woven so it thickens from the base and lasts another fifty years.

Winter

Hedge-laying

We lay a stretch of old hedge every winter: cut, bent and woven so it thickens from the base and lasts another fifty years.

Summer

Wildflower margins

Six-metre strips sown with native flowers and grasses round the edge of the fields, cut late so ground-nesting birds can raise a brood.

Summer

Wildflower margins

Six-metre strips sown with native flowers and grasses round the edge of the fields, cut late so ground-nesting birds can raise a brood.

All year

The beetle bank

A raised grass bank across the middle of Long Furlong, home to the beetles and spiders that eat the aphids on our crops.

All year

The beetle bank

A raised grass bank across the middle of Long Furlong, home to the beetles and spiders that eat the aphids on our crops.

Spring

The bird count

Each spring a volunteer walks the same route and counts every bird she hears and sees. This year: forty-one species.

Spring

The bird count

Each spring a volunteer walks the same route and counts every bird she hears and sees. This year: forty-one species.

“We’ll be judged on how many skylarks there are when we hand it on, not on how many tonnes we cut.”

— Will Hale

See it for yourself

Walk the margins with us.

Book a farm walk

Read the diary