Twenty-eight quarter acres. Pick one.

A1 · Spring barley

The top corner of the block, drilled first and ripe first. Malting barley if the grain nitrogen comes in under 1.85 per cent, feed barley if it does not, and nobody knows which until it is tested.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-March

Harvest window

Late July into August

You receive

48 bottles of Hawkstone lager

£180paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

A3 · Spring barley

Hard against the track, so it takes the dust off every trailer that leaves in August and the compaction from every one that turns. Five pounds off, honestly earned.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-March

Harvest window

Late July into August

You receive

48 bottles of Hawkstone lager

£175paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

A4 · Spring barley

Sitting over an old headland that was compacted long before any of us got here. It runs about eight per cent under the rest of the block and the price says so.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-March

Harvest window

Late July into August

You receive

44 bottles of Hawkstone lager

£170paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

A5 · Winter barley

Winter barley, which nobody photographs and everybody needs: it comes off in mid-July and gives the rape somewhere to be drilled in August.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Late September

Harvest window

Mid-July — the first combine of the year

You receive

44 bottles of Hawkstone lager

£165paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

A6 · Winter barley

The same crop, the same fortnight, one field boundary further west. If you want to watch a combine before anybody else on this platform does, this is the patch.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Late September

Harvest window

Mid-July — the first combine of the year

You receive

44 bottles of Hawkstone lager

£165paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

A7 · Spring barley

The bottom of the block, where the brash gives way to something with a bit of body in it and the ears fill for about two days longer. The best barley patch here.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-March

Harvest window

Late July into August

You receive

52 bottles of Hawkstone lager

£185paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

B1 · Winter wheat

Drilled a fortnight later than the textbook says, because every day of delay in October is one fewer blackgrass plant in May. It costs yield. It costs less than the blackgrass does.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-October, deliberately late

Harvest window

Late August

You receive

25kg of flour, milled and sent in three lots

£220paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

B2 · Winter wheat

Mid-slope on the best ground this farm has, which is the only place here where the agronomy plan and the harvest ticket ever agree with one another.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-October, deliberately late

Harvest window

Late August

You receive

25kg of flour, milled and sent in three lots

£220paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

B3 · Winter wheat

The shaded end, under the ash line, which loses about an hour of sun a day in June and fills the grain accordingly.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-October, deliberately late

Harvest window

Late August

You receive

25kg of flour, milled and sent in three lots

£215paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

B4 · Durum wheat

The crop that failed hardest in 2025 — under two tonnes a hectare against an expected six. It is here because it makes pasta and because we would rather show you the risky one than hide it.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Late March

Harvest window

Late August, if at all

You receive

10kg of pasta, made from your own durum

£240paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

B5 · Durum wheat

Durum needs a dry, hot ripening period and a British summer is a coin toss. The shared-risk substitution on this patch is not a formality — read it before you take it.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Late March

Harvest window

Late August, if at all

You receive

10kg of pasta, made from your own durum

£240paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

B6 · Winter oats

Oats ask for less nitrogen, less fungicide and less argument than wheat, and are the crop most likely to be here in ten years. Also the cheapest breakfast on this page.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Early October

Harvest window

Early August

You receive

8kg of rolled oats and a box of oatcakes

£150paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

B7 · Winter wheat

The very top of the hill, where the soil thins to brash again and the yield map goes pale every year in exactly the same shape.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-October, deliberately late

Harvest window

Late August

You receive

25kg of flour, milled and sent in three lots

£210paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

C1 · Potatoes

The crop that started the shop. Forty tonnes of accidental potatoes needed a buyer in 2020 and a shed got a till. This is an eighth of an acre of the same idea.

Size

An eighth of an acre

Drilled

Planted in April

Harvest window

Lifted late September into October

You receive

Three 12kg sacks, sent within a week of lifting

£120paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

C2 · Potatoes

Valley ground, which holds water in a dry June and holds too much of it in a wet October. The most reliable thing on this grid and the least glamorous.

Size

An eighth of an acre

Drilled

Planted in April

Harvest window

Lifted late September into October

You receive

Three 12kg sacks, sent within a week of lifting

£120paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

C3 · Oilseed rape

The yellow everybody photographs in May and a genuine gamble every year since the neonicotinoid ban. Cabbage stem flea beetle decides this one, not us.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-August

Harvest window

Late July

You receive

Six 500ml bottles of cold-pressed rapeseed oil

£160paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

C4 · Oilseed rape

Drilled straight behind the winter barley, into moisture if there is any, and written off by the end of September about one year in three.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Mid-August

Harvest window

Late July

You receive

Six 500ml bottles of cold-pressed rapeseed oil

£160paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

C5 · Spring oats

Spring cropping in the corner named after the weed, because a March drilling kills more blackgrass than any chemistry left on the label.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Late March

Harvest window

Early September

You receive

8kg of rolled oats and a box of oatcakes

£150paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

C6 · Spring barley

Heavier ground than the block, so it goes in a fortnight later and comes off a week later. In a dry year it is the best barley here; in a wet spring it is a swamp.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Late March

Harvest window

Early August

You receive

44 bottles of Hawkstone lager

£175paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

C7 · Winter wheat

Where the drainage work went in, and the one place on this farm where a drainage scheme has genuinely paid for itself rather than merely felt productive.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Early October

Harvest window

Late August

You receive

25kg of flour, milled and sent in three lots

£205paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

D1 · Hedgerow

Not a crop. Twenty metres of hedge, laid properly by hand rather than flailed, which is slower, dearer and the reason there are still yellowhammers in it.

Size

Twenty metres of hedge

Drilled

Laid between December and February

Harvest window

Blackberries picked late August

You receive

Four jars of blackberry jam and the year’s photographs

£90paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

D2 · Hedgerow

The stretch along the bridleway, so this is the hedge most people who walk here actually see. Laid in the Midland bullock style, badly, by people learning.

Size

Twenty metres of hedge

Drilled

Laid between December and February

Harvest window

Blackberries picked late August

You receive

Four jars of blackberry jam and the year’s photographs

£90paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

D3 · Hedgerow

Gap-planted in 2024 with hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple, hazel, dogwood and holly. Six species in twenty metres, which is the number the counts actually reward.

Size

Twenty metres of hedge

Drilled

Laid between December and February

Harvest window

Blackberries picked late August

You receive

Four jars of blackberry jam and the year’s photographs

£90paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

D4 · Wildflower margin

Ground taken out of production on purpose. It produces nothing you can eat and is, on the accounts, one of the better-returning parcels on this farm.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Sown in April

Harvest window

No harvest, deliberately

You receive

Two jars of honey from the hives beside it, and the counts

£140paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

D5 · Wildflower margin

The strip beside the hives. You get the honey, the pollinator transect counts and a photograph in the second week of every month, which is the whole product.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Sown in April

Harvest window

No harvest, deliberately

You receive

Two jars of honey from the hives beside it, and the counts

£140paid once, up front, fixed

Taken for this season. The waiting list opens when the next drilling plan is set.

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

D6 · Market garden bed

The only intensive growing that makes any sense on this farm, because value per square metre is the only number that survives the labour it takes.

Size

An eighth of an acre

Drilled

Succession-sown from March

Harvest window

Picked May to October

You receive

A vegetable box a fortnight through the season

£160paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.

D7 · Echium

Fifteen centimetres of stony soil over limestone, growing a borage relative for its oil because nothing conventional pays up here. The most experimental patch on the grid.

Size

A quarter of an acre

Drilled

Drilled in April

Harvest window

Harvested in August

You receive

Two 100ml bottles of cold-pressed echium oil

£190paid once, up front, fixed

You are buying a crop forward at a fixed price and receiving produce in kind. No cash return, no profit share, no resale market, and no interest in the land itself.