Seven fields, twenty-eight patches, one rotation.
A patch is not a random rectangle. It sits in a named field with a soil type, a history and a set of problems, and which field yours is in tells you more about what will happen to it than the crop does.
Where the patches are.
Schematic, and deliberately so. A survey-accurate boundary would imply a demised parcel, which is precisely what a patch is not.
- The Barley Block North and west, ~500 acres across several parcels Patches A1–A7. Spring and winter barley, and the reason the brewery exists. Barley
- Curdle Hill Mid-slope, the original holding Patches B1–B7. Winter wheat, durum and oats on the best ground here. Wheat
- The Bottoms Valley ground, heavier and wetter Patches C1, C2, C6, C7. Potatoes, spring barley and the drained wheat ground. Roots
- Blackgrass Corner East, heavier, and named for the obvious reason Patches C3, C4, C5. Oilseed rape and spring oats, because spring cropping kills blackgrass. Problem ground
- The Hedged Margins The boundaries, everywhere Patches D1–D3. Twenty-metre hedgerow stretches along the bridleway and the track. Hedge
- The Wildflower Ground Beside the hives, out of production Patches D4 and D5. A quarter acre each, producing nothing you can eat. Unfarmed
- The Market Garden Plot By the yard, small and intensive Patch D6. An eighth of an acre, succession-sown, picked May to October. Veg
- The Brash Tops 220 to 230 metres, fifteen centimetres of soil Patch D7, and the four acres the members vote on. The worst ground on the farm. Thin
Every field on this plan has its own page in The Farm, with the soil, the history and the honest verdict on it.
What each field does to a crop.
| Field | Soil | The problem | What that means for your patch |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Barley Block | Brash over limestone | Drought in a dry May | Yields swing by a third between years. Priced for the average |
| Curdle Hill | Deeper brash, some loam | Blackgrass, managed by drilling late | The most reliable ground here, and priced accordingly |
| The Bottoms | Heavier, some clay | Waterlogging, fixed by drainage | Late in, late off, and excellent in a dry year |
| Blackgrass Corner | Heavy | Resistant blackgrass, roughly £155/ha where infested | Spring cropping only, which limits what can go there |
| The Hedged Margins | Whatever the boundary is | Nothing. That is rather the point | Fifteen-year laying cycle, annual species count |
| The Wildflower Ground | Poor, which suits it | None, deliberately | No harvest. Honey, counts and photographs |
| The Market Garden Plot | Improved, worked hard | Labour | Highest value per square metre on the farm |
| The Brash Tops | 15cm over limestone | Everything | The experimental ground. Echium, and whatever wins the vote |
Why a quarter acre is farmed as part of forty.
Nobody drills a quarter acre. A modern drill is between four and eight metres wide, a sprayer is twenty-four, and a combine header is over ten. The economics of arable farming are entirely built on covering ground quickly.
So your patch is drilled in the same pass as everything around it, sprayed in the same pass, and cut in the same pass. What makes it yours is the record, the notifications and the allocation — not a separate agricultural operation, which would be farmed considerably worse and cost about eight times as much.
This is also, incidentally, the legal position. The land is managed as a whole, by the farm, with no day-to-day control on your part. Which is exactly why the return has to be goods rather than money.
The fields, questioned.
Three questions about the ground itself.
Curdle Hill if you want reliability, the Barley Block if you want beer, the Brash Tops if you want to watch something fail interestingly. The prices already tell you which is which.
The crop in it does, because the rotation moves. The field does not, and your first refusal at renewal is on the same ground rather than the same crop.
Because a survey-accurate boundary drawn around your patch would imply a demised parcel of land, and that is the one thing a patch must never be.
Pick a field, then a patch.
Twenty-eight of them, across seven fields.
