Pick a crate of lager, shandy or cider and we will knock 50% off a box of crisps. Take the crate
The experimental one

Echium.

An unusual crop grown for its oil, and one of several attempts here to find something with a better margin than commodity cereals.

Grown for
Speciality oil
Status
Experimental
The detail

What actually happens with it.

An unusual crop grown for its oil, and one of several attempts here to find something with a better margin than commodity cereals.

Most of these experiments do not work. That is the nature of an experiment, and documenting the failures is more useful than only reporting the successes.

  • Grown for: Speciality oil
  • Status: Experimental
The year

Drilled

Autumn or spring, depending on the year.

Grown

On Cotswold brash over limestone.

Harvested

Weather permitting, which is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Sold

As something worth more than the raw crop.

What it looks like

The field this comes out of, in the season it looks best. It does not look like this in February.

Watch it grow.

The field cameras run all year, including the eleven months when nothing happens.

Wondering

What people actually ask.

The two questions this page gets most, answered without a support ticket.

Because the worst ground costs more to crop than it returns, and because hedgerow, scrub and margin do measurable work that a combine never will.

The seasonal state at the top of every page is the short answer, and the farming year is the long one.

The estate list

First sight of every drop

The things that sell out do it in minutes. This is the only warning anyone gets.

Next along the route

The whole rotation

Carry on
Basket Book the pub Plot a field Join the list Bother us

Snooping, briefly.

We use a small number of cookies to keep your basket upright and to work out which pages people actually read. We do not sell anything about you to anyone, because that would be a rotten way to behave.

Read the detail