The Bottoms.
The valley ground. Heavier, wetter and the one place on this farm where drainage work genuinely pays for itself rather than merely feeling productive.
- Position
- Valley bottom
- Soil
- Heavier, some clay
- Problem
- Waterlogging
What this ground is like.
The valley ground. Heavier, wetter and the one place on this farm where drainage work genuinely pays for itself rather than merely feeling productive.
Cotswold brash varies enormously within a single holding and sometimes within a single headland — sandy loam in one corner, blackgrass-loving clay in the next. That variability is the whole agronomic argument for variable-rate everything.
- Position: Valley bottom
- Soil: Heavier, some clay
- Problem: Waterlogging
- Fix: Drainage, which works
Soil
Heavier, some clay
Position
Valley bottom
Usually
Varies
Verdict
Mixed
This field, in the season it looks best. It does not look like this in February.
The other fields.
Curdle Hill
Part of the original Sarsden estate holding, and the field the whole farm is measured against. Mid-slope, deeper than the…
The Brash Tops
The high ground, where there is fifteen centimetres of stony soil over limestone and nothing to hold water. In a…
Blackgrass Corner
The heavier ground where blackgrass took hold years ago and has never fully let go. Later drilling, spring cropping and…
The Wildflower Ground
Taken out of production on purpose and sown with wildflowers. It produces nothing you can eat and is, on the…
The Barley Block
Roughly five hundred acres across several parcels, and the reason the brewery exists. Enough barley for about one and a…
The Hedged Margins
The strips the combine cannot reach and the hedges that bound them. Blackberries, habitat, scheme income, and Gerald’s life’s work…
Take one for a season.
Fixed price, paid once, produce delivered in kind.
What people actually ask.
The two questions this page gets most, answered without a support ticket.
The farming does not. It made a hundred and forty-four pounds in its first year and has rarely done much better. Everything else on this site exists because of that.
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.
