Our Flower Farm in Cornwall

Our Flower Farm in Cornwall

This is the month we finally received the good news from the Planning Office at Cornwall Council that we have consent to set foot on the land and start our farm.

Views near Trelowen from Cheesewring

Our view here is from Cheesewring Farm, where we have enjoyed the hospitality of John and his family, camping just above the Netherton Farm barefield site, near Upton Cross, Liskeard.

The views from up at Cheesewring really show the beauty and ruggedness of the South East Cornish landscape we are to become part of.

Trelowen

Our field is 5.5 acres. It is south-east sloping land, currently agriculturally improved pasture. In the past it has been grazed by an organic suckler herd, and more recently topped for silage.

Trelowen barefield site

 

Trelowen site with views back to Cheesewring

Our field offers the perfect conditions for wireworm. Undisturbed sloping grassland is its perfect habitat. This unwelcome guest tends to wreak havoc on tubers, bulbs, and roots. Spending two to six years in its larval form underground as a shiny orange larvae, before transforming into a 'Click' Beetle. (see below)

Showing it the door will require biofumigation; a technique whereby we will grow a hot mustard cover crop of  'Caliente 199' Mustard—when we come to turn the green manure in, as the plant breaks down it releases compounds to create a form of 'mustard gas' that impedes wireworm and the growth of other soil-borne diseases too.

Wireworms at Trelowen

The mustard will over-winter, growing back stronger in Spring when it will be turned into the soil, crushing all those mustard cells to make mustard gas…we hope. The a truck full of lime to bring up the 5.1pH acidic soil to something more plant-friendly before we start to make beds and plant flowers.

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