August

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.

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.

Our field offers the perfect conditions for wireworm. Undistrurbed 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 biofumingation; 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.