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Every year when we plant garlic it’s an act of faith. Hoping all of us caring for the garlic will make it to harvest time, that wild pigs don’t dig it up, that it rains while it’s growing and stops raining just before harvest time. Growing garlic is an addiction. A good addiction.

Bees. Pollination. Honey. All part of our farm life here. We’re putting more hives out the back of Elmswood in the hope we’ll be able to extract more honey. We took a small amount from the hives before winter and if we’re lucky we’ll extract again before spring assuming the Euc. albens is generous this […]

Oats growing where garlic once was. Morning stroll and CJ is wet from the dew and looking for mice I assume. In a few weeks we’ll cut this crop and plough back into the soil in preparation for next year’s garlic crop.

Although the drought isn’t over we have planted a small crop! Here’s John and Lynne weeding. Talking about weeding is something I seem to do rather a lot of because garlic is a ‘loner’ type of plant. It enjoys its own company and loathes getting crowded out. Commercial garlic growers spray the whole crop regularly […]

Farming throws up different challenges all the time. It’s probably what we love about the work but – at times it’s too challenging. Here displayed on my boot!  Good healthy roots even in dry times.

Is rain. Not just a little rain, loads of rain. The drought crisis in the Upper Hunter and on Elmswood is so bleak there’s only a a few Shropshire Sheep and 4 cattle. These will probably be sold in January 2020 as the Pages River continues to NOT flow now for nearly two years.

My latest book, Who’s Minding The Farm? In this climate emergency, is available now.

We’re clipping all the smaller garlics, and the tiny bulbs will be boxed up as ‘Petite’- we know some of you prefer these – perfect if you like a small serve often of fresh garlic

Not until we take the garlic curing in the shed and spread the plants out on the garlic tables do we really know how the crop has turned out. Handling each bulb, trimming the roots and stems ( feeding the left overs to the sheep ) gives all of us a true sense of the […]

John, Jon, Betty and Ivy have done a great job – originally planting and now harvesting this year’s small garlic crop. Thanks Team!