Category: Sustainability

Thank you all you lovely lodge and cottage guests who have paid your holiday balance by BACS. It keeps our costs down and means we can donate £5 from every such booking to the Devon Wildlife Trust, whose staff have given us so much advice over the years.

The latest cheque is for £250 and is in the post right now.

But even if you didn’t pay that way, everyone who stays helps our conservation efforts. It’s your holiday that finances managing Wheatland Farm for wildlife. We’ve been here over 10 years now, and there’s been a huge wildlife improvement, with stoats and barn owls seen regularly along with our nearly 200 species of flowering plants.

So thank you everyone for your support!

Since Torridge District Council don’t recycle food plastics (other than bottles) we save yours up and take them to the nearest recycling centre that can handle them – Okehampton for us. So thanks to all you lovely guests for keeping them clean and easy to deal with!

The toddler ride on toy has been given a new lease of life. It’s done many years of faithful service but the old plastic body had seen better days. So it has been reborn in wood, with some taps eyes, a blue smile, and new antennae.

The summery weather means we’ve finally been able to change the blade on the wind turbine that largely powers our eco lodges. We’ve had the new blade sitting ready for ages now, but last time we tried, the ground was still too wet. This week a team winched the new blade into place.

The old blade developed a crack and was replaced under warranty. But it should still make a mighty fine dragonfly bench at the end of the turbine walk…. That’s a project for this summer. Let’s hope the weather holds.

Many thanks to our Polish guests who left Balebarn Lodge this morning to fly home. It was great to see you enjoying the fishing, the bikes and the football. You were lovely recyclers, and we particularly thank you for keeping this lot out of the bin. Everyone over caters on holiday, and it’s not always practical to take the excess with you, but we just hate seeing food, often imported from far off places and grown by under-paid workers, ending up in UK landfill sites.

This lot will be put to better use. Looks like it’s baked beans for lunch for starters…

Watch our ‘slim the bin’ video from our environment page

Bike Week UK 2016 starts today. We hope you’re not feeling this rusty! We’re offering a prize to help you get Devon into cycling, via Love to Ride. It’s a weekend in our Nuthatch Lodge at the beginning of October. Hopefully it’ll still be good weather for biking Devon’s lovely lanes and taking a breather at country pubs. Register with Love to Ride for a chance to win this and other great prizes. You can use their app to record your rides this week and set yourself challenges.

And what will Wheatland Farm be up to this week? We’ll be upping our usual cycling quota:

We’ll be biking Euan to school on the tandem – something we usually do in the summer.
Maggie will be biking for exercise as well – maybe we can blog our 45 min route.
Ian is going to build himself a road bike from old bike bits we’ve got lying around – and take it for a ride.
George will join Maggie on a Sunday cycle… “but you always go so far… I’ll just go up and down the drive…” OK so we’ll have to work on that one. But at least he can bike to judo and back.

What will you do?

Our recent visit by Natural England has produced a good report for Popehouse Moor’s management, saying it’s still in ‘favourable’ condition and that all that scrub bashing and grazing is paying off. Lower Newland Moor, where the turbine is, is also improving with our advisors noting better plant diversity including ragged robin and bog stitchwort. The visit has meant we can apply for a derogation to weed wipe the rushes that are becoming more dominant – but that won’t be until next year. This year we need to graze, then cut the rushes in late September. Next spring, assuming the rushes get away before the grass and the ground isn’t too wet, we can ‘wipe’ the new shoots with a herbicide and leave the grasses and flowers untouched.

If you’re interested in the full report, it’s here

Wheatland Farm is a conservation project in action. Our land management happens all year round, so while there should always be something lovely to look at, sometimes there’s something going on that looks a bit more messy, or even destructive. But it’s happening for a reason. Here’s a bit more about what we’re doing this month and why it helps to manage our Devon farm for wildlife.






What? Establish a new reed bed
Where? in the ‘puddle’ and the wet ditch below Balebarn and in the ‘corner pond’ in the eco lodge field.
Why? Well, ‘establishing’ might be piling it on a bit thick. All we’ve done is move a few phragmites rhizomes from the patch in the edge of the wildlife pond into a scrape we had made below Balebarn Eco Lodge and into the gated wet corner of the lodge field. The scrape below Balebarn is in the ditch system that takes any excess water from the biorock digester that deals with Balebarn’s sewage. And although that water is clean enough to discharge to a ditch, reedbeds are often used to clean water and we’d love to have a bit more wildlife habitat. We didn’t go for a reedbed sewage treatment system initially because they can freeze over in winter, and then – well you’re up the proverbial without a paddle. So this is just a bit extra. And while we’re about it, why not turn the ‘seasonal pond’ in the corner of the lodge field into a reedbed too – it tends to dry out in summer and be a bit of a mess, and the wagtails would love reeds to roost in in winter.






What? Removing blanket weed, some bullrushes (Typha), and Canadian pond weed
Where? From the wildlife pond
Why? The open water is starting to close, becoming overgrown with invasive Canadian pondweed that a relative threw in in a well meaning attempt to oxygenate the water. Enough said about that really. So now we have to pull some of the weed out. We can’t do it all at once as it’s home to lots of lovely invertebrates – dragonfly larvae, newts and tadpoles etc. So little by little. The ‘bullrushes’ also need controlling. They put themselves all around the edge of the pond, moving in as seeds. But we’d rather have phragmites (reeds) so we routinely pull some bullrushes out. It doesn’t seem to slow them down much.






What? Moving ferns
Where? From below the fishing pond to the wet ‘corner pond’ in the eco lodge field.
Why? We’re planning to restore a hidden pond below the fishing pond and it will mean diggers and some mess. So we’re moving some of the plants we want to save.






What? Site visit with Natural England, Tues 10 may.
Where? Through the lodge field, Lower Newland Moor, Popehouse Moor, back up past the widlife pond and to the orchard.
Why? Routine check and advice visit to ensure we are doing the work specified in our agreement and help sort out any problems. The main discussion points were to plan a late cut for the rushes on Lower Newland Moor (September) followed by weed wiping in early spring. The agreement will also be adjusted to say we can graze with ponies as well as cows if needed.






Planned for this month…
Dig out the hidden pond below the fishing pond – it’s still full of tyres from previous farming owners!
We hope the cows will come back for their summer grazing.
Mowing will continue
Bramble bashing below the wildlife pond early in the month – so long as we can still see there are no birds’ nests.
Bramble bashing along the fence line in Lower Newland Moor

Top marketing drivel from Whirlpool!
[Maggie] Recycling day brings an opportunity to read other people’s papers… Sometimes it’s handy to keep up to date with ideas and trends – free training.

This time the Super Brands 2016 supplement from the Guardian’s 5th March edition caught our eye. Any top tips there for building a successful business? There were some pertinent comments from the Global Head of Marketing at Investec about focusing on the culture and behaviour of the organisation and good people ‘who are good at what they do and are fundamentally interesting to be around’.

But dear oh dear. Now I know how and why we are fundamentally different from Whirlpool, who seem to be priding themselves in being at the forefront of planned obsolescence – the idea that you must have some new slightly improved ‘thing’ all the time whether or not the old one is still working.

Yuck!
Bad for the consumers who have to keep working to afford the new shiny thing.
And bad for the planet that has to keep coughing up the raw materials.

Reminds me of Dr. Seuss’s Lorax:

I meant no harm. I most truly did not.
But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got.
I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads.
I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads
of the Thneeds I shipped out. I was shipping them forth
to the South! To the East! To the West! To the North!
I went right on biggering…selling more Thneeds.
And I biggered my money, which everyone needs.

I’d like to think we’re the polar opposite of Whirlpool’s attitude. Wheatland Farm is about long-lasting quality and comfort that doesn’t need constant consumption to maintain its appeal. That’s why we re-use, re-purpose and recycle, not just in ‘not-at-all-brand-new’ Balebarn Ecolodge but in all our Devon accommodation.

We’re busier than we’ve ever been, and our green cone digesters are over filling. What to do? Sure, we can remind people to slim the bin. But there’s still going to be food waste from the eco lodges.

So we’re hoping a new wormery will speed up the break down process. We’ll be decanting some of the semi-digested green cone waste into the new contraption near the bike shed. It’s been made (from the bottom up) out of an old farm tank we had knocking around, a recycled tap (for the worm waste), a good layer of stones, a sheet of plastic with holes in it, some garden compost, a thin scattering of kitchen scraps and, as a starter, 500g of worms from Wiggly Wigglers. On top of that goes a layer of wet tabloid papers (good use for them…) Finally, there’s a lid to keep the rain out but let the air in.

The worms were the expensive bit (over £20). And perhaps we could have got some from the cones. But we wanted to get ahead on the year and certainly ordinary earth worms aren’t much good – you need brandling or tiger worms. You can dig them out of a mature compost heap, buy them from a fishing shop, or order composting worms online.

There are lots of online resources on building wormeries, from tiny ones in a box to farm scale ‘vermiculture’. Here’s what seemed to stand out to us.

Build in a tap or holes at the bottom so you can drain off any ‘liquor’.
Cover the top of the compost with something damp – newspaper, a towel etc.
Put a lid on the whole thing to keep the rain out.
The worms eat the fungi that grow on the decomposing food, rather than getting stuck into a broccoli stalk on its own, so you need conditions that help things rot.
They come up to the top ‘scraps’ layer to feed, but otherwise they like to live a bit deeper in the compost they’re busy making.
Worms like most kitchen scraps, but not too much of any one thing, and particularly not lots of citrus, onions or garlic.
Your worm population could double every 3 months or so, given the right conditions…
…which are damp and dark and not too much over feeding. Get it wrong and they will either die or desert.
Leave air holes, but not vermin holes, and keep it in the shade in summer, adding water occasionally if it starts to look dry.

Wheatland Farm is a conservation project in action. Our land management happens all year round, so while there should always be something lovely to look at, sometimes there’s something going on that looks a bit more messy, or even destructive. But it’s happening for a reason. Here’s a bit more about what we’re doing this month and why it helps to manage our Devon farm for wildlife.

What? Putting up a new owl box

Where? In the eco lodge field, on the south side

Why?

This replaces an older box that rotted away. We hope we’ll get barn owls, but if we don’t maybe a tawny will take up residence next year (it’s a bit late for tawny owls this year – they nest early). Or maybe we’ll just get a family of stock doves! We know barn owls nest of a neighbouring farm, but they need a good year and a rising population to expand to a new nesting site, and sadly those have been few and far between recently. Wet winters are not the best news for barn owls.

What? Pollarding ash trees

Where? The east side of the eco lodge field

Why?

We’re pollarding the other half of the ash trees here to thicken up the canopy and keep it low, to give more light to the larger chestnut trees, to provide managed and sustainable wood fuel, to keep the trees manageable on our small holding, and for aesthetic reasons. We did the first few ash trees a couple of years ago and they are developing well. Most trees will pollard so long as they’re reasonably young. These trees were planted 24 years ago – you can see in the rings. So that’s about the limit. We’re a bit worried about Ash die back, but there’s nothing we can do and it hasn’t happened yet. We’ve got our fingers crossed.  Have you spotted the little chair Ian carved? It’s from one tree we cut right down to the stump (because it was too close to the neighbouring more mature chestnut).

What? Establishing a wormery

Where? Next to the bike shed

Why?

As our eco lodges have got busier, our green cone digesters are finding it difficult to cope with all the food waste. The wormery, once properly established, should help speed up the process and help keep food waste out of the waste collection and landfill.

What? Scything rushes around the wildlife pond

Where? The field below Balebarn eco lodge

Why?

We’re trying to control the rushes here – and it’s an ongoing battle. We are cutting some of those growing along the path that goes around the pond. They are all self seeded and since there’s no grazing here if we did nothing they’d take over and we’d lose the wild flowers on the bank. It’s not the right time of year to cut masses of rushes – there might still be dormice hibernating at the bottom of the clumps, but these few we can check before we cut. And there’s that old saying about omelettes and eggs.

What? Tackling a huge nettle patch

Where? Below the wildlife pond

Why?

This area used to be ablaze with birdsfoot trefoil in August, but it has become overloaded with nettles. So we’ve scythed the dead stalks and we’ve sprayed the nettles. We only use herbicides on nettles, creeping thistles and docks. Actually, nettles are generally the least troublesome of that trio, but here they have run riot. And if we spray now, before other plants emerge, there’ll be a chance of recovering those wildflowers. As our guests will know, there are still plenty of nettles about the place for small tortoise shell butterflies to breed on!

What? Hedgerow work

Where? Between Lower Newland Moor and Balebarn Lodge field

Why?

What was once a hedgerow has become a line of willows that are falling off the bank and establishing an invading frontier of nettles, brambles and new willow. We’ve cut the east side this year. Next year we’ll tackle the west. Larger branches are kept for our biomass boiler.

What? Spot spraying

Where? In front of the eco lodges

Why?

After ten years we’re still fighting the legacy of overgrazing by horses under the previous owners. This field is in long term management to return it to flower-rich grassland. It’s cut in patches on rotation. But in March and April when the nettles and creeping thistles emerge, and before everything else gets going, we spot spray with a herbicide so as to knock back the thugs and let the other plants thrive. Later in the year we pull these plants by hand if we need to.

It’s the last few days before the hedgerow cutting / tree felling season ends (on March 15th). The trouble is, earlier in the winter the ground was too wet. So now we’re in a race to get this year’s work done – or at least get the big cutting done even if the clear up takes a bit longer. One task is to pollard some of the trees at the side of the lodge field. We did some of these a few year back and those are recovering nicely. The idea is to reduce their height and get new growth, but to keep this above the reach of nibbling deer. As you can see, we get some wood fuel out of it too! These were a bit more tricky as they were leaning the wrong way. It’s a pity we didn’t have a video of roping the trees and pulling so they didn’t smash the old shed, but we were too busy pulling the rope and then running out of the way. Timber!

We were looking for a reliable figure on the subsidies fossil fuels get – it’s always useful to have something to balance the complaints about subsidies for green power. So here’s a 2015 global estimate from the IMF – £3.4 trillion a year. That’s greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments, and takes account of all the costs governments have to cover (and which private companies are let off) because we burn fossil fuels, including air pollution and the cost of droughts, floods etc driven by climate change.


The same article, in The Guardian, also had this short video explaining in very simple terms why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

With the UNFCCC climate talks coming up next month, and scientists telling us this week that the world is half way to dangerous climate change (we’ve already had a 1 degree overall temperature rise, and 2 degrees is considered the most we can realistically cope with) it’s time we all started taking personal action and making our voices heard. We’re proud to say our latest stats show we’re still a power station disguised as a holiday destination (we have generated more green energy than we have used). We’ll soon be ditching our last gas bottles (which we use for cooking in the farmhouse) when we move to an induction hob. (Three of our five accommodation units already have these efficient appliances). That will only leave our vehicles, and we’re working hard to keep that down too.

It’s time to tackle the brambles again on Popehouse Moor SSSI. Thanks to Eva and Carmen, our WWOOFers, for lots of hard manual labour that is helping keep the briars in check!