February 2021 at Stourton

Landscaping Projects

Spring is in the air and it’s time to get back out into the garden and ready for the warmer months ahead. We have a range of landscaping products that can help you to prepare your garden for the summer.

woodchipOur garden bark chippings are a simple, cost effective and versatile product. Made using a fuel-wood grade chipper which produces a high quality, consistent chip our chippings are ideal for creating paths in your garden, adding to your beds or creating a chicken run base.

A 0.7m3 bag of bark chippings costs just £60 and delivery is free up to 20 miles from our farm LN9 5PB.

We also have small bags of kiln dried wood chip.  The bags weigh 15kg (or 75 litres) and are heat sealed so they are easy to store outside and to handle. The chip in the bas is made from  pure pine which is graded to 10-30mm in size.  The kiln drying and grading process not only removes much of the water content but they also contain no dust, fungal spore or additives. They are ideal for landscaping and play surface use (conforming to BSEN 1177) or for chicken run bases or bedding.

They can be delivered within 20 miles from the farm at Baumber in a minimum quantity of 10 bags (£7 per bag).

For our full landscaping products range please click here.

Venison News

We have some very exciting news to share with you which we hoped would be ready for this blog post but unfortunately we shall have to keep you on tenter hooks until next month!

How to cook THE perfect venison steak!

As a family we have really enjoyed cooking at home together.  We have also been taking advantage of Lucy’s photographic and technical skills whilst she’s not busy with her school work and have created a video for how to cook the perfect venison steak.  If you missed it, here it is!

Here is our secret for the ultimate high quality fast food!

  1. Oil and season the steaks
  2. Heat up a frying or griddle pan
  3. Add the steaks to the pan and fry for just 2 minutes on each side, they are so lean that they don’t need long!
  4. Allow to rest before serving
  5. Enjoy, served with a salad and chips or in a bread bun with loads of salad and some mustard or caramelised onions, or both!

We have also made a video of how we label up and package our venison ready for delivery.  Please click here to watch.

Our fresh venison boxes, great value selection packs and frozen individual cuts are available to order online as usual with free delivery within 20 miles of the farm.

We are also planning to launch a special edition box for local delivery just before Easter so do keep in touch with us on social media to find out more about this!

If you have any questions about our venison or delivery please don’t hesitate to contact us.

On the Farm

As we go to press we still have some sugar beet firmly in the ground. Thankfully the processing factory in Newark is due to stay open until the middle of March now. All being well, we will get ours lifted next week and delivered before it closes!

With the recent improvement in the weather the land has now finally started to dry, it has seemed like a very long wet winter, spring can’t now come soon enough. We will start our spring programme of works with a bit of ploughing both pre and post sugar beet crops before moving on to drilling our spring barley crops. On the subject of spring barley, we have mentioned before in our blog that the majority of ours is sold for malting to Molson Coors in Burton-on-Trent. We need you all to go and buy as much Doom Bar, Carling, Coors Light, Staropramen and other Molson Coors brands as you can! Due to the various Covid lockdowns during the past 12 months the brewing trade has been hit particularly hard (Molson Coors wrote off £25 million in keg beer). The knock on effect to our barley market has been staggering.

As our winter wheat and bean crops come through winter we have recently been assessing their initial fertiliser requirements. The wheat will be receiving a dressing of Nitrogen and Sulphur when ground conditions allow us to travel. All crops will have phosphate and potash applied during the coming spring.

Beans are a legume, and as such they ‘fix’ their own nitrogen requirements. Interestingly it isn’t the plant itself that is able to fix atmospheric nitrogen but the symbiotic relationship between the plant and nitrogen-fixing bacteria known as rhizobia. Read more about nitrogen-fixing here.

When crop-walking earlier in the week, I was delighted to see and hear how many skylarks we have on farm. They really are a wonderful little bird, their song flights are one of life’s small pleasures while out and about. One thing is for sure there is no ‘silent spring’ evident here at Stourton. In other recent good new, Michael Harrison reliably informs me that he saw a flock of Corn bunting on one of our overwintered stubbles. Hopefully this is a good sign that the work we are doing to improve the farmed environment and provide habitat and food sources for small farmland birds is having a positive effect.

Deer Diary

Following a very nippy and snowy February we have been getting ready for spring with lots of our ‘end of winter’ jobs for the deer.  As well as conducting routine worming treatments we have also been busy treating the hinds with a copper supplement.  Copper is very important to livestock health especially those who are predominantly pasture fed. It is critical in the formation of collagen, keeping bones strong. It is involved in the formation of red and white blood cells so supplementation aids in ensuring effective blood clotting, nerve function and oxygenation as well as supporting the immune system. Copper deficiency can also lead to a weak and wobbly gait associated with swayback.

Last year’s young calves are also being weaned and are in the barn until the weather gets consistently warmer. We will try to get a video to share with you when we let them out!

Estate News

After what has felt like an incredibly long year we are hoping (our fingers are so tightly crossed) that we shall soon be able to open up and welcome visitors back! We are still very much in the planning stages with one eye on whether timings may or may not slip.  As soon as we have any firm plans and dates we will ensure that you will be the first to know!

We look forward to seeing you soon

 

Antony and Helen

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