Seasonal Blog
Farm Education Award shortlist
Nonington Farms is delighted and hugely honoured to have been shortlisted for the LEAF-Bayer Education Awards in the Primary school category. The farm is delighted to have been recognised by the judges for the educational work they do in linking children of all ages to the farmed environment.The Bayer-Leaf Education Awards celebrate those who "... Read More
Farmers Weekly interview
Farmers Weekly were keen to catch up with James last week, as Nonington Farms was probably one of the first farms in the country to start harvesting oil seed rape. To read the article in full click here: https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/harvest/harvest-2019-oilseed-rape-combining-kicks-off-in-kent... Read More
Recipes
At Seedlings we enjoyed learning and picking wild garlic, which is in abundance during the spring, when the leaves start spreading out under the leaf-less canopy on the woodland floor. The leaves are obvious to distinguish due to their garlicy smell, but if you’re uncertain, rub the leaf between your fingers and then smell your fingers.Wild g... Read More
Coppicing in the woods
Our coppicing programme is nearly over for the year. We have coppiced a few hectares of woodland, as we do every year. This means cutting down trees such as hazel and chestnut to the ground. By doing this we allow light to get on to the woodland floor, enabling flowers such as bluebells and garlic to thrive. Cutting down the trees is not killi... Read More
Spring Drilling
Tractor sowing seedsAt the moment we are putting some crops in the ground. They are going in during the Spring, so it's known as spring drilling. These crops include spring wheat, barley and beans. We are also trying out oats for the first time too. Now that the weather is warming up after the winter, the soil temperatures are also rising. So p... Read More
Seedlings Farm Group
Seedlings is where we aim, among other things, to foster a love of being outside from the earliest ages (our newest Seedling was 9 days old!), and develop a feeling of being at one with nature and the great outdoors. Meeting every Monday at the farm, sessions are run from 10am until about 11:30-12. We are always outside, usually in the woods, playi... Read More
Oil Seed rape harvesting
Being one of the first farms to start harvesting oil seed rape, the Farmers Weekly came down to see how yields were and report on our initial progress. You can see the article and video here. The combine harvester is cutting the rape and depositing it through the spout into a waiting trailer, which is pulled by a tractor back to the farm yard.... Read More
Soundscapes
Your browser does not support the audio element.Here we publish sounds from the farm. This recording was taken in April 2018 at dawn. Can you hear the blue tits? They usually start singing in February on Valentine's Day.... Read More
April showers on the lambing field
April started on Easter Sunday this year, for us a fairly typical bright Spring day with the Easter bunny depositing eggs around the churchyard: so far, nothing unusual. But this April has been anything but typical. In the space of a month we have had a season’s worth of rainfall falling in a day, and temperatures peaking for one short week at 24... Read More