Walk the Farming Year

Come behind the farm gate and experience a whole farming year as it unfolds. Walk the Farming Year is a series of guided walks around our family farm, hosted by Farmer Tom. Rather than visiting a farm just once, you’ll return throughout the seasons and see for yourself how the landscape, crops, wildlife and work of the farm change from autumn through to harvest. Our family has farmed here for 100 years, and in the local area for generations. Today, we’re passionate about regenerative agriculture: producing great food while improving our soils, encouraging wildlife and carefully managing the ecosystems that make a healthy, resilient farm possible. The walks offer a rare opportunity to follow that journey first-hand. Over the course of the farming year, we’ll walk the fields, tracks and margins of the farm, looking at what is happening beneath our feet and all around us. You might see newly established crops emerging in autumn, sheep grazing fields during the winter, soils recovering beneath cover crops, the first signs of spring growth, crops racing towards maturity in early summer and, ultimately, the culmination of the farming year at harvest. We’ll talk about soil, crops, food, machinery, weather, wildlife and the decisions farmers make – including the successes, failures and experiments that are inevitably part of farming. You’ll learn about our approach to regenerative farming: why we have moved towards reduced cultivation and no-till, how livestock can form part of an arable farming system, the role of cover crops and diverse rotations, and how we try to reduce our reliance on artificial inputs while maintaining productive farmland. But these aren't lectures. They are relaxed, informal walks with plenty of conversation and opportunities to ask questions. If we find something interesting, we stop. If there's something unexpected happening on the farm, we'll investigate it. See the farm change through the seasons One of the joys of Walk the Farming Year is returning to the same landscape at different points in the year. A field that appears bare or insignificant on one visit may be transformed by the next. You'll see crops establish, survive winter, burst into spring growth, flower, ripen and eventually disappear beneath the combine. Alongside them, we'll follow the wildlife that shares the farm. Depending on the season and a little luck, we may encounter hares, deer, foxes, owls and farmland birds, as well as the insects, plants and less conspicuous wildlife upon which the wider ecosystem depends. We'll explore how food production and nature conservation can work together – and some of the compromises and difficult decisions involved in trying to achieve both. A real working farm This isn't a polished visitor attraction or a demonstration farm created for tourists. It's our real, working family farm. That means every visit is different. Weather changes our plans. Crops sometimes thrive and sometimes struggle. Machinery breaks. Wildlife appears where it chooses. Markets and government policy influence decisions. Farming rarely follows the textbook. That's precisely the point. By joining us throughout the year, you'll begin to understand not simply what farmers do, but why we do it – and how extraordinarily interconnected soil, weather, plants, animals, wildlife, economics and people really are. Eight walks. One farming year. The full experience comprises eight walks, beginning in mid-autumn and continuing through winter, spring and early summer towards harvest. Most walks take place from approximately 8–10am, with seasonal variations where there is something particularly worth experiencing – including an earlier dawn-chorus walk when the farm's birdlife takes centre stage. And after following the crops throughout their journey, there may be no better finale than seeing how the story ends: participants can also be invited back during harvest for the opportunity to see the combine at work when conditions allow. Walk the Farming Year is for anyone curious about where food comes from, how modern farming really works, regenerative agriculture, nature, wildlife or the changing British countryside. You don't need any farming knowledge – just curiosity, suitable outdoor clothing and footwear, and a willingness to get a little muddy. Come once and you'll see a farm. Come throughout the year and you'll begin to understand one.