Farm Diary by Gwyn Jones

FLAMING June? You must be kidding. At least we have escaped the worst of the weather; which has been allocated further north, where torrential rain has caused havoc in many areas, and focused once again on the Environmental Agency, and their inability to control flood waters, and minimise the chaos.

This is of course the European monsoon season, with rain arriving on the back of westerly winds, rolling in from the Atlantic. As if we wish to ignore the fact, we host Wimbledon (well equipped with tarpaulin sheets and an army of fit people to roll them on and off), and Glastonbury Pop Festival (where trench-foot can occur).

On the farm, we are pleased to see the rain, but we have had enough now, and it could have stayed a little warmer (let's just talk about perfection).

The second cut grass has now had another boost which will make sure of a good tonnage; the maize has certainly had enough and needs warmer weather, although it is now growing very strongly indeed. The majority of the cows who are given the choice are choosing to stay indoors, mainly due to temperature rather than the rain itself, and we have opened the silage clamp this weekend, which looks very good.

We will analyse it next week, just to see how good a job we did make of our first cut four weeks ago.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette June 20