Julian Ellis is aiming to bring peas to the world

Growing six acres of peas has been a learning curve. They have suffered from various ailments, some of which I have never heard of including – a leaf-eating midge. However, I am pleased to report the two rows in my vegetable patch have been trouble free.



The spring barley is generally looking well, other than 11 acres that are suffering from Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus, something which we have never had too much of a problem with in the past. Our agronomist suggested it is possibly due to the plant being under stress from the dry weather. I don’t doubt that he is right, but wonder whether it could be anything to do with the fact that these two fields were not drilled on a good moon day.


This month we have hosted some farm walks, which urged me to tidy up some scrap metal. The couple of hours spent loading it was definitely time well spent, given the current scrap price.


Ironically, the next day I found myself looking for a piece of metal to mend something and recalled throwing away a piece just the right size and shape.


We are wondering whether we should invest some of our scrap money in steel toecaps for everybody as I recently drove over father’s foot. Fortunately the tractor was not our biggest one. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the cow that stepped on my foot two days later.

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