Never a frown

I had a dream and Gordon Brown was in it. I can’t say ‘Gordon Brown’ without following it in my head with ‘texture like sun’*)

I think he might have appeared unannounced as I’m chewing over a couple of major (major for here anyway) additions to the farm, as I do every year around this time. Last year I didn’t add anything in considerable numbers, just ones and twos here, threes and fours there. The bank was very grateful. The year before was the vineyard, and that one hurt.

Planting a vineyard, even a small one, is a pricey business. And the planting is just the start of it. There’s the framework on which the vines grow, the mulch mat that it’s a good idea to plant through, the canes, the rabbit guards, the ties. You get about one-cup-of-teas-worth of a sitdown after it’s all done to admire your fine creation: then the works starts. Mowing, strimming, pulling out the secondary growths, spraying (if you do), pruning, tying in the growing arms. Then, after doing this for two years, you’ll get a harvest – a harvest that’s half the yield it will become in subsequent years. All this costs a fair bit of cash – apart from the set up costs, there’s the tractor, the mower that attaches to it, the sprayer, the strimmer, plus all of that labour. But now, you hope, with the grapes peeking out from the foliage there’ll be some going back into that depleted pot. How wrong: this, for many, is where the trouble really starts starts.

If you’ve planted an acre of fairly lively, vigorous vines, Seyval blanc say, from which you want to make a sparkling wine you may, in a reasonable year, be rewarded with enough grapes (it’s a half-harvest don’t forget) to make 2500 bottles. Sounds nice doesn’t it. So you send your lovely grapes to your chosen winery for them to make, bottle, label and cork your 5000 bottles of wine. They’ll charge somewhere in the region of £4-5 a bottle to do that, so you’ll have to stump up £10000-12500. Still, who cares when you can sell good English sparkling direct for a minimum of £15 a bottle? You do, because even if you had an immediate market to sell it to, you have to wait. Another 18 months at least, while the sparkling wine completes it’s fermentation and matures in the bottle. By which time you’ll have had at least one more cycle of mowing, strimming, pulling out the secondary growths, spraying (if you do), pruning, tying in the growing arms and picking. And, more importantly, £20000-25000 you’ll have had to find (it’s a bigger harvest this year don’t forget) to get it made into sparkling. You are now fairly well in the red…and all for a single acre of vineyard.

So the vineyard, marvellous as it is, has brought with it a certain sharpening when it comes to my economic view of Otter Farm. It’s why it’s hard to take anyone seriously when they suggest that what I’m up to in this 17 acres of smallholding is hobby farming: I may have some stupid ideas, I may have some good ones, some may have failed already, it may be entirely enjoyable and far better than a real job, I may not know too much about some of the things I’m trying to do, it may take all the time I can throw at it, but a hobby it ain’t.

I occasionally wonder if part of the reason I planted the vineyard wasn’t just to make absolutely certain that whether Otter Farm worked or not mattered very seriously when it came to the economics. Perhaps I didn’t want it to be able to be able to slide into hobbyville. I don’t know. So, I am feeling a little more serious about making sure that anything I add to Otter Farm pays its way.

Sweet chestnuts are up towards the top of the ‘possibles’ list and they may well make an appearance over the winter. They may not conjure up images of the Meditteranean as the apricots and olives might, but fit the ‘climate change farm’ they certainly do. At the launch of Climate Friendly Food last week, Rob Hopkins (who started the Transition movement ) began his talk with a blank graph, blank apart from a sharp, high wave half way along the x axis. The graph showed the time from 0 to 4000AD, and the brief up-and-down in the centre that he felt would become known as The Petroleum Interval: the extremely short period in our evolution when we partied out on the delights of fossil fuels. If you have the chance, catch one of his talks – not only is he (what my auntie would call) ‘right bright’, he makes the weight and tedium of climate change and peak oil rather amusing…actually that’s pushing it a bit, at least sprinkled with light hearted moments.

We developed a 5 minute theory at the last Soil Association Conference that there was a correlation between the liveliness of the environmental movement and the quality of David Bowie albums, and there was something to do with Public Image Ltd in there too, acting as a kind of pi, but I’m getting old and forgetful, and (perhaps mercifully) the details have left my sorry brain. Still, PiL are reforming to play their stupendous Metal Box album which must mean something but whether it’s armageddon or nirvana I’m not quite sure.

Where was I…chestnuts, sweet chestnuts. Apart from being utterly delicious cooked and eaten in endless ways, you can make a particularly wonderful flour from them too. Sweet chestnuts are extremely rich in carbohydrates and being a perennial plant their established root system means they have the wherewithall to produce year after year without much help at all. Wheat is an annual, and typically takes huge energy and chemical inputs to get it up and growing heathily to harvest. It’s one of our major sources of carbohydrates, and if you accept that the energy sources for growing most of it are going to become scarcer and more expensive, it’s not a huge leap to suppose that so will wheat, and the flour we make from it, and the breads, pastas and whatever else we make from it in turn. So there might just be a gap in the market for a low input, flour-producing high carbohydrate food like sweet chestnuts.

Time to call in Mr Brown..
GB: So Mark, when they’re up and producing sensibly [RANDOM SMILE] in 6 years or so time, what sort of yield can you expect?
MD: About 25 kg a tree Gordon.
GB: And how much [RANDOM SMILE] can you get for a kilo of sweet chestnuts today?
MD: Non-organic, to a middle man like Riverford, £3 a kilo. Organic (as I am) and selling direct (as I hope to), considerably more, and obviously with the increase in global warming, the volatility of the wheat markets I expect…
GB: Shhh now. The principles of fiscal proberty [RANDOM SMILE] necessitate that I disqualify the last parts of your statement: £3/kilo it is
MD: But I’ve been in the papers and I’ve got a book coming out and everything and I..
GB: Shut it. Now, how many trees [RANDOM SMILE] are you thinking of?
MD: 50. Or a hundred. I can’t decide
GB: So 50 trees x 25 kilos x£3 = £3750 each year in sweet chestnut income [RANDOM SMILE]. Not bad, but hardly earth shattering is it?
MD: But they won’t take any work, not even pruning, and anyway it’s all part of an integrated agroforestry plan, where I grow and/or graze underneath, harvesting from multiple layers from the same space..
GB: A plan is it? [RANDOM SMILE] So why [RANDOM SMILE] can’t you decide whether to plant 50 or 100, or 76 or whatever?
MD: Cos Im not sure how many will look nice in the far field..
GB: Not really grasping this idea of a business plan are you [RANDOM SMILE]

* see also
Zidane, (you’re rocking the boat)

Zat Knight, (it’s a long way from home)

Ramadan, (Ding Dong)

  • Eek those wine calculations are scary, hope you've got a good relationship with your bank manager….. What about organic grape juice instead…. just a thought!!

  • Wonderful post. Am about to plant a sweet chestnut in my garden – would appreciate your view on suppliers/varieties? are you getting yours from Martin Crawford?

  • Aha – you'll need two varieties for a decent crop, and there are some lovely varieties around…I'll email you about where you live etc as that might affect the best of the best but Marigoule and Bouche de Betizac take some beating, as does Martin asas a supplier

  • More chestnuts also might lead to the resurgence of flat capped, mufflered, rosy cheeked, chirpy chestnut sellers on every street corner.Their catchphrase was…
    "Blimey guvnor. Parky tonight innit? What you need squire is a twist of hot nuts. Only a tanner."

  • Plus, by then, the cost of a McDonald's will be exorbitant – what with that wheat flour bun and all – and a tanner will seem like nothing. Hot chestnuts will become the street food of choice again. We'll clean up!

  • Actually, I think you'll find you can't just sell them directly – the Chestnut Sellers Union are a closed shop and don't be fooled by their rosy cheeks – they're a viscious lot if you try to muscle in on their 'twist' market.

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