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As part of our longterm personal project to further increase biodiversity at Swangleys, we have been working this year to qualify to enter Natural England’s Mid Tier Countryside Stewardship scheme.  We have now been confirmed as successful and will start to put into place the first elements of an agreed programme. 

So, over the next few months you might notice hedge and tree planting on the farm along with its associated protective fencing, preparation of wild flower seed beds and a number of other initiatives.  As part of this, we will be planting or in-filling more than a kilometre of native species hedging.  This work forms part of a longer term aim to take an active role in the UK’s forthcoming Environmental Land Management Scheme, once its details are released by Defra.  

On a related theme, Knebworth’s resident ecologist and photographer, Matt Livesey, has been documenting wildlife on the farm since 2018 and in the wider area for far longer. Matt’s latest shot on the farm is these native grey partridges, photographed last month at Swangleys.  You can see more of Matt’s work, and order prints, at https://www.mattliveseyphotography.com/ 

 

At the end of last week, we finally had the chance to bring in our hay from the few grassland acres within the wider Swangleys Farm holding ………… much to the delight of the red kites that took up position hovering over the fields throughout the three days.  It was great to see the land busy with activity again  – with three tractors working the same area at one point in order to get the job done in time. 

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Hay harvest, this year at least, has been a mini warm-up to the main arable grain harvest which – subject to weather – we hope to begin in the next very few days.  That means the inevitable sudden increase in farm vehicle movements both on the land and in the area around the farm, plus dust and noise while we race to get the crops in, so do please bear with us at this important moment in our agricultural year.

May is a peak month for bee swarming – and in the warm days earlier this month they seemed to be swarming more than usual.

Swarming – where a swirling cloud of bees and a queen leave the hive to find a new home elsewhere –  is a natural event for bee colonies, but is something beekeepers work to avoid.  The answer is to manage the colony and its environment so that it is attractive for the bees to stay.  Ultimately, bees are their own bosses in all things and will make the choice themselves.

In our case, other beekeepers have kept hives at Swangleys and its related farm land for decades, but we are now in our third year of keeping our own bees as well. We still have a lot to learn. Our own hives are not intended to produce a crop of honey on anything approaching a commercial scale, but instead these bee colonies have an active part to play in improving the vitality of our neighbouring wildflower meadow which forms an important element of our wider ecological initiatives.  In addition, the simple act of keeping bees helps maintain their numbers and their essential role in the wider countryside and domestic gardens.  Despite the surprising amount of time involved in working to maintain the colonies – and the occasional sting or two – this is something we’re personally keen to support.

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Last weekend –  at the very height of Storm Dennis –  in 50mph wind and driven rain , we somehow managed to complete the planting of 1,000 hedge plants on the farm. 

This is the continuation of a long term personal project of ours to re-instate hedgerows across many parts of the farm.  It’s in most part an ecological initiative, but also partly intended to restore some of the farmland to a more traditional appearance that was lost during the last century. All the plants are native British species that are already present in our existing hedgerows. More hedge planting will follow next winter and a later phase of this project will feature re-establishing some additional woodland areas on the farm.

We wanted to thank some of the friends who have helped with other recent hedgerow planting sessions. Thankyou to Max, Christian and Joe for their hard work in difficult weather and mud before Christmas.  Special thanks to Bob and Robert – both local – for putting in the hours with us this weekend despite everything that the extreme weather could throw at us.  We also really appreciated the various local dog walkers who stopped to say hello and offer their best wishes.

Thankyou to everyone who has reported to us or the council the substantial flytip that has appeared in recent weeks next to a small copse on the east side of Swangleys Lane, half way between Datchworth and Knebworth. 

This waste has all been illegally dumped by a commercial operator and we are aware of its contents – spread over 50 dustbin bags and other larger items.  We spotted this problem immediately and have been working from the outset with Herts Police and our local North Herts Environmental Crimes Officers.  This rubbish extends from the road edge backwards into our field and therefore NHDC will not collect it, whilst for us it would constitute commercial waste that needs a waste-carriers licence and considerable fee to remove.  We are working with the Environmental Crimes officers who have been very helpful,  have this logged as a crime and with their input we are trying to find a resolution.  I know that one of our farm neighbours posted this incident to the We Are From Knebworth Facebook group – thankyou for that and for the many responses (more than 40 in 24hours).  Do please feel free to share your thoughts on Facebook and with the local Parish Councils and NHDC, as it can only help.

In the last two weeks – while dealing with this incident – a further flytipping of domestic and redecorating waste appeared overnight in our field gateway around 200m away. We traced that back to a specific Knebworth resident and have successfully taken action against them. I still find it shocking that there are people who are prepared to either dump their waste in a field outside their own village (which we have experienced numerous times) or give it up to an unlicensed carrier in the knowledge that they are likely to do the same.  Flytipping has been illegal for many years, but passing waste to unlicensed carriers is also now illegal and prosecutions are regularly made. 

These incidents are an extra drain on the farm as a business. Swangleys is just a small family-run farm operating in difficult economic circumstances and with a real need to diversify our business if we are to stay viable.  Yet, despite these challenges, we put a lot of effort into being good neighbours :  For the community’s longer term benefit, we are working closely with the Knebworth Neighbourhood Plan team and the NHDC Planning Policy unit on how the village can achieve some of its own local priorities after the introduction of NHDC’s upcoming but understandably controversial Local Plan development process.  And in the shorter term, we choose to run and pay for ourselves a wide range of ecology initiatives; we always collect litter dropped on our own land by local people and periodically also undertake a full litterpick of the council’s roadside verges on our own initiative…… as you’ll see elsewhere in our News section.  It is upsetting for everyone in the community when flytippers move in – all the more so if they are members of that local community – and this is only one type of antisocial activity that the farm suffers on a regular basis .  One of those recurring activities is trespassing, which we know from experience brings with it unwanted conflict, public liability risks, littering and vandalism.  We really do appreciate your help in spotting and highlighting these problems and we welcome your positive support and understanding in our ongoing efforts to put the business on a firmer footing through its various longer term diversification projects.

As always, please feel free to use the Contact form if you need to alert us to anything or want to generally get in touch. This blog post has been shared with the Knebworth, Woolmer Green and Datchworth parish councils.

Thanks