We are coming up to the time when we will seriously begin to sell our finished cattle. I have been taken aback at the reduction in prices at this time of year.

At this stage, I haven’t talked seriously to our regular factory customer but it strikes me that if we are to continue producing beef that we will need to have some kind of contract or guaranteed price.

The cattle themselves seem to have done as well as can be expected but it’s very clear that we are subsidising their time in the shed from their performance at grass. This doesn’t make sense for anyone.

As usual, we used one of the biological additives to hopefully convert the ammoniacal nitrogen to nitrate

The recent spell of dry weather has at last allowed us to get slurry out on the grassland. As usual, we used one of the biological additives to hopefully convert the ammoniacal nitrogen to nitrate which as I have said before both reduces the smell and hopefully is better for earthworms and the soil.

Out on the land, we had a look at the possibility of ploughing for the beans but the land is still too sticky and, in my view, we would do more harm than good. We have ordered the bean seed but there is, I reckon, at least six weeks before we begin to get anxious about sowing.

One thing we got done was to tidy up a wet corner of a field intended for the beans

From talking to growers it seems clear that one of my problems with my disastrous weed-infested beans crop last year was that the seeding rate was too low, coupled with the prolonged drought. I hope for improvements on all fronts this year.

One thing we got done was to tidy up a wet corner of a field intended for the beans. As part of an old, well-run estate, the farm has an intensive network of old drains dating from as far as we can make out, the late 1700s. The problem is that some of the old tiles get dislodged or broken and so the water flow through is stopped and it is forced up through the earth.

This is exactly what seems to have happened with the wet corner. Whether by luck or more likely by skill, we found the broken tile, tapped the flow of water with a new plastic drainage pipe and using plenty of gravel, dug a narrow trench well below plough depth to the ditch and filled the trough with gravel pretty well up to the surface.

I suspect we will have to repeat the exercise elsewhere.