Hi and welcome to our Winter Newsletter.
Read on for updates from the last few months and news of our plans for 2023…
We don’t currently have any volunteer dates scheduled but we are intending to hold more Orchard tree planting sessions in February and March. If you’d be interested to join us reply to this email and we can message you directly with the details.
If you’re keen to get your hands in the soil before then there is a volunteer opportunity for Stroud’s other community farm at the bottom of this newsletter.
A hearty hello to all new arrivals – human and bovine – at our Stroud Micro Dairy! Since the Autumn the SMD team have welcome 3 new calves, 2 new cows and 4 new staff members. Welcome to the farm!
Herd manager and cow whisperer Nat has written a thorough and moving account of the changes to the SMD herd in recent months. You can read the full moosletter here on the SMD website.
An update from the OCBS Board of Directors by David Lambert
Behind the scenes the farm team have been working solidly through the winter to pull together various pieces of infrastructure development on the farm. Most importantly, the work on our barn, gates and fences funded by the AONB is on track to meet our Spring deadline. Aside from the barn development helping us to increase the farm’s income, these projects are centrally important to our mission of building relationship with our local community around nature and farming. We hope that installing signage and improving pedestrian access is going to help more people spend time down on the land.
At the same time we are developing the projects we have been awarded funding for through the Countryside Stewardship fund (which comes from the government). This funding is for basic farm infrastructure including gates and fencing, and other essentials like the fantastic tree guards installed in our new Orchard development. These improvements not only make life easier for the staff on site but also hopefully improve access to the public too.
Although still in early discussions our team are very excited to be exploring an ambitious landscape scale tree planting project in collaboration with our neighbours over the road at Hammonds Farm. Both farms suffer from exposure to the extremely cold winds that sweep through our valley, as well as the extreme summer heat that feels a distant memory but will surely return before too long! Ambitious planting now could bring numerous benefits for the land in years to come, as well as offering a chance to generate woodchip (much needed at Oakbrook) on site – achieving the closed-loop system so desired in permaculture settings.
We remain ever grateful to our visitors, customers and tenants throughout the changes occurring on site. We are very much looking forward to growing the farm more over the coming year. As always, we are keen to bring more people on board as active players. Whether you would be willing to join the board – we have vacancies! – or you have a specific project you’d like to run with, we would love to hear from you.
An update from our tenant Jessie and the Oakbrook Orchard
Many thanks to all the enthusiastic and hard working volunteers who came out to help plant the second stage of Oakbrook Orchard over the past couple of months! We have now planted an additional 30 trees, with around 70 more still to go in the ground this planting season.
We have reached a temporary halt in planting as we’re waiting for fresh supplies of chestnut stakes. These are sourced from sustainably-managed coppice woods in the Forest of Dean, and split and peeled by hand. This year’s coppicing has now started, so I’m hopeful of more stakes arriving next month. I love using these stakes as (unlike treated softwood) they are totally natural, really beautiful, relatively local, and long lasting. They are also each one individual and slightly wonky! I am not so much enjoying working with the spikey cactus tree guards, but it should all be worthwhile – they certainly look like they should provide very robust protection from the deer who like to browse on the apple trees.
As well as more planting coming up, I’m also looking forward to harvesting daffodils from under the trees this spring, and grafting the next round of apples and pears for planting next year.
Big changes for our Bees!
Of the many exciting recent developments the Oakbrook team recently approved a proposal to incorporate our smallest tenant – The Bee Observatory – into the OCF umbrella.
What this means:
- The Bee Observatory CIC will cease existing and transfer all assets, including its 6 hives currently housing honeybee colonies, to Oakbrook Community Farm CBS.
- All overheads like insurance, bookkeeping, etc related to the Bee Observatory are absorbed by us, avoiding duplication and saving lots of (boring) admin time.
- All donations and volunteering towards the bee garden will directly benefit OCF.
- This time can then be used by the dedicated Bee Observatory team directly improving the infrastructure and habitat for native British honey bees, and creating volunteering and learning opportunities for the public.
- We hopefully end up with more happy bees and more happy people!
Look out for more information on Bee Observatory volunteer days starting in the Spring. OCF are supporting Christian – our apiarist and the original founder of The Bee Observatory – to create a new working group who will work on planning, fundraising and project management for our new apiary building. If you’re interested in joining this team please get in touch.
That’s all for now, stay warm and see you soon!
Leigh, David and the rest of the Oakbrook team