We are busily gearing up: getting trails mown and pruned, benches in place, signs up etc to welcome visitors to the Estate for the first time in over 18 months on Sunday 4th July.
You can come along between 10am and 4pm to walk, cycle or even run around the estate or you can just relax and take in the scenery of our usually private parkland, woods and lakes. There is a £3.00 car parking fee payable either on line in advance or on the gate.
Deer safari’s are running throughout the day and are being run in line with current COVID guidelines. As such, pre-booking is essential, a few spaces are available on the safaris and they can be booked here.
Refreshments will be available from Nice n Toastie horse box catering on site here too.
We are so excited to be able to open up again and to have visitors back to the estate. We’ll see you on Sunday.
Open Camping Weekend
If you can’t make it on the 4th July or would love to come along and spend more time here, our Open Camping Weekend takes place between 16th and 18th July. We are inviting you to come and stay for the weekend in your tent, caravan or motorhome.
Tents and caravans are welcome in the grassy glade of the arboretum and there is plenty of hard standing in the woodland parking area too. The site doesn’t have electric hook ups but running water and fully flushing toilets are on site and a waste disposal facility is available.
You are welcome to pitch up from 4pm-7pm on Friday afternoon until Sunday at 4pm to enjoy the whole estate at your leisure. Deer Safaris will also be available to campers and there’s even some evening entertainment at the Walled Garden on Saturday night. To find out more and to secure your pitch, please click here.
There are still a few pitches available so we encourage you to book as soon as possible as they are selling out quickly.
Mud, Sweat & Gears
We are delighted to host, (& for the first time in Lincolnshire!), Mud, Sweat & Gears on Sunday 29th August, perfect for all avid mountain bikers. Not only is the event taking place on Sunday but on site camping is also available over the weekend. You can find out more details and book a place in the event or camping on the Mud, Sweat and Gears website here.
Our Imperial and Royal venison boxes are available to order now for delivery next week from 8th July. So you can try something different on the barbeque as well as stocking up the freezer!
Our boxes contain a variety of cuts of our home reared, premium quality, delicious venison.
If you live over 30 miles away we will post your fresh venison box – for this we charge £10 for post and packaging which is added to your order at checkout.
To place your order please click here.
As well as our venison, local Stourton Honey is now also available to order on our website. The honey is produced by Billinghay Bees from their 12 hives located on our estate. The 360,000+ bees spend their time feasting on the wild flowers and crop pollen and nectar around the fields and woodland, providing important pollination for plant survival as well as creating delicious honey that we can now share with you.
You can find it here on our site and it can be added to your venison or landscaping products order for home delivery.
This month we have welcomed two happy couples and their nearest and dearest to the estate for their wedding celebrations. Both weddings were entirely unique and seeing couples celebrate in their own way is always such a joy! We have also hosted a private party for a family-get-together meeting up for the first time in almost 2 years, the children in particular really enjoyed the freedom of playing garden games in the arboretum as well as a private deer safari on the tractor and trailer. It really has been wonderful to see people enjoying themselves again.
If you’d like to find out more about what we can offer to help you plan a bespoke rustic woodland celebration here then please don’t hesitate to visit the venue section of our website or to get in touch with us.
Since the last blog was written we have been busy with the sprayer applying fungicides and nutrients to our crops. Hitting the correct application timings for crop growth stages has been tricky at times this year, some long hours have been required to stay on target!
Now we are largely caught up with our arable crops, as mentioned in the previous blog we will be working to prepare for (the fast approaching) harvest. As well as readying the buildings and machinery for the busy time ahead, this is a good opportunity for us to take a break from work. The farm team will be having a bit of time off to ‘recharge the batteries’ before we set about the next challenge.
Other upcoming jobs include a degree of estate maintenance; ensuring all of our roadways are in good condition, mowing field gateways to ensure good visibility for the grain carts. Health and safety is also firmly in our minds at this time of year. While it is an incredibly important part of our thinking here, with seasonal staff arriving and with the long hours of harvest looming it is also important that we bring it to the forefront of our minds. Agriculture has a very poor health and safety record, it is high time attitudes were changed, accidents can and do happen all too frequently.
That’s all for now, hopefully by the time the next blog comes around we may have made a start on the winter barley over at Baumber Park, let’s hope we don’t get too many thunderstorms in the meantime as it is still stood up nicely!!
All of our deer have now calved and the parkland is full of little calves, running with the herd. It’s such a lovely sight to see.
In other news Dotty, our hand reared deer calf is continuing to thrive….in our garden. She is proving to be quite a character. Not only does she now head butt the window when it’s time for a bottle feed but has started to try to barge into the house with us whenever the back door is opened. We now cannot put any sheets on the washing line as these are proving to be a delicious snack and we’ve all but given up on having any flowers in the garden. These small issues not withstanding she is very much part of family life now and we love her very much!
Dotty is now having fewer but larger milk feeds throughout the day and has started to graze, so no need for a lawn mower! We add selenium to her bottle feeds to ensure that she is getting the same mix of nutrients that she would naturally be getting from her mother. She is already substantially bigger than the other calves out in the parkland, so we can’t be doing much wrong! Hopefully her size will work to her advantage as we introduce her into the main herd. We will do this once the other calves have weaned from their mothers and Dotty herself no longer needs as many milk feeds, this will be later in the summer. We hope that she becomes one of our breeding herd of hinds and enjoys a long and happy life with us.
In our last blog we discussed our carbon footprint and how we are working to increase efficiency or energy usage across the estate.
We have just completed an upgrade of our biomass boiler to both improve its performance and also allow surplus heat to be piped across the yard to our farm offices. Now waste timber can be used to keep us toasty over the winter months!
But before then we will see you hopefully see you soon…
Antony and Helen
We are delighted to be able to announce that we are opening our gates again this summer and can welcome you back safely to enjoy the estate. As well as Beyond the Woods festival in August on you can visit us on the following dates:
On Sunday 4th July you can come and enjoy some of our trails around the usually private parkland, go on a deer safari to see our growing herd of deer calves and generally take in the views!
Refreshments will be on offer and you are more than welcome to bring your own picnics to enjoy in the arboretum.
We will charge £3 for the car park and you are free to stay for as long as you want, bookings can be made online or we will take payment on the gate. Well behaved dogs on leads (with well behaved owners, armed with poo bags) are more than welcome to come along too.
If you want to enjoy a deer safari then you must pre-book as we will be unable to take payment on the day. To pre-book your spot on a deer safari please just click here.
Come and stay for the weekend with your tent, caravan or motorhome. Bring your friends and family and get together in the great outdoors!
Tents and caravans are welcome in the
grassy glade of the arboretum and there is plenty of hard standing in the woodland parking area too.
You are welcome to pitch up from 4pm-7pm on Friday afternoon until Sunday at 4pm and have full access to enjoy the estate for the weekend.
We will be running deer safaris throughout the weekend, tickets for these need to be booked in advance online here.
There will be a communal fire-pit available for your use, and there are areas designated for bbq’s should you wish to.
Limited refreshments will be available on site over the weekend.
If you would like to enjoy some live music on Saturday night, there is ‘An evening with THE TAILFINS’ starting at 7pm at the Walled Garden Baumber, a short walk away. Tickets for this are £10 per person and available in advance by emailing walledgardenbaumber@gmail.com
The Walled Garden Baumber Tearoom will also be open on Sunday from 10am – 4pm.
To book a pitch for our camping weekend simply click here.
When you work for a small business you always expect an element of variety in your role and that’s certainly true here at Stourton! However the flexibility that the whole team have shown this month has been truly remarkable and very much appreciated.
Preparing to reopen a venue that has effectively been mothballed for 18 months has taken an enormous amount of hard work by everyone. From Julie and Clare cleaning the Safari tent windows to Guy treating and painting the entire floor (twice!) Helen raking up numerous fallen leaves, sprucing up borders and together with Clare varnishing all the Safari tent tables it has been all hands on deck! Additional help from Helen’s parents has also been invaluable: assembling shelving units and attaching essential fixtures and fittings to the new toilets.
Ken and Dan have found new digger skills extending and levelling the parking area and Antony has moved around 1000 tons of rubble to create the roundhouse footings and spread 2 acres of grass seed around it by hand! With all these extra jobs Jamie has helped at the weekend by bagging up woodchip for customer deliveries for the following week.
There has been plenty more going on but hopefully the next time you visit you will see the improvements and changes for yourself – in the meantime a big THANK-YOU to the extended team working at Stourton for their effort’s this month.
Although the weather probably has other plans it would be great to be able to get the BBQ out soon! We have some great venison in stock for you to enjoy.
Why not try our delicious, gluten free venison sausages, burgers or steaks on your bbq?
We also have a range of joints, mince and braising/stewing steak in stock too.
Delivery is FREE within a 20 mile radius of LN9 5PB.
To view our full venison range, click here.
May has seen us very busy with the installation of the roundhouse, our new outdoor handling and winter quarters for the deer herd. Once ground works were complete we were able to take delivery of the roundhouse. The first step was to put the stanchions in place. From this we could then construct the roof trusses. Once the centre pole was in place the roof fabric could be stretched across the structure. The roof is made from high density UPVC canvas and is not only incredibly durable but fully recyclable. Once the main construction is complete the build team will put the handling pens in place later this year. These are very versatile and easy to install or remove depending on our desired use for the enclosure….. outdoor dining area anyone? We hope that you can catch a glimpse of the new roundhouse on a deer safari at one of our events!
Being members of Select Lincolnshire, we recently attended a webinar organised by the Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce which was a fascinating insight into the rise of sustainable packaging and trends in this area. However, the wider issue of our Carbon footprint was also touched upon. As a business we have always been very conscious of minimising our impact on the environment and being as environmentally conscious as possible – working with nature not against it. There are many ways in which we do this being part of the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme which includes a range of measures including leaving wide field margins to encourage wild-life and habitats to only applying the essential amounts of fertiliser and chemicals where the crops need it most. We have also installed renewable power sources such as solar panels, we source timber from our own another Lincolnshire Woodlands to produce logs and woodchip, we plant trees across the estate and in producing venison we are providing one of the most sustainable meats available. In terms of packaging we have also been very careful to select cardboard boxes, paper insulation and also recyclable boxes wherever possible to deliver our meat to customers safely, hygienically and efficiently. For our venue we go to great lengths to source compostable or re-cyclable cups to minimise our carbon footprint. The mantra: Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle is one that we work to. It is not always possible to eliminate plastic entirely, for example our ice packs are plastic, however these can be re-used by our customers for their own picnics over
the summer months and the concept of reducing waste whilst being sustainable and carefully considering the life-span of a product is a delicate balancing act.
Whilst we are only a small business we are keen to calculate our carbon footprint and actively take steps to reduce it, our starting point will be working with Carbon Footprint Ltd (individuals also have access to a free online carbon footprint calculator on this website too). This is a piece of work that is likely to take some time, however if in our small way we can reduce our impact on the environment and help drive down carbon emissions, it will be for the good of future generations.
May has seen the arrival of Dotty into our lives. Keen followers on our social media channels will already be aware of her… Dotty, one of the first calves to be born this year was abandoned by her mother. In our experience and in the deer world this is incredibly rare and Dotty is the first calf that we have so far had to hand rear. She has taken up residence on our patio and is already a much loved and quite spoilt family member.
The first couple of weeks involved four-hourly bottle feeds, both day and night as well as lots of exercise and gambolling around the garden to start to make use of her gangly legs and to build muscle strength. We now don’t have to feed her through the night but she still requires regular milk feeds from us until July/August by which time we will be weaning her onto grazing and hay. In an ideal world we will slowly reintroduce Dotty back into the herd. Being one of the first born and having such a controlled feeding regime should ensure that she is one of the biggest among the calves when the time comes to join them. We shall keep you posted on her progress!
As well as Dotty, we have started seeing many new calves around the grassland. As we have mentioned in previous years, the hinds tend to enjoy quite stress-free births which we do not have to get involved in. They usually give birth in an inhospitable patch of nettles which provides some shelter for the new born until it gets on its feet and can run with the herd. If you come along to one of our summer events you will see the new calves with their mothers on one of the deer safaris.
Well, apart from a fair bit of spraying to do we are largely caught up on the farm. The final applications of nitrogen fertiliser have now been made to both our winter and spring crops. The most recent were a ‘top-up’ for the winter wheat and the sugar beet, thanks to Ken and Dan for their hard work to get this done between the wind and the showers.
Having had quite a bit of rain now and with temperatures creeping up crops have really turned themselves around and are now racing through the growth stages. We will now be monitoring crops for disease levels as well as looking to control weeds as the season moves forwards. For anyone who would like to learn a bit more about the disease challenges we encounter on our cereal crops through the growing season the Agriculture and Horticulture development board (AHDB) have a useful guide here.
Now we are caught up on most other jobs Ken is loading grain lorries and carrying out maintenance to our machinery. This is likely to keep him busy up until harvest, although he will be taking some much deserved time off as well.
As thoughts move towards harvest we look to make the last of our grain sales to clear the decks for the sheds to be fully cleaned and treated prior to being refilled with the produce of 2021. We are also currently interviewing for our ‘harvest student’ position; someone to join our team from July through to September to assist operations during the busy harvest period. We have been very lucky with our harvest staff for the past few years but as an industry we now seem to be a little short of people who are keen to do these jobs. While the hours can be long, and sometimes antisocial, it can be incredibly rewarding. For me grain harvest is a very exciting time; the culmination of the past 12 months efforts, working as part of a team in a ‘race’ to beat the weather and harvest the crops at their optimum quality.
Hopefully we all get some warmer temperatures and some sun some-time soon, I’m keen to get the barbecue out!
We can finally say that we really look forward to seeing you here soon!
Antony and Helen
We are delighted to announce that the Beyond the Woods festival is confirmed and coming back to us on the 6th and 7th August where it will take place in the parkland overlooking the lake! You can buy your tickets now by following the link.
We are just putting some finishing touches to our own plans to re-open over the next few months. We have definitely missed the buzz of events on the estate and we can’t wait to welcome you back from July. At this stage we are thinking that we will open up the arboretum to camp in for a restricted number of people to come and camp out as well as hosting some open weekends on selected weekends.
We will let you know as soon as we can what the confirmed dates are! Please keep an eye on Facebook and your inboxes for all the information once it’s available.
On the estate we produce two types of play chip that meet BSEN1177 and are suitable for use in play areas, both domestically and commercially. This is our standard play chip and also our pine nuggets.
The safety standard ensures that, when laid to an appropriate depth of 150-300mm it can absorb impact enough to prevent serious injury. We also ensure that during production the process that the chippings are screened to remove fine dust and also sharp or too long pieces. It is also very important to point out that our play chip contains no additives, toxins or that the timber used to create chip has had no chemicals applied to them.
Both types of play chip can be delivered free of charge within a 20 mile radius of LN9 5PB. We can deliver further afield, please contact us to discuss this.
Also please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need any advice on how much you should order to provide adequate and safe coverage for your play area.
As is fairly typical with this blog I’m going to start with the weather! As I’m sure you will have noticed we have gone from being too wet through February into an extended period of dry weather! While initially this helped us to get on with our spring drilling program (and we are glad that we did, the dry weather is now hurting the crops we have in the ground. This has been compounded by the ‘frostiest’ April for 60 years. The combination of frost, lack of rain and large diurnal temperature variation (difference between daytime and night-time temperature) has done significant harm to the potential of our crops. With such cold soil and air temperatures, plant development is held back. The crops are also unable to take up and/or use sufficient nutrients. This is compounded by lack of rain to dissolve surface applied fertilisers and ‘wash’ them into the soil solution for the plant roots to access.
As mentioned in the previous blog we had just finished sowing our sugar beet crop. This emerged in good time but has since been subject to the extended period of frost. While the plants are at a very early stage and don’t look particularly ‘happy’ with life we cant find any evidence that there has been any ‘frost kill’. However, due to beet being a biennial plant we are concerned that the cold period may cause the plant to vernalize and therefore enter its’ seed production phase during this growing season. These vernalized plants are known as bolters and are very bad news for a number of reasons. Firstly, bolters concentrate their energy on seed production, this means poor root growth and low sugar content of the root. Secondly, large numbers of bolters will shade the crop in vegetative growth and thus reducing yield. Thirdly, each bolter will produce 1000 viable seeds or more. These seeds will remain in the soil seed bank and will proliferate in a following beet crop. Mechanical weeding and hand pulling are the only truly effective solutions to ‘weedy beet’ within a sugar beet crop and are very expensive to carry out. We have all of our fingers and toes crossed that we avoid the picture painted above!
In other news we have largely completed our nitrogen fertiliser applications to all crops, with a small balance to apply to winter wheat and sugar beet. Thoughts have now moved to protecting the crops from disease and competition from broad leaved weeds.
Ken is helping out with some demolition and building work on the wider estate at the moment. We are also waiting for rain and warmer conditions so that we can sow our stewardship buffer strips and pollen and nectar mixes. Hopefully we can get on with these soon so they can establish strongly and provide good habitat for insect, bird and mammalian life on the farm.
We have a vacancy available in our harvest team. This is a great opportunity to work as part of our harvest team across the Lincolnshire Wolds this summer. You will be required from July – September, previous experience is preferred. For more details or to apply please email Oliver.Smith@stourtonestates.co.uk.
Since our last news story in March we have been busy preparing for the installation of the new roundhouse, which will serve as a winter shelter and handling facility for the deer herd. We have felled some trees to make room, the wood from which we will process and turn into high quality play chip, and we have had to get the diggers out to create a suitable base for the round house.
The next phase of installation will include the erection of the upright stanchions that will support the roof and finally the roof will be added. Fingers crossed by the next news story, at the end of May we will be able to show you pictures of a fully constructed round house.
Our stags are also beginning to naturally shed their antlers and we are finding and collecting them up from their grazing areas. This happens as their hormone levels drop and the antlers are no longer needed to impress the ladies! On that note we are also gearing up for calving season by getting the herds in the right enclosures so that they can settle in their surroundings before calving in June.
We are also delighted to have a whole page dedicated to our venison and recipes in the Countryman Magazine this month. Keep your eyes peeled if you take this magazine.
We have lots of frozen venison in stock at the moment which can be delivered free within 20 miles of LN9 5PB! Please click here to browse our range and place your order.
We wanted to share with you the journey the estate and we have been from the very beginning in the 1500’s to present day. We will include excerpts from this story over the coming months to share with you our history, how and when we introduced the deer to the estate and more about our low stress, sustainable rearing methods:
“Stourton has an interesting history dating as far back to The Romans. However the first evidence of an estate at Stourton was the establishment of a large stately home in the mid 1500’s by Sir Edmund Dighton. The estate was handed down through the generations and ownership passed into the Fynes-Clinton family who later became the Earls of Lincoln and Dukes of Newcastle. The house fell into disrepair and the estate was subsequently sold to The Livesey family around 1790. Joseph Livesey began work on his new house (Stourton Hall) in 1810, a short distance from the ruins of the first. Subsequent generations invested heavily in the estate, building the walled garden, three inter connecting lakes, remodelling the parks (which would have been home to herds of fallow deer) as well as creating a model farm.
The estate is now owned by the Strawson family. Harry Strawson took on the tenancy of farm in 1926. When the last squire; Algernon Livesey died in 1951, the estate was broken up and Harry was able to purchase his farm at auction. The holding continued to grow under the management of his son Roger in later years. The last major acquisition and final piece of the jigsaw was the purchase of the woodlands from The Forestry Commission in 1995.
Since then Antony (Roger’s son) has been working to restore the central part of the old estate. Works have included the dredging of the 3 lakes, active management of the woodlands, re-opening rides and creation of the arboretum.
It was in May 2012 that we re-introduced deer to the parks after an absence of nearly 100 years. Whilst we felt it was important to retain the historical link for the estate, we also had the desire to produce high quality venison from deer living in fantastic surroundings. Our 30 red deer hinds who leapt off the lorry into their parkland would be our first step towards this, and the infinite beauty and appeal of these creatures was not lost on us either!”
We really hope to see you very soon!
Antony & Helen
We are now sold out of logs until Autumn and will no longer be able to take any orders. We’d like to thank all of our log customers, both old and new for your business over the winter season, you’ve certainly kept us very busy!
We are now focusing on our landscaping products and we are in full swing. We have good availability and lots of stock at the moment. If you are planning some work in the garden or are laying a play area or chicken run please take a look at our full range of products.
Delivery of our landscaping products is free up to 20 miles from our farm postcode, LN9 5PB. If you live outside of this area please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your requirements.
If you fancy trying something different this spring why not try a joint of venison?
We have both haunch and sirloin joints available. Both have a lovely flavour and as its venison is a very low fat choice. All of our venison is reared to the absolute highest standards and welfare and sustainability is always at the forefront of our minds.
We have produced a little video full of hints and tips to cook a venison joint. You can find it here.
Our fresh vension boxes will be available for delivery from 8th/9th April. Our Imperial and Royal boxes are proving very popular and we can deliver these across the UK. We always include recipe cards in the order to give you some meal ideas and handy hints if you are worried about cooking venison for the first time. Don’t miss out, place your orders now.
Last month we launched our first meal box in conjunction with the Wolds Egg company, TW Produce and Saucy Cups at the Elder Tree Inn. We have received some great feedback from our customers so thank you! They said;
“We loved the simplicity of the starter, easy to follow instructions, really tasty venison, great presentation, good value for money and particularly pleasing”
and
‘a good introduction into how to cook venison, given me the confidence to do it again!’
We will be producing another meal box at the end of April which will be full of more seasonal produce from some great local suppliers. Keep an eye on social media for more information once its available to order.
We are cautiously optimistic that after 21st June we will open the estate for open days, opportunities to come camping and hopefully launch some events towards the end of this year.
We are working hard to put plans in place, ensuring we are Covid secure as well as completing ground works needed and we will share these dates with you as soon as possible.
We are delighted that we have some private bookings for weddings and parties taking place in June and we look forward to sharing our venue and celebrating these special times with those people.
We are delighted to announce that we have had planning permission approved for the construction of some new housing for the deer within the woods. We will imminently begin ground works for the construction of a roundhouse which will provide some extra shelter for our deer herd during the winter months or for necessary handling activities to ensure the health and welfare of the herd.
The design of the round house is open sided with a stretched canopy roof which is fully recyclable and has low visual impact. The roof has a centralised open area that provides excellent ventilation and the structure creates a very low stress environment for the deer.
We will begin work very soon and will make sure that we post lots of pictures both during and after construction.
We’ve had a few bits and pieces going on since the last blog post to say the least!
Our 2020 sugar beet crop was finally lifted early in March and delivered into Newark factory during the first half of the month. Sadly, while our root yields were ok given the difficult season, our sugar content has left a lot to be desired. Virus yellows, circospora and late frosts have left us licking our wounds as far as sugar beet is concerned. We are amongst the ‘lucky’ ones this year as our overall yield is down by just over 10% compared to our 5 year average. The national yield has been affected by 25%, with some growers sadly losing up to 80% of their usual yield!
Landwork and spring drilling have been going a pace during March. Rotationally a lot of our ‘easy working’ land is in with spring sown crops this season. This has helped our progress no end, we have now completed putting in our spring barley and spring oat crops. By the time this blog ‘goes to press’, our next sugar beet crop will be in the ground as well, to be ‘drilled up’ by the end of March is almost unheard of here. Thanks go to the hard work of all involved, it really is much appreciated.
You may or may not have read in the press about the emergency derogation given to beet growers to use a neonicotinoid insecticidal seed treatment (as long as a number of strict conditions were met). Well, due to the sustained period of cold weather during the latter part of winter the number of aphids which carry virus into the crop has been reduced by comparison to last year. This has meant that the ‘virus modelling’ thresholds set by the British Beet Research Organisation have not been met. This in turn means that the 2021 sugar beet crop will not be treated with the neonicotinoid seed treatment after all. In my opinion this is a triumph of integrated crop/pest management, demonstrating for all to see the way our industry takes a robust, evidence based approach to such significant crop protection decisions. While the modelling suggests a low risk year for aphid vectors of virus I am hoping our beet crop will have reached 12 true leaves by the time any aphids migrate. At this point the plant will have developed ‘adult plant resistance’ to virus infection and any impact will be significantly reduced. Read more about the neonicotinoid decision here.
Now the spring crops are safely in, our attention turns to taking care of their nutritional needs. The barley and oats will both receive a fertiliser supplying their needs of Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potash and Sulphur. The sugar beet will receive it’s first dose of Nitrogen and sulphur.
Our winter wheat crop will imminently be receiving its first fungicide of the season to protect the crop from a number of plant diseases. Our main focus at this time of the year is to keep the crop clean from Yellow Rust and Septoria Tritici. These diseases move into and through the plant at an incredible rate if left unchecked; causing a large reduction in green leaf area. Retaining green leaf is incredibly important as the crop moves through its growth stages, thus allowing the crop to intercept the maximum amount of sunlight for photosynthesis. Read more about wheat and barley diseases here.
There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel and we really hope that we can welcome you back to the estate very soon.
Antony & Helen
Spring is in the air and it’s time to get back out into the garden and ready for the warmer months ahead. We have a range of landscaping products that can help you to prepare your garden for the summer.
Our garden bark chippings are a simple, cost effective and versatile product. Made using a fuel-wood grade chipper which produces a high quality, consistent chip our chippings are ideal for creating paths in your garden, adding to your beds or creating a chicken run base.
A 0.7m3 bag of bark chippings costs just £60 and delivery is free up to 20 miles from our farm LN9 5PB.
We also have small bags of kiln dried wood chip. The bags weigh 15kg (or 75 litres) and are heat sealed so they are easy to store outside and to handle. The chip in the bas is made from pure pine which is graded to 10-30mm in size. The kiln drying and grading process not only removes much of the water content but they also contain no dust, fungal spore or additives. They are ideal for landscaping and play surface use (conforming to BSEN 1177) or for chicken run bases or bedding.
They can be delivered within 20 miles from the farm at Baumber in a minimum quantity of 10 bags (£7 per bag).
For our full landscaping products range please click here.
We have some very exciting news to share with you which we hoped would be ready for this blog post but unfortunately we shall have to keep you on tenter hooks until next month!
As a family we have really enjoyed cooking at home together. We have also been taking advantage of Lucy’s photographic and technical skills whilst she’s not busy with her school work and have created a video for how to cook the perfect venison steak. If you missed it, here it is!
Here is our secret for the ultimate high quality fast food!
We have also made a video of how we label up and package our venison ready for delivery. Please click here to watch.
Our fresh venison boxes, great value selection packs and frozen individual cuts are available to order online as usual with free delivery within 20 miles of the farm.
We are also planning to launch a special edition box for local delivery just before Easter so do keep in touch with us on social media to find out more about this!
If you have any questions about our venison or delivery please don’t hesitate to contact us.
As we go to press we still have some sugar beet firmly in the ground. Thankfully the processing factory in Newark is due to stay open until the middle of March now. All being well, we will get ours lifted next week and delivered before it closes!
With the recent improvement in the weather the land has now finally started to dry, it has seemed like a very long wet winter, spring can’t now come soon enough. We will start our spring programme of works with a bit of ploughing both pre and post sugar beet crops before moving on to drilling our spring barley crops. On the subject of spring barley, we have mentioned before in our blog that the majority of ours is sold for malting to Molson Coors in Burton-on-Trent. We need you all to go and buy as much Doom Bar, Carling, Coors Light, Staropramen and other Molson Coors brands as you can! Due to the various Covid lockdowns during the past 12 months the brewing trade has been hit particularly hard (Molson Coors wrote off £25 million in keg beer). The knock on effect to our barley market has been staggering.
As our winter wheat and bean crops come through winter we have recently been assessing their initial fertiliser requirements. The wheat will be receiving a dressing of Nitrogen and Sulphur when ground conditions allow us to travel. All crops will have phosphate and potash applied during the coming spring.
Beans are a legume, and as such they ‘fix’ their own nitrogen requirements. Interestingly it isn’t the plant itself that is able to fix atmospheric nitrogen but the symbiotic relationship between the plant and nitrogen-fixing bacteria known as rhizobia. Read more about nitrogen-fixing here.
When crop-walking earlier in the week, I was delighted to see and hear how many skylarks we have on farm. They really are a wonderful little bird, their song flights are one of life’s small pleasures while out and about. One thing is for sure there is no ‘silent spring’ evident here at Stourton. In other recent good new, Michael Harrison reliably informs me that he saw a flock of Corn bunting on one of our overwintered stubbles. Hopefully this is a good sign that the work we are doing to improve the farmed environment and provide habitat and food sources for small farmland birds is having a positive effect.
Following a very nippy and snowy February we have been getting ready for spring with lots of our ‘end of winter’ jobs for the deer. As well as conducting routine worming treatments we have also been busy treating the hinds with a copper supplement. Copper is very important to livestock health especially those who are predominantly pasture fed. It is critical in the formation of collagen, keeping bones strong. It is involved in the formation of red and white blood cells so supplementation aids in ensuring effective blood clotting, nerve function and oxygenation as well as supporting the immune system. Copper deficiency can also lead to a weak and wobbly gait associated with swayback.
Last year’s young calves are also being weaned and are in the barn until the weather gets consistently warmer. We will try to get a video to share with you when we let them out!
After what has felt like an incredibly long year we are hoping (our fingers are so tightly crossed) that we shall soon be able to open up and welcome visitors back! We are still very much in the planning stages with one eye on whether timings may or may not slip. As soon as we have any firm plans and dates we will ensure that you will be the first to know!
We look forward to seeing you soon
Antony and Helen
New Selection packs
Thank you to everyone who placed a venison order with us before Christmas. We have now replenished our venison stocks on the website.
Due to customer feedback we are creating more great value selection packs of your favourite venison products. These include:
A Steak Selection Pack £27 containing: haunch, rump and frying steak as well as a pack of burgers.
A Family Selection Pack £38 containing a small haunch joint, frying steak, some incredibly versatile mince and a pack sausages.
A Winter Warmer Pack £27 containing 2 braising steaks, a pack of casserole steak, 2 large haunch steaks and approx 500g of mince.
This may mean that there are slightly fewer items to order on a pick & mix basis on the website but we hope that you will find a selection pack that is perfect for your needs and you can always supplement with additional items.
All of these are available for free delivery within 20 miles of LN9 5PB
New Recipes
We have got two great new recipe ideas for you to try too! These have been tried and tested on both family and friends and are a great way to incorporate venison into everyday meals. The first is a delicious lasagne recipe and the second is for a warming winter curry. We will include these as recipe cards in our fresh venison box deliveries from January. Alternatively you can find them in the recipe area of our website. Let us know how you get on!
Our frozen venison selection packs and fresh venison boxes are available for free and contact free delivery within 20 miles of the farm postcode. A small delivery charge applies for anyone who is further away.
Fresh Venison Boxes – Order Now!
Our Royal fresh venison boxes contain a wide variety of steaks, burgers, sausages as well as mince and casserole and / braising steak – the larger Imperial boxes also contain a haunch joint and premium quality venison fillet, perfect for a valentines treat?
These are available to pre-order now for delivery either Thursday 3rd / Friday 4th February, they are also available for nationwide delivery.
New Venison Stockists
We are also delighted to announce that our venison is now available to buy ‘off the shelf’ (out of the freezer!) in the following local stockists:
Or if you fancy a take-away in the form of a tasty toastie or baguette you need to visit Scrummies in Horncastle, they have venison specials including venison steak baguette and venison sausage sandwiches… we highly recommend Phil’s milkshakes and smoothies which are also delicious!
We have been incredibly busy with log orders in the run up to the Christmas and New Year period. We are still playing catch up on some of these orders. We have been working around the clock to convert, dry and deliver logs to our customers. The recent cold weather has an impact on the moisture content of the logs prior to them entering the kiln. We only deliver logs that are of the highest quality so as a result it is taking longer than usual to reach our high standards.
Rest assured we will get log orders out ASAP, and hope to have online ordering available again as soon as we have more stock available. Please keep an eye on our social media channels and we will let you know as soon as we can accept new log orders.
If you said ‘yes’ to THE question over Christmas then we’d like to extend a huge congratulations to you both. You are probably already considering where and when you wish to hold your ‘big day’. Have you thought about hosting your wedding in our beautiful woodland? We have updated our wedding package for 2021/2022 where from only £4,699 you can host your woodland wedding blessing and reception in our beautiful and unique safari tent, nestled within our peaceful tree lined arboretum.
Please visit our wedding page on our website to find out more about our wedding package or alternatively please don’t hesitate to get in touch where we can answer your questions and (fingers crossed) book you in for a socially distanced tour as soon as we are allowed to again.
Our deer have been keeping us busy this month. They are all still outside and the stags are currently resident within the woodland which is giving them a lovely natural shelter from the elements. Whilst they are all still outside the volume and quality of the grass on which they are grazing is not enough on its own so we are supplementing them with silage. Silage is essentially a bale which has been wrapped in film. This wrapping process helps the bale within to ‘ferment’ via anaerobic digestion. The silage bulks their diet out when natural forage is not as available.
January on our farm is traditionally a fairly quiet month. As things stand we have about 20 hectares of sugar beet still to lift, but we need it to dry up a little before we can get on the land. Hopefully we get a weather window soon as the processing factory is due to close for beet reception at the end of February. Ken would usually be working through machinery ready for spring but has been busy lately with Dan and Guy processing round timber into logs. The sprayer is currently receiving a bit of attention, with the pressure regulation valve and the main pump being refurbished ready for the busy season ahead.
Our spring season will kick off in earnest from the middle of February when our over-wintered stubbles are free to be ploughed ahead of sugar beet. Some stubbles from the previous wheat or barley crops are left over winter to provide habitat and a food source for farmland birds. As well as overwintered stubbles and wild bird food plots around the farm we are supplementary feeding with 10 ‘bucket’ feeders in various places. By the end of winter we will have fed out well over a tonne of mixed grains, this is crucial to help farmland birds through the ‘hungry gap’. For anyone who would like to read a little about how farming and conservation can work hand in hand please have a look at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust website, the work they do is fascinating.
We’ll be busy until the next blog making sure the seed drills and cultivators are all in good working order prior to the spring sowing season, here’s hoping that as spring starts to bloom, we can all start to return to at least some small form of normality.
Well, we once again find ourselves in the strange position of not really knowing what and how to plan for the rest of the year in terms of our events. We really do miss our events and sharing our beautiful surroundings with our visitors. We will welcome you back as soon as we are able so please keep a keen eye on social media for any updates.
If, like us you are juggling home-schooling and working from home it can be tricky keeping everyone entertained. We’d like to help you out! Here is a word search and a ‘Spot the Deer-ference’ to help you to keep yourselves or your little ones entertained and have five minutes peace!
Until then, stay safe with best wishes
Antony & Helen
Well, we’ve made it to the end of another year… and what a year it has been!
We have definitely missed all of our event visitors and the opportunity to share our lovely park and woodland. This year has forced us to do things a bit differently and has enabled us to spend more time working on our venison offering whilst wrangling with the myriad COVID-19 rules and regulations. We have invested in the veni-van to manage local deliveries, launched fresh venison meat boxes as well as UK wide delivery of our fresh products.
As well as venison we have been kept extremely busy with our log and kindling orders, as well as unprecedented early sell-out of Christmas trees.
We’d like to thank all of our customers who have supported us throughout 2020. It has been an incredibly hard year for everyone and we really appreciate your custom.
We’d also like to thank all of our staff. This has been an extraordinary year and our staff have weathered the storm valiantly, all of us coping with shifting rules, juggling home-schooling etc. As ever, we couldn’t do it without them, so thank you and we hope that they enjoy the Christmas break.
From 5pm on 18th December we are granting ourselves some well deserved rest.
We will be back in the office from Monday 4th January 2021 and any order placed on or after 18th December will be delivered in the first week after we are back.
If you need to contact us urgently between now and 4th January then please email us on contact@stourtonestates.co.uk.
We have some tentative plans for events next year, if the rules permit it. As soon as we can we will let you know more. In the meantime we wish you all a very merry and safe Christmas and here’s to a much improved 2021.
Antony & Helen
We are delighted to launch our first ever Festive Fresh Venison Box.
This limited edition box, costing £60 contains:
Plus some delicious traditional accompaniments:
Whether buying for yourself or a food-loving friend or family member, this box is perfect for treating the family over the Christmas period. It contains a great range of versatile cuts to enjoy – these can also be used instead of your usual meat in some of your favourite recipes or take a look at our recipe gallery for more inspiration.
Orders can be placed now for delivery on Friday 11th December and we will be in touch to arrange a delivery time with you.
As well as our Festive box, our usual Royal and Imperial venison boxes are available to order for delivery on either 11th or 18th December.
All fresh venison boxes ordered are delivered FREE within a 20 mile radius of the farm. If you live between 20-30 miles of the farm additional delivery charges will apply.
For those of you who live further than 30 miles away or wish to send a venison box as a gift we can now offer courier delivery of our fresh boxes nationwide. For this we charge £10 for post and packaging which is added to your order at checkout.
Stourton Estates are very excited to be included in this brand new cookbook, Lincolnshire Kitchen.
You will find our one pot root vegetable venison casserole recipe using our finest venison casserole (or braising steak) to deliver a mouth-watering dish we hope you enjoy cooking and eating! Our recipe sits proudly with a huge range of Lincolnshire food producers who have also put forward their very best recipes.
The cookbook has been produced to raise vital funds for Lincolnshire charity, LIVES. Did you know the charity attended over 13,000 emergency 999 calls last year? The volunteers who give their time need to fund their training, on-going support and equipment, which LIVES provide.
Lincolnshire Kitchen will be available in a number of Lincolnshire Co-op Stores this winter, through the LIVES website and the link to purchase is available on our website too.
The cookbook is available for £9.99 and every penny will goes to LIVES. We are proud to support a charity that so clearly looks after communities right across our county.
You are certainly keeping us busy delivering your kiln dried log and Christmas tree orders. Christmas trees have now sold out! Don’t miss out on logs – place your order now… we can deliver log orders all the way up to 18th December 2020. So do get online and place your order for pre-Christmas delivery now!
You can rest assured that we are taking all steps necessary to make all home deliveries or collections from the farm COVID secure; offering contact free and socially distanced deliveries or collections.
And breathe… we’ll say it quietly but we have finally got our planned autumn cropping in the ground thanks to the hard work of our team. The latest sown winter wheat is just starting to emerge and is looking good on all but the heaviest of our land. We finished sowing winter beans on the 24th November in largely good conditions. It has felt like a bit of a slog to get everything in this Autumn, but we are pleased to be well ahead of where we were this time last year. The beans now need their pre-emergence herbicide, with the lighter land wheat requiring an application of nutrition to see it through winter.
We will be lifting a little more sugar beet imminently; the results from our first lifted field are relatively pleasing for the year. It seems our area has escaped the worst of the virus yellows impact, in the south of the county where there is a large amount of veg crops grown the beet crop has suffered immensely. Looking ahead it is of great concern to us that sugar beet has a viable future, our fingers are crossed that the necessary derogation for seed treatment is now granted by DEFRA as previous requests have not been granted. More information about virus yellows and what may be done in the future can be found here and here.
Over the winter Ken will be busy working through the machinery fleet to make sure it is in good condition to be put to work next spring. Usually in winter our workshop is bitterly cold even with a small diesel space heater. We have recently invested in a new clean burning heater supplied by Louth Tractors which should keep Ken nice and warm in there. It will also double as a heater for our events during the winter months (when we are able to put them on again).
If anyone has any questions for us about the farm and how and why we do things the way we do please do get in touch. Until next time…
We are very excited to announce that our flushing toilets are now fully installed and operational. Situated right next to the safari tent, the new loos will significantly increase the comfort of our guests whether they are visiting the estate for an open day or attending a private event. Let’s hope they get a bit of use next year!
As well as loo installation we have carried out the annual mow of the arboretum. We do this every autumn to encourage wildflower regeneration for the next year. The spoil from the mow is left behind to increase soil fertility, ensuring strong future growth and a wide variety of species to grow and live within the habitat.
It’s been a bit noisy around the estate for the last few weeks as the rut has been in full swing. Thankfully all is now calming down and the stags are no longer as ‘boisterous’. The end of the rut sees a dramatic drop in testosterone in the stags and this leads to the loss of their antlers, as they are no longer needed for duelling with their rivals. We currently have a few antler sets available to buy on our website.
We really hope that next year we get the opportunity to open up and share our beautiful parkland with you. We are offering deer safari vouchers for sale, which would make an excellent Christmas gift. We will honour them at any of our events next year.
We hope that you are all keeping safe and well.
Antony & Helen
We are aware that some customers are having difficulty placing orders and ensuring free home delivery within 20 miles of LN9 5PB. If you’re affected by this and you’d like to place an order please email contact@stourtonestates.co.uk and we will manually process this for you. Sorry for the inconvenience our web developers are working on finding a solution ASAP!
If you are a follower of one of our social media pages you will probably be aware that we have had a very exciting addition to the Stourton team this month. We are delighted to announce the arrival of the ‘Veni Van’. It has been expertly wrapped by Revolution Wraps, based in Louth and is ready to make its first deliveries of our fresh venison on Friday 30th October. The van is a vital tool for our local delivery as it is refrigerated and ensures that whether you order frozen or fresh venison that it arrives in tip-top condition. If you see us on our travels be sure to give us a wave!
There’s still time just to place an order for you fresh venison boxes for delivery on Friday 30th October.
You can find all the details of our Imperial Venison box here, and our smaller Royal box here.
The boxes will be available on a monthly basis but availability is limited so we recommend getting your order in as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. Delivery is free within a 20 mile radius of the farm postcode and we will deliver up to 30 miles for a small fee. We are working on postal delivery options so we hope that this will be available soon.
Plus, there’s 10% off your first venison box order, all you need to do is enter the code ‘freshveniboxintro10’ at the checkout.
If you are happy to order frozen venison, then we make weekly deliveries. You can select all your favourite cuts and delivery is free on any orders over £25 within 20 miles of the farm.
We understand the venison is not widely available and that people are unfamiliar with how to cook it so we would like to crack four key myths surrounding venison:
You really don’t have to, our venison is naturally tender – ALL prime steaks should be cooked in a hot skillet or frying pan quickly for best results, the casserole and braising are really the only cuts that benefit from slow cooking but we’re talking a couple of hours not days!
Venison is just as versatile as beef, our mince can be used to make flavoursome ragu sauces for bolognaise or lasagne, the casserole is great for stews, tasty curries or pies and the steaks are easily fried or grilled with chips, joints create a special family roast and the fillet and sirloin are great for entertaining – there’s never any leftovers! Or try our sausages and burgers for a more healthy quick supper at home. Plus we have a gallery on our website including some of our tried and tested venison recipes. Take a look and get your juices flowing!
Our venison has a light gamey flavour, it’s certainly not strong, you may have had a different breed or it may have been hung for a longer time, it might even have been from an older animal. Our herds are predominantly grass fed and their diet is supplemented by herb rich silage (especially selected for them) as well as treats of barley and beef nuts for extra protein – they even enjoy some windfall apples in the autumn! Really you’ll have to try some of our venison to dispel this myth but we are very careful to ensure all our meat is flavoursome and succulent – even the children love it!
You’re right, venison is healthy – it is a very low calorie meat, leaner than beef with less saturated fat, what’s more it is high in protein, iron and B vitamins as well as being rich in conjugated linoleic acid (good for heart health). However, the good news is that this doesn’t affect how wonderfully tender the meat is, from frying steaks to loin our venison is beautifully succulent, in our opinion best enjoyed slightly underdone to appreciate the delicate flavor and texture.
Oli and the team have made steady progress with the winter drilling, often working into the early hours to beat each new band of wet weather. They have even found a time to harvest the first of the sugar beet which managed a not too disappointing yield despite its’ odd yellow coloured leaves.
In between showers, Ken has been busy in the workshop servicing our machinery and loading lorries with grain.
The clocks have changed, it’s darker earlier and there’s definitely more of a nip in the air. Make sure you stay warm and snuggly at home this winter with our kiln dried logs.
Our logs are of the highest quality hardwood varieties that are super dry & graded to remove dust and sticks before being kiln dried at the farm at Baumber.
So that we can manage our stock levels we are currently limiting log orders to 2 x 0.7cubic metre bags per customer.
Delivery of our logs is free within a 20 mile radius of the LN9 5PB.
We are delighted to announce that we will be selling Christmas trees for you to pre-order this year.
Once again we will be selling beautifully shaped, freshly cut Nordmann fir trees. The great thing about these trees is that they hold their needles for much longer than other varieties, so you can be sure that your tree will look great throughout the festive season.
The trees are freshly cut and will be in stock at the end of November. We stock sizes between 4 – 6ft trees.
We can deliver it directly to your door, free within 20 miles of LN9 5PB or you will be able to come and collect your tree from the farm office, off the Caistor High Street, B1225 LN9 5PB by prior arrangement.
If you’d prefer to choose your tree in person, please pre-order, online and make a note of this in the notes field on your order, we will then contact you to arrange a suitable time for collection.
These are up on our website and available to order now, so you have plenty of time to get organised!
It’s certainly been quiet around the estate this year without any visitors and we have missed being able to share our beautiful estate and many planned events with you. We are already planning for 2021 though (fingers crossed) and we definitely haven’t stood still.
We have been busy reviewing our tracks and trails around the estate. Not only have we been clearing away fallen trees from last winter and trimming and tidying up but we have had the mower out to create some longer and more varied routes around the woodland. We hope to be able to share these with you at the launch of the Lincolnshire Outdoor Festival in May next year
We are also very excited about the imminent installation or our new flushing loos. The loo block installation has been somewhat curtailed by Covid but we hope that not only our future event visitors but also anyone who privately hires the safari tent for their wedding or special event will benefit from the enhanced facilities.
We hope that you are well and keeping safe and we really hope to see you soon!
Antony and Helen
With the children back at school (thank goodness!) we’ve wasted no time this month; finishing harvest, getting the ground cultivated and drilled, launching fresh venison to customers alongside delivering landscaping products and logs across the county… even squeezing in a quick business trip to Norfolk!
Just in time for autumn and the promise of warming casseroles, roasts and comfort food we are delighted to launch our fresh venison boxes. There are two box sizes to choose from, appropriately named after the number of antler points on a stag. A limited number of boxes are available for delivery each month. The boxes arrive beautifully presented and include some recipes to try which are true family favourites for us.
The Imperial Box weighs at least 6kg and costs £120. Following a quick tot up we think that this box will provide just over 40 portions of delicious venison. Typically an Imperial Box contains:
The Royal Box weighs at least 3kg and costs just £60. Our Royal box contains approximately 24 portions and typically includes:
Plus to celebrate the launch we are offering customers 10% off their first order using the discount code freshveniboxintro10 at the checkout.
Delivery of the boxes is free within a 20 mile radius of the farm and after that delivery charges apply up to 30 miles. We are working on being able to courier our boxes further afield and will let you know as soon as this is possible.
Our next delivery date is 23rd October and you can place your order for delivery on this date online now.
Of course our freezers are fully stocked with freshly frozen venison too which you can order as usual. Again we are offering free delivery on orders over £25 within a 20 miles radius of LN9 5PB.
We are now in full flow and are actually rather busy delivering log orders to our lovely customers across Lincolnshire!
We can appreciate that many of our customers are taking the opportunity to get stocked up for winter, however, rather like Tesco & toilet rolls (!) we are struggling to meet the demand for very large orders. Therefore, in order to continue to meet all our customers’ needs we have taken the decision to limit the number of bags that can be ordered to a maximum of 2 bags at the current time. This will ensure we can serve more customers and keep bags on the move without running low on stocks – and at the time of writing we are only in September!
If you’d like to place an order our quality kiln dried logs are super dry & graded (to remove dust, sticks etc) before being kiln dried at the farm at Baumber.
The firewood logs are sold in builders bags sized at approx 0.7 cubic metres and each log is cut to around 10 inches/25 cm.
We only use hardwood species for our kiln dried logs– mainly oak, ash and sycamore. We never blend with poorer species such as poplar or softwoods.
September has largely gone to plan (shock horror)! We completed our combinable crop harvest in a period of settled weather earlier in the month. The first sugar beet has been lifted and is in the process of being delivered to the factory in Newark. Ken has been working flat out cultivating all of the land ready for planting of winter crops.
We will start putting winter barley in any time now, shortly followed by our wheat crop and our winter bean crop. When planning to drill winter crops we have a few considerations. Earlier drilling gives us a greater chance of getting everything sown into good conditions, however this needs to be balanced against soil moisture, weed burden and aphid transfer of virus.
As wheat is a grass species, grass weeds are tricky to remove when the crop is growing. The best method of reducing the grass weed burden is to delay drilling into the second half of October. This allows us to create a ‘stale seedbed’ which we then apply glyphosate to prior to drilling. In the second part of October soil moisture tends to be higher as well as soil temperature being lower. The herbicides that we apply to control broad leaved weeds as well as grass weeds have greater activity and persistency in these conditions. We consciously try to minimise the application of plant protection products on this farm, none more so than insecticides. Aphids can transfer virus into crops throughout the year but BYDV (Barley yellow dwarf virus) is the one we are particularly concerned about in cereals.
Earlier sown crops are more susceptible to infection as aphid numbers are higher in warmer conditions through September and into October. As temperatures fall, so do aphid numbers and thus virus transmission is reduced. September and early October drilled crops are most likely to need an insecticide applied to try to control aphid numbers. This year we will be using an app called BYDV assist (developed by Syngenta) to help us decide whether to spray and if so when to spray. We will input a number of parameters into the app which will give us a forecast of whether we are at high risk and if so when to apply an insecticide.
I know I promised not to mention the weather but…. we have our fingers and toes crossed that this autumn does not mirror last! Hopefully by the time the next blog comes around the majority of our winter crops will be safely in the ground, wish us luck!!
Unfortunately, due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, we are going to have to cancel our Enchanted Lights event planned for November. We have already had a number of enquiries about this event so we understand that this is disappointing but we feel that holding an event with a large number of people attending when we are currently restricted to 6 for social gatherings doesn’t feel like a very responsible thing to do. On top of that restrictions keep on changing so it is very hard to plan on a day to day basis at the moment let alone a month ahead. However we hope that this event will return for 2021 and be even bigger and better than before.
Thanks to all of those visitors who have come to the Estate and been on our Private Deer Feeding Safaris on the socially distanced trailer on weekends throughout the summer. These have been really popular and we’ve enjoyed sharing with you how we manage the deer as well as seeing your photos. One lady and her family loved it so much they even came twice! Unfortunately all good things come to an end and with the deer rut in full swing as well as essential deer maintenance to manage these have finished for now… however we hope to be able to run some more again soon.
As mentioned above the deer rut is now starting, we’ve even heard Winston roar. The deer have developed their winter coats and are considerably shaggier in appearance, but this keeps them cosy through the cooler winter months. In addition they are no longer entirely red deer and have become a rather muddy brown colour but are as happy as the proverbial pigs!
Essential supplies of mineral lick blocks, needed for continued health and vitality of the herd were sourced from a specialist supplier in Norfolk and we took the opportunity to collect these together to have a much needed short break away – even our terrier Poppy joined us for a walk on the beach!
Even with the rain, grass growth slows at this time of year and is less nutritious so we will be supplementing their diet this month with a home-grown herbal forage that we baled in the spring. The deer love this and the stags will soon be wearing it on their antlers to try & look even more majestic – we’ll hopefully get a photo to show you next time!
We hope that you are staying safe and well. We hope that we can welcome you to the estate soon.
Antony and Helen
We’d like to offer our loyal readers and followers a massive 20% discount on their venison order placed with us before 19th September 2020. This is a great opportunity to stock the freezer up for Autumn with all products having long use by dates well into 2021!
Currently we have the following in stock:
All you need to do is enter the code ‘venison20’ at the checkout! There is a minimum order value of £30 to use the voucher and only one voucher per customer but we will still deliver FREE of charge within a 20 mile radius of LN9 5PB. Don’t miss out!
With the end of summer comes the arrival of ripened blackberries in the hedgerows around the estate. We have found a lovely recipe on the BBC Good Food website for pan-fried venison with blackberry sauce that we are definitely going to try with our delicious haunch steaks.
We have been so disappointed to have had to cancel so many of our events this year. So at the beginning of the month we were delighted to be able to welcome a couple of the bands who were in the planned line up for the Beyond the Woods festival to record their sets for the virtual festival. On 8th August BBC Radio Lincolnshire broadcast two hours of live and specially recorded sets from Lincolnshire artists, followed by festival highlights from previous years and some DJ sets. On the Tuesday before the broadcast we welcomed Duccbod and Who’s Misty? to the estate to record their sets.
It was a total pleasure and privilege to see and hear them perform (from a safe distance) in the arboretum. We have everything crossed that we can welcome the real life festival back to the estate from Friday 6th – Sunday 8th August 2021.
We like to start ’em young here at Stourton Estates and it’s been a few months now that we’ve had to try to keep the kids occupied so we took the opportunity to train Jamie and three of his friends so that they can make themselves more useful in future! We welcomed instructor Lukas Sokolinski organised through Horncastle Training Group to deliver the LANTRA Tractor training course for 13-15 year olds. We provided two tractors, a couple of trailers, implements for attaching with pick up hitches and three point linkage for them to practice on. The aim of the training is to teach the safe and confident use of a tractor. The fundamentals of safe driving and loading are covered as well as vital Health and Safety information and pre-start and maintenance checks.
By the end of the 2 day course the lads were competent and able to:
Not only was the day informative and vital from a safety point of view but the boys all had socially distant fun – plus it kept them away from the fridge for a while!
As we are writing this the rain is teaming down and there’s a definite nip in the air…..this can only mean one thing… its time to think about placing your log order for (whisper it) winter!
Our quality kiln dried logs are super dry & graded (to remove dust, sticks etc) before being kiln dried at the farm at Baumber.
We only use hardwood species for our kiln dried logs– mainly oak, ash and sycamore. We never blend with poorer species such as poplar or softwoods.
The firewood logs are sold in builders bags sized at approx 0.7 cubic metres and each log is cut to around 10 inches/25 cm.
One 0.7cubic metre bag costs £80 and we offer great value bulk discounts for delivery of more than one bag of logs. Plus delivery is free within a 20 mile radius of LN9 5PB!
Also we are still taking orders for our great quality landscaping products if you are hoping to prep your gardens or outdoor areas for Autumn. See what we have available here.
We are delighted to have been offered that chance to host the official launch of 2021’s Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival on 1st May 2021. We already have our thinking caps on and are starting to plan this! You will also have the opportunity to shape this festival by taking part in an online survey which is due to take place very soon – we will update you when we have more details.
The Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival, formerly known as the Wolds Walking festival is going into its 16th year in 2021. Next year the festival’s remit has expanded significantly to offer people of all ages and abilities the chance to take part in a whole range of outdoor activities in this beautiful area of the county with the benefit that most activities in the festival line-up are either discounted, free or are taster sessions.
The festival will run for 5 weeks from the 1st May and we are very excited about some of the activities on offer… more about this nearer the time, for now it’s something to look forward to next spring!
On the Farm
As we reach the end of August we would usually be through a great proportion of our combinable crop harvest. But this is 2020 and as we all know this is anything but an ordinary year!! Since the last blog post we have made very slow progress with harvest, firstly down to green/unripe crops (partially a legacy of late drilled winter crops) which meant we had to stop when the weather was glorious. Secondly, the aforementioned weather has largely been dull, with high humidity and showery/sometimes heavy rain – which has resulted in our combine being at a standstill for a run of 10 straight days during August, it must be a record!
Yields of crops that we have cut are incredibly variable and are considerably down on our 10 year average. That said, given the trials and tribulations of the season we have been pleasantly surprised by some.
Continuing the farmer whingeing about the weather theme… we were devastated recently when the 40-50mph winds blew a considerable quantity of grain out of crops and onto the floor. While this is completely out of our control, it is heart-wrenching to see a years work blown to the floor so close to the point of harvest (some crops losing up to 30%).
After our oilseed rape harvest we have taken the very difficult decision to drop oilseed rape from our rotation for the time being. It has been a very important break crop on our farm for 30 years or so, but not only that, it is has been an important crop for pollinators foraging. The reason we have dropped it is largely down to the large financial outlay required to grow the crop through the winter. As we can no longer guarantee good establishment and keeping the crop free from cabbage stem flea beetle it is too large a risk to take. In place of oilseed rape we will grow some spring oats as well as some winter beans. We felt it was important to include a non-white-strawed flowering crop within our rotation to benefit the pollinators around the estate, and were offered a good contract to grow winter beans.
In difficult times like we are currently experiencing the enormous value of a good team comes to the fore, their hard work in bringing in the harvest so far has been invaluable. Ken is now itching to get some land work done on his challenger, while Dan and Archie are keen to get their teeth into the bulk of harvest as well as any supporting Ken. The next job for Ken is to sow an overwinter cover crop in front of spring barley before getting on with preparing land for our winter wheat and beans. Archie has been busy lately drilling grass mixes for a new stewardship scheme we have entered as well as drilling a grass/clover mix in our 10ha conservation grazing field.
Fingers crossed next month we will have finished our combinable crop harvest and maybe even have completed our first lift of sugar beet with the processing factory usually opening towards the middle of September. Until then, hopefully we enjoy an Indian summer in September!! (Note to self…try not to talk about the weather in the next blog!!)
Deer Diary
As the summer months are drawing to a close the deer calves are growing but are no less ‘full of it’, as witnessed by the many visitors we have welcomed on our morning deer feeding experiences.
The other notable change to the deer is that the stags are all starting to lose the velvet from their antlers. Antler growth begins in March- April, as the days start to lengthen. Antlers grow incredibly quickly, at a rate of ¼ inch a day. During their development, the stags antlers are soft and spongy to the touch and so are vulnerable to damage. They are also covered in a grey-to-purple coloured membrane referred to as velvet. The velvet provides a vital blood and nerve supply to the growing antlers. It is really important that the velvet does not become damaged as this can lead to deformed antlers later.
As the days shorten and the stags’ testosterone levels increase, the antlers harden from within and this process ceases the blood supply to the protecting velvet on the outside of the antlers. This causes the velvet to dry off and ‘die’. At this stage, dry velvet can be seen hanging from the stag’s antlers and he is said to be “in tatters”.
The deer remove the dry velvet by rubbing their antlers against trees and bushes and this also helps to form the ‘patina’ of the fully formed hardened antlers. Not only are they beautiful, the antlers have a purpose and that is for defending their territory during the breeding season, known as the rut.
Once the testosterone levels drop, after the rut, usually during winter, the antlers density decreases and the antlers drop off.
We hope that you are staying safe and well. We hope that we can welcome you to the estate soon.
Antony and Helen
Reared here on the farm, professionally butchered & packaged for us by local butchers and labelled here, we deliver direct to your door in our veni-van across Lincolnshire, freshly frozen venison is also available for delivery nationwide!
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