Guy Singh-Watson

One of the crops we look forward to every year from Baddaford is sweet summer strawberries, grown traditionally, out in the fields. “To ease and speed up picking, most growers have moved to tabletop production of strawberries, growing in polytunnels where the plants never touch soil. Instead, they are fed hydroponically in gutters, or grown in peat which is discarded after a year; both rightly banned under organic rules,” says Guy.

“Our strawberries are grown in the soil, which is more sustainable and, we think, gives much better flavour. On hot, humid days, ripe strawberries make the whole field smell like a jam factory. But picking them is back-breaking work, favouring the young and flexible – I couldn’t manage a full day of it myself anymore.” To make the picking more ergonomic, this year Guy’s trialling growing a row of berries in high raised beds.

Another favourite is the wild garlic gathered from the deciduous woodlands around Baddaford. These punchy, fragrant leaves emerge unaided in February, from bulbs and seeds that have been hiding under last year’s leaf litter. By mid-March, the most favoured areas are big enough to pick from, and there is a six-week season before the plants flower, which we enjoy to the fullest, eating our fill.

“Ramsons (the local name for wild garlic leaves) are not only delicious, but highly sustainable; they can yield as much as a field of spinach without the energy-consuming and habitat-destroying plough, whilst the same area simultaneously produces wood, nuts, and valuable wildlife habitat. For many years my children, nephews and their friends have spent the Easter holidays foraging for wild garlic in our woods,” Guy says.

Baddaford Farm is also home to some of Guy’s most innovative projects, including our own compost heaps. When you send back any of our home compostable packaging which you can’t compost at home, it’s taken to Baddaford to be mixed with veg waste, wood chip, wooden boxes that have reached the end of their lives, and sometimes farmyard manure. After two months of turning once or twice a week, followed by three to six months of maturation, the compost is ready to spread on our crops!

Another inspiring project Guy is working on at Baddaford is planting hazelnuts and walnuts. “This project is driven by passion and deep rationality, not economics,” Guy says. “The idea is to introduce biodiversity by mixing old, complex pasture, grazed by animals, with nut trees overhead; to grow food on marginal land without disturbing the soil, and to sequester carbon underground.”