Harvesting maize near Stuchbury
Photograph: Colin Wootton

Richard Fonge writes:

The harvest is nearly over with the late sown linseed on the Moreton Road being the last crop to be combined along with the barley up the concrete road. Harvests are much earlier now than fifty plus years ago. Then spring corn, wheat, barley and oats made up the majority of the harvest, with wheat the only corn sown in the winter. The old adage was in this area, “Have the sowing done by Banbury Fair”. which is always the second week of October.

The reason we now have much earlier harvests are threefold mainly. Firstly the plant breeders produced varieties of barley and oats in particular, that could be planted with winter hardiness, and as machinery modernised better seedbeds could be made in the autumn to plant into. Secondly in the mid ninety seventies oil seed rape became part of the arable rotation and this was a crop that came to harvest in mid to late July depending on the weather. Thirdly from the late ninety sixties agriculture became more specialised, and so those farmers who went out of livestock farming and concentrated on arable farming led the way in corn production.

The weather still plays a major part in dictating sowing through to harvesting, so it’s an industry very climate dependant.

The celebration of the end of harvest was once one of the major calendar events, with a service in the Village Church, which was decorated with the produce of the land and hedgerow, often followed by a supper and auction of that said produce. But sadly over the years as our connection with the land has become more distant this event has in many villages gradually lost its significance, but the food is still produced to nourish us.

Sulgrave lies in an area of peaceful South Northants countryside, not spectacular in anyway but scenic, so the gruesome monstrosity that is HS2 is leaving a great scar across that landscape for many years to come until such time it has been landscaped after the line has been built. What is distressing to see along the new road to the B4525 and in other areas is the land taken but not used for any purpose, now a mass of dead thistles, ragwort and  other weeds. The seeds of which will be airborne on to neighbouring farms, where they will have to be controlled in pastures and arable crops.

As summer draws to an end, we look forward to autumn, which sees the swallows departing for Africa from the lines on the Moreton Rd. Hundreds of them there, but where have they been all summer?

Finally. A man asked me the way to Jeopardy other day. I replied there wasn’t such a place. But he said “I saw a headline in a newspaper – Over a hundred jobs going in Jeopardy”!

Richard Fonge

Appropriately on the first official day of Autumn 2024, the Village Produce Show took place at the Village Hall, attracting the usual varieties of beautifully arranged flowers and quality vegetables.

More pictures on the next page.

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Common Ragwort (Photo: Colin Wootton)

Richard Fonge writes:

August a holiday month for most, but perhaps the busiest for the farmer. Not only getting the harvest in, but starting to prepare the fields for next years harvest. Oil seed rape needs to be sown ideally before the last week of the month so that it is well established before winter and able to achieve optimum yield. Some of this years harvest will be later because of the late planting in the spring. The barley up the concrete road a good example.

Last month I drew attention to the amount of ragwort everywhere, on our roadsides and wasteland. It is totally out of hand and whilst it may look colourful it poses a risk to livestock as I mentioned last month. When in a dried form as in a hay bale it is deadly, and I have heard of two cases recently of it being found in pasture being mown for hay. In both occasions the ragwort plant had to be pulled before mowing. Necessitating in many dismounts from the tractor.

The canary plant as I write is a golden colour and looks ready for harvesting, and have you noticed the large heap of a black substance on the right on Magpie road. This is sludge from a sewage works which will be spread and then incorporated into the soil straight away. It has been tested for any metals and the field soil has been also tested for its nutrient levels. A good source of organic material. When first applied some thirty years ago, I had some from Severn Trent, injected into the soil very successfully, with many tomato plants appearing before ploughing!

Vintage ploughing matches are very popular in the area, and the Sulgrave ploughing match will take place next month I believe in the field near the Windmill. Please look out for the advertising and go along to see the skill of ploughing as it was and the many vintage tractors taking part. These implements have often been lovingly restored by their operators, to whom we owe a great deal of gratitude for reminding us of times past.

Finally a sign of impending autumn with the gathering of swallows on the lines. It won’t be till around the end of the first week of September before they fly, but they are already coming to their collecting point on the Moreton rd. The seasons roll on, each bringing its own unique moments to be treasured.

Richard Fonge.

Canary Seed (Photo: Tony Keatley

Richard Fonge writes:

This month is turning out to be wet and chilly. The crops everywhere now need sun and warmth to swell the grain to produce a good harvest.

Two crops of a difference being grown are linseed now in full flower on the Moreton Road, a crop we have seen before with its bright blue flowers. The seed when ripe is crushed for its oil and used in many products, most notably paints and as a wood preservative. The second crop is canary seed being grown in a large field on the left as you go to the Magpie junction, which is showing its seed pods. The seed here will be used for medical purposes and for bird seed mixtures. Two other crops that fall into this category are field lupins, another source of oil and borage which is used in the drug industry. Hormone replacement therapy being a primary use.

All landowners have a duty to keep their land free of certain weeds, chief amongst them spear thistle, creeping thistle, ragwort and hemlock. Ragwort with its bright yellow flowers is poisonous and deadly to livestock, more especially when dried in the form of hay. The poisons destroy the liver, so whilst those yellow flowers are seen along our roadsides and on waste land we don’t want them seeding on our pastures. Public authorities have given up trying to control it seems. Hemlock is extremely poisonous to both animals and humans and needs to be kept under control. It mostly grows in damp areas and can be found near the stream up the Moreton Rd. Because its smell is very noxious it does deter people from going near it. Even touching its leaves can bring out a rash. Shakespeare mentions the poisonous hemlock in both Hamlet and Macbeth.

It may have been noticed by some that the young steers in the big green, the field off Little Street with the two horses and those behind the Manor cottages, disappeared for a week in the middle of the month. Here is why. They have had to go back to the farm to be tuberculin tested. This entails taking a skin measurement off the neck and an injection, followed three days later by the skin measurements being taken again. Those readings tell the vet if there has been a reaction, and if any animal has reacted it has to be isolated and sent for slaughter whatever its age and in the case of breeding cows its state of pregnancy. A stressful time for all concerned.!

Old countryman of the past were often brief and succinct in their observations. Percy Barratt of Marston st Lawrence was asked by his landlord what it was like to farm in the 1920s. Reply. “Us ad to scrat”!

Benny Barratt of Greatworth used to watch the village cricket team play and would shout out “ Hot the thing!”

Richard Fonge

The Parish Council announces that Gigaclear Full Fibre Broadband is coming to the village soon.

Maize planted in the fields to the south of the Parish Boundary.
Photo: Colin Wootton

Richard Fonge writes:

We are four days away from the longest day and it feels more like winter at times. However we have had this type of June weather before and will do in the future. If you make your living from the land as I did you have to work and accept the weather you’re given by nature. Just as you accept that life and death go with keeping livestock.

The late sown barley up the concrete road looks well but I suspect it will run to seed well before it should with a very reduced yield as a consequence.

An exceptional crop of wheat sown last October after maize is up at Stuchbury in a field called Sulgrave ground at the exit from the footpath from Wemyss farm. This field I know from experience being of really good fertile soil always out yielding others on the farm. The field growing maize next to it which leads down to the farm house was called the “Milkers field”, but I found out recently it is now called Fonge’s after my family who lived and farmed there as tenants of Balliol College Oxford from 1947 to 1975. Oxford and Cambridge colleges were large land owners and still are but less so now with assets moved into other investments.

At the magpie junction is a field of maize which runs along towards the new road, this crop will be harvested for animal feed, whereas the Stuchbury fields and those planted on the way to Banbury will be used to go into an anaerobic digester for energy production. This is the changing use of land from food production to energy, with also the growing number of solar farms. A sensible balance must be struck between the demands of green energy, nature conservation and food production.

Recently you may have been aware of large tractor and trailers coming through the village for several hours. They were carting fresh cut grass to be made into silage by heaping it into and tightly rolling it down in a clamp were it is sealed and then used as a winter feed for cattle.

We have just witnessed some very articulate D.Day veterans with their memories , and it reminded me of a gentleman I knew who died in 1993 at the age of 101, who could remember his elderly grandmother who was born in 1807 telling him a story from a soldier relative who had fought at Waterloo in 1815.

Richard Fonge