Lower Blakemere Farm

Lower Blakemere Farm We farm soil, grass, livestock and crops — in that order. Grass-fed beef • Outdoor pigs • Arable & seed crops
Cover crops, fewer inputs, more biology.

We grow seed and bird food, compost waste
and sell food direct when it’s ready. Not perfect...

05/09/2026

Different crops handle a dry summer differently, and that's rather the point of growing five of them together instead of betting the whole field on one.

White millet is the toughest customer of the three in a drought. It's related to the millets grown across Africa and India precisely because they cope with almost no rain — proso millet and its relatives are extremely drought tolerant and are the crop farmers rely on in the driest, most marginal growing conditions in the world.

Linseed is the one we're watching more nervously. It's got a deep taproot, but flax is known to be more sensitive to drought than most other oil crops, and prolonged dry spells can genuinely knock back both yield and seed quality.

Canary seed sits in between — traditionally grown on the Canadian prairies where summers are short, hot and often dry, so it's no stranger to tough conditions, though nobody's bred it for a Herefordshire hilltop specifically.

Between the five crops on Flat Square and Stockley Hill, the birds who'll benefit from a Field Club bag include: blue t**s, great t**s, coal t**s, long-tailed t**s, chaffinches, greenfinches, goldfinches, siskins, bullfinches, house sparrows, tree sparrows, dunnocks, robins, nuthatches, woodpeckers, collared doves, blackbirds, starlings, and — for anyone near open farmland rather than a town garden — reed buntings and yellowhammers too.

So by the time Phil brings the combine in and the seed goes off to be cleaned and bagged, this field's already done half its job. Birds have nested in it, fed round it, and likely fledged chicks out of it — all before a single Field Club bag exists. Then the harvested seed goes on to feed a different set of birds entirely, in gardens miles away, through the winter. Same field, same crop, wildlife benefit twice over.

You've seen the field now. You know it's a thousand feet up, you know it's had next to no rain, and you know Phil genuinely doesn't know yet how it's going to turn out. That's not a sales pitch — that's just farming, done honestly, in front of you. https://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/products/the-field-club-birdseed-by-the-field

04/09/2026

That's Phil, up on Stockley Hill, giving it to you straight rather than dressed up — because that's the only way we know how to do this. It's about 1,000 feet above sea level up there, we've planted it with buckwheat, black sunflowers, linseed, canary seed and white millet, and since it went in the ground it's had basically no rain at all. We don't know yet whether that crop is going to come good. Neither does Phil. That's not a marketing line, that's just where we are right now.

Here's what we do know. If it works, this will be the UK's first birdseed grown, harvested, cleaned and bagged from a named field, start to finish, by the people who grew it. Phil's aiming to bring it in with the combine in September or October, depending on what the weather decides to do between now and then. From there it goes through our own cleaning plant, gets mixed together properly, and lands in a bag with your name on it. Nobody else is doing this — not because it's a clever gap in the market, but because most people would look at that weather forecast and plant something safer.

That's where the Field Club comes in. Sign up now and you're not buying a finished product off a shelf — you're backing a crop that's still out there in a dry field on top of a hill, hoping for rain. There's no risk to you in that: if you sign up today, you pay nothing until it ships, and we do all the worrying between now and September. But there's something in it for you too — you get to say you were part of this from the start, not just a customer who turned up once it was safely in a bag.

It isn't the cheapest birdseed you'll find. It was never going to be — a whole field, grown for one purpose, cleaned and mixed and bagged specially, costs more than a warehouse blend does. But we'd argue it's worth every penny of the difference, and if you join now as one of our Founding Flock, you lock in a proper saving on top of getting there first.

We don't know exactly how this field's going to turn out. We'd love you to find out with us.

https://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/products/the-field-club-birdseed-by-the-field?variant=55871285789057

02/09/2026

🪱 DIDN'T WIN? THIS ONE'S FOR YOU…

Nearly 3,700 of you fancied getting your hands on a Wiggly Wormery.

We couldn't send one to everyone (our packing team would have left home 😁), but we CAN make your own wormery even better.

For the next 72 HOURS, order a Compact Wormery and we'll add:

🎁 AN EXTRA WORMERY TRAY FREE – WORTH £19.95

And this is a properly useful freebie.

As your worms work their way through your kitchen scraps, the trays gradually fill with wonderful worm compost. More trays mean more composting capacity — more room for scraps, more space for the worms to work and more flexibility to leave one tray of compost to finish while your worms get busy on the next.

So you're getting a bigger, more useful wormery for exactly the same price.

🪱 Extra composting capacity
🪱 More room for your worms to work
🪱 More wonderful worm compost
🪱 Extra tray worth £19.95 — FREE

Simply add a Compact worm farm to your cart - https://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/products/compact-plastia-worm-farm-from-wiggly-wigglers-complete-kit

And an extra tray (choose the same colour) - https://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/products/plastia-compact-worm-farm-extra-tray

and the tray will be FREE at checkout!

For 72 hours only. Please note we are unable to add this to your order once it has been placed.

01/09/2026

Great view. Terrible harvest. Welcome to farming in 2026.

This is the barley on top of Stockley Hill. It's had almost no rain since it went in, and it's failed — not "disappointing," failed. The price was never going to be great even in a good year. In this year, with this yield, it's not a crop, it's a loss with extra steps.

And yes, the view from up here is genuinely lovely. It doesn't pay for diesel, but it's lovely.
Here's what a "failed" harvest actually costs, because it isn't nothing just because there's nothing to show for it. We still have to combine it — diesel, time, wear on a machine, same as if it had yielded properly. We still have to bale the straw. We still have to cart what little grain there is into the shed, where it'll sit looking faintly embarrassed next to the space it should have filled. And then, because there's no alternative, we go again next year — same field, same hill, same hope that the weather might be kinder, because hope is not currently a strategy but it's the only one on offer.

We've always carried risk. Weather's never been guaranteed, and no farmer worth the name has ever expected it to be. But risk used to come with some kind of floor under it. That floor's gone. We're asked to meet some of the highest welfare and environmental standards anywhere in the world — and we're not arguing with the standards, we back most of them — while trade deals wave in food from countries running on chemicals we're banned from using and welfare rules we'd never be allowed to operate under. That's not a level playing field. That's being handed a longer race, in worse boots, against someone let off both.

22/08/2026

Skylark was bred by our neighbour Nigel Winney on the Whitfield Estate, and we are properly chuffed to have him here. He is a Stabiliser bull, which is a breed we really appreciate because they are bred using data as well as good stockmanship — fertility, temperament, calving ease, growth, mothering ability and efficiency all matter.

And this lad is fit. Really fit. Which is just as well, because being a bull is not just about looking magnificent and pulling ridiculous faces. He has to cover ground, find cows that are bulling, stay sound on his feet, and do the job at the right moment.

The funny face he pulls is called the flehmen response. Bulls do it when they are investigating scent and hormones. It looks like he has just remembered he left the oven on, but actually he is reading the room. Or rather, reading the cow.

And here’s the bit people often don’t realise: the cow decides.

A cow comes into heat roughly every 21 days. When she is ready, she will stand to be mounted. If she is not ready, Skylark can jog about looking handsome all he likes and she will simply say, “No thank you, Nigel’s finest, not today.”

Timing matters. Health matters. Body condition matters. Nutrition matters. Stress matters. The weather can matter. The bull’s fitness matters. Good feet matter. Fertility matters.

Farming is not just “put bull in field, get calf”. It is biology, observation, stockmanship and a fair bit of patience.

If all goes well, a cow’s gestation is around 283 days — about nine months — so today’s excitement hopefully means calves next spring.

And yes, cows produce methane. Nobody sensible pretends they don’t. But the idea that cows are the villain of climate change is far too simple.

On the right farm, managed properly, cattle are part of the solution. They turn grass and plants we cannot eat into food. They help cycle nutrients. They feed dung beetles. They support soil biology. They can help build organic matter, manage pasture, support wildlife and make use of land that would not grow human food crops well.

20/08/2026

Why You Get More Than Just Steaks in a Beefy Box
Everyone loves a steak... but what about the rest of the animal?

Our Beefy Boxes contain a balanced selection of steaks, roasting joints, mince and slow-cook cuts because that's how farmers have always sold beef.

It gives you incredible value, helps ensure the whole animal is used properly, and introduces you to cuts you might never have tried before.

Less waste. Better value. Better farming.

🥩 Find out what's inside our Beefy Boxes today.
https://www.lowerblakemerefarm.co.uk/collections/beefy-box

17/08/2026

Not all heroes live in hives

A single mason bee can pollinate as much as 100–120 honey bees

They don’t carry pollen neatly — they’re messy… which makes them brilliant at pollination

They’re completely non-aggressive (no hive to defend)

Each egg you’re seeing will become a fully formed bee next season

Those mud plugs? That’s protection from predators and weather

16/08/2026

🥳 IT’S TOO GOOD TO WASTE WEEK – AND WE’RE CELEBRATING WITH A BIG GIVEAWAY!

One lucky winner will receive a Wiggly Compact Worm Farm Kit – worth £116 – complete with everything you need to start composting your kitchen scraps and Turning them into garden gold.

Your prize includes:
🐛 A Plastia Compact Worm Farm KIT (ideal for homes, gardens, patios, or balconies)

Includes everything you need
🪱 Composting worms and bedding
🧴 Moisture mats + lime mix
💨 Rock dust + worm treat
📖 Easy guide to get started

To enter:
1️⃣ Like this post
2️⃣ Follow @‌wiggly.wigglers
3️⃣ Tag a friend who would love to stop binning their
peelings! (More tags = more entries)
4️⃣ Share to your story and tag us for a bonus entry 🎉

♻️ Let’s help more people stop wasting peelings – and start feeding their soil..

📅 Giveaway closes midnight 23rd August. Open to UK residents only. Winner will be contacted via DM and announced here the next day.

👉 Start now. Because food waste is too good to waste. LINK TO TOO GOOD TO WASTE WEEK in our bio… - lots of lovely offers just for this week!



15/08/2026

See you at The Bells Inn in Almeley, Herefordshire tomorrow for a fab Wild Food UK foraging course 🌿🍄‍🟫🌼

Almeley Green Group

14/08/2026

Watch soil come to life

What you're looking at isn't dirty water. It's the most alive thing on the farm.

In that swirl, a handful of worm casts is letting go of everything it's been holding — billions of bacteria, threads of fungi, a whole microscopic world leaching out of the dark and into the bubbling water. You can't see the creatures with your naked eye, but you can see what they do to the water: that cloud, that life, pouring off the casts.

This is worm extract. We rinse the biology out of the casts and into rainwater, and what we're left with is a living tonic — the soil's own engine, in liquid form, ready to pour back onto the ground.

Because this is the bit we forgot. Soil isn't a dead shelf we prop our plants on. It's meant to teem. And every handful of casts from a single worm farm holds enough life to wake up a whole garden — beds, borders, pots, the lot.

Look at it swirling there. That's not waste. That's the beginning of everything that grows.

Dilute it 1:20 use it fresh while it's alive, and pour the dark back where it belongs. 🪱

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Lower Blakemere Farm
Hereford
HR29PX

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+447966287939

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