Warborne Farm is a 100 acre mixed family farm. Though no longer certified organic, the farm has been run along organic principles for 3 generations. That is to say we have a high health status for all livestock and crops, and build fertility more than we exploit.
"When my father took over from his father in 1951, there were still 5 working horses in stalls and cows were milked by hand in the loose boxes. Grain was lugged around in sacks and hay stored loose. All this was going on in these buildings, just as it had done for more than 100 years previously.
Now I like to think that we have moved on a bit, but I still hold dear his passion for organic farming, his belief that healthy soil is necessary to produce healthy crops and livestock and in turn to nourish healthy humans.
Bursting with life
Livestock have included every breed of sheep imaginable, geese, turkeys, ducks, chickens (all for eggs and for the table), beef cattle, dairy cows, pigs, horses, New Forest ponies, and I’ll try not to mention the chinchillas (all the rage in the ‘50s!), oh and don’t forget the bees – perhaps the most honest, hard working and generous of them all.
A good crop rotation is the key to the success of the whole farm, and we build fertility more than we exploit it. Over the years crops have included peas, beans, lupins and other pulses; hemp and flax for fibre; hemp, linseed, sunflowers and oilseed rape for oil; wheat, oats, barley, triticale and maize for grains and protein; and field scale vegetables for supermarkets, in particular sweetcorn, purple sprouting broccoli, cauliflowers and courgettes. In fact more than 300 varieties of vegetables have been grown here recently, and 100 varieties of fruit, including figs, melons and peaches. Cut flowers and herbs are grown too.
We have won many awards for our produce, and none more so than for our fruit and vegetables – I somehow won the Marks & Spencer “Organic Grower of the Year” not too many years ago. We still grow a wonderful array of fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers, for family and for the benefit of guests in our barns." - George Heathcote, Farmer
The Farm was the focus of a program called ‘Farm Life‘ which was on the Discovery Channel.
Farm Life was a 13 part observational documentary made about our family life on the farm, and narrated by Jim Broadbent. Even though it was made 10 years ago, Farm Life still keeps getting reeled out and we can track its whereabouts by the letters that come pouring in – mostly from China, usually containing photos of the family dog!
