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On a misty, humid late-August morning at High Ash Farm, with rain threatening after another dry month of just 17 millimetres, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand on the farm’s poorest south-facing sandy field — the one exception still lush and green after the pollen-and-nectar crop was mown for fire safety.
Chris digs into the concrete-hard ground to reveal the secret: lucerne (alfalfa) and sainfoin sending wooden tap roots two to two-and-a-half metres down to moisture, while nitrogen-fixing nodules on their fine roots feed the plants without any fertiliser. Deer and hares graze the protein-rich growth, and the stems are plastered with black bean aphids that reproduce like Russian dolls — wingless females giving birth to clones already carrying the next generation inside them. Ladybirds feast on the aphids, ants milk them, and the plants already show the first tiny germinating seedlings from last month’s mowing.
The pair then walk an avenue of ancient oaks, where a colossal limb — perhaps three tonnes of timber and fifty feet long — has crashed down overnight with no wind at all. Chris explains the forestry term “self-pruning”: these giant trees shed huge branches unpredictably, creating both magnificent habitat (oaks support more than 350 insect species) and a serious safety challenge on a farm with daily public access. He reflects on their history as naval timber, the kestrel and barn owl boxes they still carry, and the careful ten-metre uncultivated margins left around each tree.
Listener letters add further colour: changing farmyard smells and fertiliser use, hobbies nesting in Yorkshire and the surprising origin of the game Subbuteo, rats and the risks of secondary poisoning, and a heartfelt visit from a listener who travelled from New Zealand to walk the farm she had only imagined.
This episode is a close-up celebration of hidden plant power and the raw drama of veteran trees — ideal for marvelling at drought-defying legumes, the astonishing lives of aphids, and the unpredictable grandeur of English oaks at High Ash Farm.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2432378/episodes/19715819
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Chris@highashfarm.com
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