Harvest, more calves and our partnership with Maple Farm

If you live in the Kelsale area, you may have noticed that the landscape is changing in the triangle of land between Butchers Road and the railway line. In 2021 this area of about 50 acres was two conventionally farmed wheat fields.

It is now a mixed organic farm combining agroforestry, rotational arable cropping and the rearing of cattle and sheep. Together with an 8 acre site in North Green we call this Nonsuch Farm.

We acquired the land in February 2022. Although the previous year’s wheat had been harvested, we soon noticed that a new crop of wheat was growing from the seed left behind. This provided our first saleable crop later in the year.

In the Spring of 2022, we sowed a cover crop in the upper field. This included vetches, chicory and clovers designed to start building natural soil fertility.

In the Autumn of 2022, you may have seen one man and a large digger on site. The result was 6 new farm ponds, funded by Natural England as part of the Great Crested Newt conservation program. These ponds quickly filled with rainwater and now all have pond plants growing in them. The first pond to develop vegetation was our ‘ghost pond’ deliberately dug where maps showed that a farm pond had existed before being filled in during the 1950s.

Also, in the autumn we sowed grass and cover crops in the lower field. The most successful of these was a field of vetch which we harvested for winter feed.

In January 2023 there was more machinery on site to fell the line of hybrid poplar trees along the railway. This was necessary for the safety of the railway and we have made good use of the timber by converting it to wood chip which was used as mulch for our planting of 300 fruit trees. These together with walnut and cobnut trees have been planted in rows running north to south in what we now call Wood Field.

In 2023, we constructed a large barn to act as our winter livestock quarters which we also use for solar power generation and rainwater harvesting.

The barn in 2025 with added grain silos

With our sub-divided fields, in the southern part of the farm following the field pattern evident in the 1880s, we needed to establish both stock control fences and hedgerows for their many benefits: wildlife, natural crop pest predators, stock shelter and carbon sequestration. In total our plan called for the establishment of 3km of new hedgerow - somewhat more than was taken out post war, due to the hedged alleys hosting our permissive paths.

Most of these hedges (comprising 17,000 plants) were planted in Autumn/Winter 2023/24 with whips of as many native species as we could get.

In September 2023 we welcomed the arrival of our first cattle from a small herd of pedigree Dexters in Surlingham, Norfolk. Our grandson named the cows Betty and Daisy and the steer Dave.

Late October saw the arrival of 5 new Dexter cows from a herd in Newmarket. All female, they had recently been serviced by a bull. These cows are darker in colour and heavier in build. The oldest, Demeter, soon established herself as head cow. These ones came ready named: Demeter, Iris, Brahman, Gaia and little Storm.

They were initially all wary of each other but soon began to integrate, although Daisy remains shy and tends to get a bit pushed around by the others.

They had many happy days grazing the cover crops in the top fields when not seen train spotting up by the railway line. They handled storms Babette and Ciaran but in the colder and wetter weather they move to the barn.

Our first three calves arrived in the summer of 2024. They were all male and have already grown very large.

One of our first calves, found sleeping under an apple tree

Two animals went to market in early 2025. A butcher in Lavenham processed the meat into retail size packages which we froze and then sold to local people over the following 6 months. We had several repeat customers who sang the praises of our pasture fed Dexter steaks, mince and joints.

In 2024 we received confirmation of our organic status from the Soil Association. This means that we will soon be able to market produce from the farm as organic.

Weather extremes have been a challenge at Nonsuch Farm. A very wet winter in 2024 delayed getting the cattle out onto pasture because they would have done too much damage to the ground in its muddy condition. This meant that we had to buy in emergency supplies of hay. On the upside, our newly planted hedges got off to a great start and are still thriving despite the opposite extreme of prolonged drought in 2025.

We did harvest some arable crops in summer 2025 but the yields were driven down by the lack of rain and, to be honest, a lot of weeds that are a natural consequence of our organic husbandry.

This year we are bringing in sheep to aid in our weed control grazing and with a view, in due course, to adding organic lamb to our product range.

We would also like to develop a vegetable growing business but would prefer to do this in partnership with others or as a community venture. Please do contact us if this may be of interest.

We are pleased to record our thanks to neighbouring farmers who have helped with advice, supplies and equipment.

We are particularly pleased with our growing relationship with Maple Farm, which hosted some of our cattle this summer and have taken some of our grains and bean crops as chicken food.

We are also grateful to Suffolk Wildlife Trust for their advice and support in this endeavour. Our Farm Manager, Sam Hanks, works with them part-time. We are indebted to Sam for his hard work and knowledge.

We are a farming business and hope in due course to sell more quality organic food into local markets. But we also have a key objective to build biodiversity across the site. We are grateful for the work of the Kelsale Biodiversity Group who helped us baseline the wildlife on site as we began its development. As our hedges, trees and ponds mature we hope to see a transformation of the hillside from open arable monoculture to a more complex mix of habitats which we hope might one day attract species like the turtle dove.

Julian and Fiona Cusack

9 September 2025