250 - 400 visitors

Tak­ing the leap

We often spoke about get­ting involved in Open Farm Sun­day pre-pan­dem­ic but always talked our­selves out of it. In 2021 we took the leap and signed up so we could share our pas­sion for what we do.

The event has not only allowed us to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty, wel­com­ing them onto our farm, free of charge, for a fun fam­i­ly day out, but it has giv­en us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell the full Christ­mas tree sto­ry. Christ­mas trees are a unique crop, requir­ing spe­cial­ist care 12 months of the year, some­thing they may nev­er think much about. 

Farm to festive

We have a 700 ‑acre arable enter­prise, run across owned, con­tract­ed and rent­ed land, grow­ing pre­dom­i­nant­ly spring bar­ley and oilseed rape. Although this would per­haps seem like the most obvi­ous area to open for a LEAF event, we decid­ed instead to focus on Christ­mas trees which would offer some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent in terms of a farm­ing story. 

We’ve plant­ed two hectares of Nord­mann Fir and Spruce trees and work along­side sev­er­al oth­er local Christ­mas tree grow­ers to pro­vide high-qual­i­ty trees with low car­bon foot­print to mem­bers of the pub­lic through our fes­tive sea­son­al shop on farm, as well as sup­ply­ing com­mer­cial and busi­ness outlets.

Help is at hand

I think one of the biggest deter­mi­nants for farm­ers not sign­ing up to Open Farm Sun­day is the wor­ry of being unpre­pared for mem­bers of the pub­lic com­ing on to their farm and think­ing that there will be noth­ing of inter­est to show, but remem­ber what is every day to us, is new and fas­ci­nat­ing to them.

You are in the dri­ving seat and the event can be as big, small, com­pli­cat­ed, or sim­ple as you want it to be. The team at LEAF and all the resources they pro­vide real­ly are fan­tas­tic – the risk assess­ments, sig­nage and Try­Book­ing, the free tick­et­ing sys­tem, made prepa­ra­tion for us less stress­ful, espe­cial­ly last year when the pan­dem­ic meant more restric­tions. We were still able to wel­come 350 vis­i­tors and had full con­trol of who was attend­ing and could con­tact them with updates or if there had been any change of plan.

Reduce the workload

Our first event was a real team effort and that is some­thing we will con­tin­ue with going for­ward. We decid­ed what was going where, but local busi­ness­es came along and helped – whether it was tak­ing their own equip­ment and stands or over­see­ing a stand or activ­i­ty we created. 

Each organ­i­sa­tion played their role in mak­ing the day inter­est­ing and infor­ma­tive for vis­i­tors, from the trac­tor deal­er­ship rep­re­sen­ta­tives talk­ing about equip­ment used with the grow­ing of Christ­mas trees, to the local her­itage soci­ety dis­play­ing antique farm­ing equip­ment from the past. 

Oth­er activ­i­ties includ­ed a vin­tage trac­tor dis­play and run round the plan­ta­tion and a scav­enger hunt, task­ing vis­i­tors with find­ing objects begin­ning with each let­ter of the alphabet. 

Each activ­i­ty wasn’t com­pli­cat­ed and didn’t take long to plan or set up. So, for any farmer out there think­ing of get­ting involved but sit­ting on the fence, don’t have any doubts – just do it! 

We can’t wait to wel­come vis­i­tors back this June and con­tin­ue to help pro­mote our indus­try through Open Farm Sunday.