Farm Of The Week: The Wall of plenty plays a vital role

It is simply known as The Wall by locals and tourists alike as they take the back route from Thirsk to Hovingham because that’s what it is, and trade is regular throughout the year. An honesty box for payment of vegetables illustrates how this area of Yorkshire has remained largely untouched by today’s less trusting society.

The wall of Corner House Farm on the crossroads at Coulton has been the Stark family’s retail outlet for something like 40 years when Doug and Janet first put out their surplus lettuce.

Their two sons, Peter and Chris, are now also involved with the family farm that runs to some 200 acres spread across eight villages all within around seven miles of the home farm.

Peter attended Harper Adams College where he studied for his degree in agriculture before coming back to the farm. Whilst the livestock side is more his thing he is quick to highlight the important role The Wall has had to play in his family’s life and farming survival.

“It may not be in the same league as a contributor to the farm as sheep and cattle because of the value of livestock, particularly at the moment, but in 2001 when livestock prices were on the floor because of foot and mouth regulations it was the difference between continuation and bankruptcy.

“We now grow 30 different vegetables across 20 acres including everything from parsnips, potatoes, carrots, leeks, French beans and runner beans, cabbages, lettuce, asparagus, spinach and celeriac. And we trade them all from The Wall. We’ve also started growing vegetable plants to sell to other gardeners to fill a quieter time normally between now and May when we have less produce available.

“The name just developed from hearsay. People would tell others that we were the ones with food on the wall and we would get new customers coming up to us saying are you The Wall? We now advertise ourselves this way on our website and in local magazines.”

The largest vegetable crop is still potatoes and the Starks grow Wilja, as their regular weekly customers who buy all their groceries from them don’t want to change.

“Wilja is a traditional variety. It is great for any type of cooking. We do get a number of other farmers, who grow more recent varieties, asking why we still grow them and our answer is because people keep coming back for them. It is getting a little more difficult to get the seed though.”

The Starks also sell home-reared pork and lamb from the farm although understandably this is not left on the wall. Janet is always on hand to look after customers.

Livestock on the farm includes 350 breeding ewes, 30 suckler cows, some pigs and 100 free range hens whose eggs are also sold the same way as the vegetables. Chickens and turkeys are reared for Christmas.

“Our ideal system for the sheep is the Suffolk on to the Mule, producing a gimmer that then goes back to the Charollais. We used to use Charollais, Suffolk and Texel but we’ve tried to get a little more streamlined and we are picking up on the hybrid vigour of crossbreeding.

“We start lambing in mid April and barring what we sell direct from farm the rest go to Malton Market. We tend to keep them until after Christmas and sell them as hoggs around 10-12 months old. There’s usually a price premium for keeping them over winter, but the recent drop in prices hasn’t been good so we’ve yet to send last year’s crop. I think we may have to take our medicine soon and start selling them. We’re just hopeful that the price will pick back up again.

“We breed about 70 replacements each year and I buy a pen of 10-20 Mule gimmer lambs at Wombleton Sheep Sale at the back end to run on and produce Mule shearlings. Our tups I generally buy at Malton, but I bought three Charollais tups from David Lee of Northallerton last year. He also does our scanning. We’re around 185 per cent which I’m happy with.”

Peter’s suckler herd utilises a Simmental stock bull, as the Starks have for the past 15 years. Once again he is going for hybrid vigour and has recently been buying dairy X heifers from a neighbouring farmer that have been put to either Aberdeen Angus or Belgian Blue before putting the Simmental back on them. The beef goes as stores at Malton Livestock Market.

Peter moved into a new house last May in Hovingham, which is where lambing and calving takes place.

He married Sarah 18 months ago who works at Ian Mosey’s feed mill nearby. His brother Chris attended Bishop Burton College for his qualifications and is also an agricultural engineer.

Doug was a lecturer at Easingwold Agricultural Centre, part of Askham Bryan College, and was born in Slingsby; whilst Janet originally comes from Nunnington. “Dad told me I couldn’t come back to the farm unless I’d first had an education. It’s funny but whilst I was at college I never thought I would use what I was being taught, but you do.

“As a result of being there I think I came back with a modern outlook, embracing technology and such as social media to the farm’s advantage.”

That may not appear so when you drive along to find The Wall.

It all looks like a step back in time, but Peter has managed to combine the ‘olde worlde’ style appeal of shopping from the wall with free advertising thanks to good use of the social network and their own website.