Opening hours for farms again (with video)

The Yorkshire Post asked participants to chip in ideas which might help.

Home Farm at Newby Wiske, growers for the Riverford veg box scheme, will show visitors around their packing sheds and run an orienteering-style trail around the farm, involving puzzle-solving.

The Pink Pig at Scunthorpe is hosting a plant fair and inviting gardeners to put their questions to a professional grower.

Coppice House Farm at Rivelin, on the Derbyshire edge of Sheffield, has organised sheep shearing and sheepdog demonstrations and invites visitors to make and barbecue their own burgers.

Caroline and Mike Newland of Youlton Lodge, Tollerton, near York, are growing a giant wheel made up of slices of everything which goes into a pizza – tomatoes, onions, herbs, wheat for flour, rapeseed for oil, and pigs Peppa and Roni – as part of the educational facility they are setting up, based on the life cycle of the pizza (see www.thepizzafarm.co.uk).

They are now negotiating for a water buffalo to represent the sources of mozzarella. Their son, Charles, will demonstrate hurdle-making using their own coppiced willow.

Bob and Jane Slater will talk about organic growing at The Walled Garden, Skirlaugh, near Hull.

The national organising office of Open Farm Sunday says popular events in the past have included pig racing and welly whanging and offers a fuller list at www.farmsunday.org/ofs/open/activities.eb

Regional organiser Tamara Hall, of Molescroft Grange, Beverley, says: "It is always worth providing people with somewhere to have a picnic. Putting out some bales in a field for children to play on seems to be okay from a health and safety angle, although obviously not on concrete and obviously supervised.

"We will definitely be doing this.

"To those who hesitate about joining in, I would say it doesn't have to take over your life.

"You could start with an invitation-only tour. We started with local birdwatchers and last year we had the confidence to take in 150 visitors of all sorts."

She said health and safety concerns put a lot of people off but there was enough advice available to make it easy to get through the formalities.

This week, NFU Mutual announced it would extend its public liability insurance to cover the event without charge, as long as customers notified their local offices and agreed to follow a check-list of advice.

The event is organised by the government-funded charity Leaf (Linking Environment & Farming).

Gareth Gaunt of Carlshead Farm, near Wetherby, commented: "They are so keen for you to join in they practically fill in the forms for you."

He also found Natural England willing to come in and build platforms to enable visiting children to pond-dip on his farm.

Participants on the day

Open Farm Sunday is June 13. Search for participating farms. Here are some of them: Newlands Farm, Wigginton, York, 01904 470596; Beadlam Grange, YO62 7TD, 01439 770303; Carlshead Farm, Wetherby, LS22 4BJ, 01937 582421; Coppice House Farm, Rivelin, near Sheffield, 0789 1062649; Denys Farm, Withernsea, HU19 2QA, 01964 614361; Green Top Farm, Hoylandswaine, S36 7JS, 01226 765551; Home Farm, Temple Newsam, Leeds, LS15 0AD, 0113 264 2610; Low Penhowe, Burythorpe, Malton, YO17 9LU, 01653 658336; Newdene Rare Breeds Farm & Small Animal Rescue, Oakworth, BD22 0RQ, 01535 642964; Oakwell Farm, Birstall, WF17 9LG, 01924 326240; Pepper Pot Farm, Oakworth, BD22 0QH, 07739 802015; Prism City Farm, Bradford, BD8 9EZ, 01274 543500; Home Farm, Newby Wiske, Northallerton, 0845 600 2311; Slater Organics, The Walled Garden, near Skirlaugh, HU11 5BL, 01964 527519; Stockbridge Technology Centre, Cawood, Selby, 01757 268175; Pink Pig Farm, Holme, Scunthorpe, DN16 3RE; Pizza Farm, Youlton Lodge, Tollerton, York, 01347 838562.