Imagine the theme music from Masterpiece Theater… a former oil & gas accountant leaves his lucrative career and travels by bicycle to a walled garden. Mimi Casteel speaks with her friend Tim Phillips from Charlie Herring Wines in the UK. If you do nothing else, check out his website—beware the litany of web warnings!—for a darlin illustration of his farm and incredibly entertaining blog. He not only does a lot of innovative things, but also uses a lot of old school methods, and he’s our people, people. Enjoy.
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Okay so imagine this intro set to the theme music for Masterpiece Theater on today’s podcast we speak to a former oil and gas man accountant who leaves his lucrative career behind to flee the baboons of South African Vineyards and finds his way by bicycle to a wall Garden in Limington yes
Folks we’re going all those places today I got to catch up today with my friend Tim Phillips from Charlie Herring Wines in the UK I met Tim um when I was visiting the UK last summer I got to meet a bunch of really cool people on that trip but Tim was definitely a
Standout and I so enjoyed catching up with him again I will say that if you do nothing else um after this podcast you need to go and check out his website which comes with a Litany of um like web warnings by the way I don’t know what
What server host he’s using but it’s it’s worth going cuz it like this darling um illustration of his of his cool plays and and then you can get into his blog which is incredibly entertaining and I had just the best time speaking with with him he uh does a
Lot of um Innovative and also kind of old school things and and thinks a lot so he’s our people people and I hope you enjoy my interview with Tim Phillips from Charlie Herring Wines today’s episode of The notail Market Garden podcast is brought to you by high mowing organic seeds its seed browsing season and high mowing organic seeds is celebrating their 30 new seed varieties for 2024 these beautiful and productive vegetable flour and Herb varieties are 100% organic non-GMO project verified
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Sign up for your free catalog today that’s higho seeds.com all right enjoy the show all right Tim good morning I mean good afternoon uh good evening hey how we doing I’m great I’m great how was are you done are you are you fully finished are you all done yes everything
Picked um yes which is which is a nice feeling I mean I enjoy the whole process but it’s a it is nice to get everything into the winery well then at least you know it’s safe sa ped away yeah exactly that’s how I feel I’m always very sad
When it’s over because I have to face the responsibilities that have been piling up behind me but then then again it is nice to um get through one without all the calamities but before I get too deep into um you know what it looked like for
You let’s introduce you Tim um let would you would you tell us who you are where you’re from what you’re what you’re doing how much how much you farm where it is all the things sure um I mean yeah my name’s Tim Phillips I’ve run a adventure called Charlie Herring um
Which I started back in 2005 um having work in the oil industry as an accountant an economist which is my background um and which great it was great but but a bit um accountants you know they’re known for being a bit dull and is a bit dull so wine always
Interested wine began to really really interest me while I was living in Italy and to cut long story short having studied in South Africa I ended up buying some land back home in England where I was originally from um near my parents and yeah it’s been it’s been a
Pretty magical journey from there on in actually over the last nearly 20 years um I’ve got seven acres in total um of which one acre is a Vineyard and it’s within a um 200y old wool Garden um which has been just an amazing journey and um then I’ve got um three acres of
Orchards and a couple of Acres of Woodland um and yeah little bit of open ground which I’m doing bits and pieces with so it’s but it’s really um I’ve always I’ve started focused on when I was studying sou Africa I started focusing I wanted to make wine and by
The time I’d finished that course which was at a um College called elenberg which is a it was it was an amazing experience for me I realized what I really enjoyed was Vines um and this is this is coming from someone who couldn’t keep a house plant alive you know if you
If if if before I went to study if you give me a house plant just sentenced it to death um and yeah just fell in love with that side of it um and through this through the Journey of um my Vineyards in the ground I’ve become more and more
Interested not only in in in V culture which probably was my first 10 years was getting my head around that but now it’s the whole it’s the whole of nature really is what um which which enthrals me to be honest and informs everything I do um and actually informs the wine and
Informs everything so I think that’s you know so I’m I’m the focus is the vineyard because Vineyards rule your life as you know meim if if you know if you if you start one it owns you you don’t own it um and Orchards I was very
Lucky that the land I bought to the old W Garden had Orchards behind it dating back to the early 1860s um which um just amazing and and I’m PL and I’ve planted more fruit trees because they’re um I’m I’m a big believer in diversification mean a good
Year for terrible year for Vines you may still get you know apples etc etc I think we’re very we’re too I think as human beings we’ve become too expert too specialist at things and I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing or it works for me to be more diverse
Especially as a small operation um yeah and then Woodland which honestly was just behind the bit of ground I wanted to to build a winery so I bought an Old Farm building in amongst the woods and um the woodlanders uh I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the Woodland and it’s the most
Forgiving element of my work so you know Vineyards own me and the orchards are pretty forgiving they’re not very they’re not too demanding very easy to work with nature and Woodlands are just heaven and and Incredibly productive places and and and huge huge lesson sort of learning place for me for for
Everything including the wine so you know when typically if someone someone comes to see me they they have to sit through me you talking about coping Hazel for at least the first half an hour um just because it it’s so informative as to how I think how how
How nature is which is so important for Vines and it’s why I’m such a believer in having this diversity okay so you’re you’re an accountant in the oil industry yes and yes and then I mean let’s let’s dig into that a little bit because that’s I mean think the most interesting
People in any field didn’t start there because as you say I think specialization kills creativity um and a no no offense to all of you Specialists out there but so talk about that talk about like how you left what was almost certainly a much more lucrative um
Situation uh to follow did you follow wine to South Africa or did you happen to be there so I went to I went to a school where if you could do math physics and chemistry that’s what you did and if you couldn’t you did something else so because I was um I
Don’t know certain level of intelligence and math comes easy to me did math physics and chemistry then went on to do economics at University um then went traveling actually because I fundamentally didn’t want a job and I still look at people who are busy applying for jobs where you
You put a suit on and go into the city every day and and wonder do you really want to job or you just you know just just because you think you should but um went traveling for bit then it came back to a big recession 1991 this is um and
It was hard to find work but someone said to me just go and become get your chartered accy done it’ll take three years um they’re always hiring because accountants you know they’ll they’ll charge you lots of money if you’re making money and if you’re going bus
They’ll charge you lots of money to do the liquidations as well so they they’re always hiring and it was one of the best decisions I ever took me me because whilst yes I’ve got 20 less vintages than I would have had if I gone straight into the wine industry um everything we
Do in life informs what we do and I wouldn’t be the wine grower that I am if I’d gone straight into it and so so I’m very I’ve got a couple of um uh one specific uh customer who’s who’s a great lady and she keeps saying oh that sound
You sound like such an accountant and I hated that to start with because I thought it was an insult but actually you know I think it’s very important that these things inform how you do it it’s one of the reasons I’m very small is as an operation is because I thought
About you know the economics of it all I call it peasant economics we can get onto it but um yeah so so I ended up studying doing that and doing some more traveling and then you got a job in the oil industry which is of course Very I
Mean I think it’s I think it’s fantastic that younger Generations won’t work in the oil industry because you know they’ve taken this the they they had this sort of moral objection to it which is great but I was utterly ignorant of that they paid very well it was in
London it was a great crowd I got to travel the world working for them and ended up working in Italy um on an oil field project which had me living in Rome for three years and and so if there’s anything that had to sell myself
To the devil to end up being paid to live into Rome for three years it was um yeah it was amazing and of course got me into wine and another way of thinking because you know I don’t know what it’s like in the States but in England everyone’s obsessed with bloody money um
You know to the extent where they want to see I don’t know they want to see what car you drive they want to see the size of your house they’re quite happy to take a $5 bottle of wine round to dinner but they still want to drive a
80,000 car that will only go the same as a 20,000 car whereas you go to Italy and it’s just a completely different attitude um people aren’t interested in you know what you do for a living um it’s it’s just not so important on what you earn and you people don’t ask
What you do at the weekend because I think you’re mad because on the weekend you have lunch on Sunday and far and PAs you go for a walk and that’s it you no one says what did you do so it was it was fantastic culturally for me but
Obviously from a wine point of view amazing um and I went out there pretty wet behind the ears I just sort of started getting interested in wine I was what 20 27 28 wasn’t really didn’t drink much but um yeah it was a magical time Italy had 1997 one was their greatest
Vintages in the last 50 years and I went out there and I bought a pamphlet by a guy called Robert Parker um and uh went around to my wine shop and the local wine shop on V shibon in atavian in Rome and yeah they’d have bottles of wine you
Know this is a I don’t know you know this is $300 and I go in there and go that can’t be right because it’s 6,000 L which is like 15 quid and I was going well it can’t be it looks like the same bottle of wine but it can’t be and
Everything was a tenth of the price so every time I got paid MBE I went out and bought all these wines which funny enough I’m still drinking because I didn’t really get around to drinking them well and they that’s good I mean they’re probably all the better for
That and and and and that’s one of the other things you know if you think accountancy is very immediate I love I love long term me me I’m not interested in things that that are quick I have this perverse interest I mean if you’re going to make good Spar sparkling wine
Than you need to you know because it’s 10 years from planting to a bottle I think you to hold in your hands but I have a perverse interested in that partly because I think it stops anyone else doing it you know in South Africa I was making fortified wines um and I love
Tny pork but if you you as a 32y old if you want to make a t Port you better get on with it because we only bottled it last year had 16 years in barrel and it’s epic but I don’t have another one in me because uh I I won’t be around to
Drink it that’s right that’s right but it is I mean I do think that thinking thinking in those terms and in in those timelines is one of the things about working with nature is that you you have this very different relationship with time and it it isn’t
On this sort of immediate rotation and it allow I mean when people are doing a good job like you it allows you to see opportunities every as opposed to this is the one thing that I’m doing and that’s all I see so AB yeah absolutely and and when you’re
Looking at things you know I’m I’m so so you know I was very lucky and the land so the land I purchased the the vineyard and the Old Orchards I mean they were this this this is land that hadn’t been worked since 1970 so it’s a world
Gardens attached to very big stately you know you probably know they come with you massive big stately homes and these people who 200 years ago didn’t want to eat sweds and potatoes like the peasants in the village they very cleverly built these W Gardens not now they’re deemed
As pretty but for them you know then it was engineering and Incredibly well engineered in terms of the proportions of them and how much heat they would retain and what they could grow and it allowed them to grow a wide array of crops and without a recourse to
Chemicals and stuff they had to really think so I was really blessed with that land because although I didn’t know it at the time I mean I had an Inkling because it was essentially the house the the country estate was sold to a hotel in 1970 and they didn’t want this extra
These Orchards and other bit you know and and wo Garden which essentially as far as I were was just a vegetable garden um and so everything was sold and the door was shut on this W Garden for 35 years until I until I bought it in
200 five um and and as such I’ve got land which is in abs absolutely pristine condition and I can say the same about the Woodland you know which is was cused for 200 300 years um and then left abandoned to to to Nature and and so it’s they’re in fantastic condition the
Interesting part was the field behind it which was commercially farmed as a lavender farm and was was quite visibly dead Mimi you know when when you you could tell it it was just a lifeless place and I was superb I was really lucky because I I I’ve got great friends
And I would say to them what do you want to do and my brother who’s a landscaper you know he’d have the whole thing dug up and this and put this in and plant that um but my brother-in-law a chat called Martin gilr who’s a great guy and
Works works in um in nature reserves and that sort of stuff said if he had it he would just leave it and see what happened and so for 10 years we left this three acre field and did nothing which is very very against my um I love
To do things you know I love to you know if I love going in the woods and just tinkering with a few branches just because I love it so um but I had a lot to do elsewhere and it’s amazing what happened in 10 years but we do get lost
We you know someone will tell me they think that’s a long time if I told them buy some land and leave it for 10 years to think I was insane but actually my thinking for that ground is 200 years um and and and and you know and I think if
We look at climatic problems we’ve got now we need to get we need to get on board with Solutions but we need to look to sort it out you know things could be good in 150 200 years people don’t want to think like that they want it all done
Tomorrow in terms of they want results tomorrow and I think that’s yeah I think it’s yeah nature nature teaches you to um laughs at you if you start to try um short term doesn’t it it sure does um it it’s it’s kicking our ass right now really is what it’s doing yeah yeah
Absolutely yeah we we’ve made a heck of a mess of it um and yeah it’s it’s uh it’ll carry on regardless beautifully Fung and all these things will carry on the quicker the humans uh leave you know leave the planet the the quicker it’ll get itself back together again but in
The meantime I’m really enjoying my seven acres um that bit there yeah I mean it’s it is almost that’s almost too big but given that you that that it’s Diversified and that you’re not doing the one thing on all seven acres I mean I think a one acre Vineyard is brilliant
And so tell me about you know in terms of the like the wines and the ciders and how you decided to do both and I think sometimes you do co- ferments right yes yeah yeah and so with the I mean was it because the orchard was there you you
Decided I’m gonna do cider too or had you appreciated cider previously I mean I know it’s a bigger a much bigger thing in the UK but um and and so many great examples of really cool stuff but was it because you had the fruit or was it just
You you knew you wanted to do that and you found this I mean getting a little bit to how you happened upon this wild garden because it really is not I mean we don’t have that here it’s very special and I’ve I’ve just seen pictures
And and it it was yeah I was I was super lucky so so I should I should be you know from the outset my interest was wine me and and what was what was what was so serendipitous is the pieces of ground you know if I bought I I bought the wool
Garden because I wanted to plant a Vineyard and I really love so I’m on I’m in what is the New Forest on the south coast so it’s about 150 miles about 120 miles Southwest of London so right on the south coast if you look at a map of
The England there’s a there’s a an island sort of bang in the middle on the south coast called the a of white and I’m just opposite that um it’s a fantastic place um agriculturally um it’s marit the maritime climate because I’m just over a mile from the sea um and also it’s
Surrounded by what’s known as The New Forest which is was planted in um 900 ad so it’s not really new it’s called new because the king at the time and I’ll get his name wrong because I’m not great on history but it was King William or something wanted to go hunting and he
Couldn’t have couldn’t find anywhere to go hunting because to be honest we’d cut all the forest down to make water ships and beat the rest of um Europe up as much as we could and and so he had this Forest planted and Forest is it’s Forest isn’t Woodland Woodland is all trees
Forest is a mixture of open ground and trees and so it’s a beautiful area but if you can imagine an area that’s heavily treed um it has a very special climate um and also beneficially for me m i don’t have a Vineyard next door um
So from from a um a biodivers point of view you know I can’t imagine how someone in in one of these lorded areas of you know champagne or Bordeaux or something can practice biodiversity when you know literally it’s just so much fitter culture there so really really
Blessed here to do that and but I bought the vineyard because the downside of of the New Forest is it’s flat Mimi it’s flat as a pancake so there’s no slope but um a w Garden is my slope essentially um because it was built for he heat retention they were designed to
Take you 7° further south um which takes us to sort of Bordeaux region um but as you know with vulture you can’t just look at that because our climate is a maritime climate so we get a very variable weather pattern um but incredible soils because the New Forest
Was formed on um on aluvial um sorry on Terminal Marine from the last ice age so it’s a really really interesting gravel-based sub soil and a fantastic place to be grow but if I’m honest so the wo Garden I loved the idea of it so I bought it and behind it
Was the Old Orchard um unfortunately I had so much to do clearing the wool Garden that for four or five years I never got round to even looking um in the in the Orchards which was great because my lack of knowledge then I probably would have bulldozed
Everything I would have you know these gnarly old trees that were you know had they got big holes in the 160 old apple trees i’ probably G let’s just knock them down and plant new ones fortunately I didn’t because I was far too busy in
The vineyard um but come 2016 I had um lost all my grapes to frost it was the first time we had we had a late frost on the 6th of May air Frost so the W Garden’s pretty well protected um because the maritime climate against most ground Frost but we had this severe
Um air Frost and huge losses for um a lot of Vineyards me included so and as you know with Vineyards it doesn’t change your level of work in the vineyard one iota in fact it’s worse because the vines are quite they’re more vigorous they’ve got no fruit to ripen
So they’re just you know and my Vines at this AE at this stage are seven eight years old which for me is sort of teenage years when they’ve got lots of Vitality and absolutely no idea what to do with it so growing y yeah so um I’m
Doing all this work and wondering what you what the heck I’m doing it for for no fruit and and it was literally that phrase in my head and I’m standing but I’m standing next to this very old apple tree and I said well I have got fruit
But it’s just not the fruit i’ got in this for so um I decided to make a cider why not I’ve got a but you know I’ve got a basket press why don’t I have a go um so we made a cider and and and and as a
Something informs me here’s a tree that’s you know 100 at that time at least 150 years old it’s received no inverted commas attention and yet it produced 250 kg of apples um I mean unbelievable you know if and if someone needs a lesson in in how to farm it’s
You know it’s that sort of you know masu fuka idea of just leave it alone lazy farming it was you know fantastic anyway it’s got a long story I made this cider and it was it was just so dull there was nothing wrong with it there was
Absolutely nothing right with it it’s a com because they’re a combination of eaters and cookers they don’t have much structure much interest so I made the cider and um and yeah just oh dear that’s it’s a bit embarrassing but um a phrase my father always used which is
Never give up on a bottle of wine it just sat in the tank um for nearly two years actually until I came across a bottle of wine from larista in Vermont who who I’ve got to know a bit now and they’re you know amazing it’s called stolen roses and it’s a cider fermented
On red grapes skins tried this thing and oh was amazing so I literally immediately ran straight down to the winery um took a glass of my my cider and then poured a tiny bit of my austral sou African Shaz I’ve made in and and hey Presto um uh I started getting interesting interesting
Side and it’s it’s an old Italian recipe very you know super intelligent no no waste in their in their sort of mentality of cuch poo where they um you know you you do something with all your apples until whatever you had left you would juice them and then if you didn’t
Drink the juice then it would ferment but it’s a bit boring because it lacks phenols but what you know then that’s really what you’re lacking in a nontraditional cider apple but where do you get fenals you red grapes so um they would just add a bit um or even knowing
This was going to happen ferment them on Grape skin um and yeah it’s it’s a it’s a fantastically interesting Journey side here it’s very I think the wine world’s very picked over you know there’s probably not a wine style that hasn’t been it’s been continually produced obviously got things like orange wines
Which have you know had a bit of a Resurgence but most things have been pretty well ped picked over where cider is still wide open there’s a lot of ciders that were made 150 years ago sparkling English ciders were well known to age 30 35 years um but that sort of
Disappeared um and they age really slowly Mimi so if you put them in Barrel if you make a white wi and you put it in Barrel you’ll taste I mean probably you you know you’re thinking about it from you know six months in trying it every
Couple of weeks to try and get the optimum point to bottle or all that sort of thing ciders they just they age sort of glacially and you can literally try them six months at a time and they’ve hardly moved so I find them incredibly interesting um and it’s one of the it’s
One of the byproducts in terms of waste if you think of a sparkling wine producer you you spend all this time growing your Chardon and within two hours of picking your chardonay you’ve taken 35% of that product are you skins and essentially it’s a waste product um
You know it’s even I mean people say they compost them but they never seem to want to show me their compost heaps um you know there’s a lot there’s a lot of material there and actually you know those skins when they’re sweet and all those p and stuff they’re quite hard to
Compost actually and they’re hot they’re hotter than hell if you put them in the side um you know in 2020 so I’ve done I’ve got recing seron Blanc and Chardon and I’ve done ciders on all of them um seron Blanc doesn’t work that well actually but Chard is unbelievable the
Ciders are I mean I’ve poured them for people and people said is this your charder no this is the cider um it’s it really those chard characters carry through very well which is interesting because as an orang wine I don’t think Chardy works very well at all um whereas
SAR and orange wine works very well but it doesn’t lend itself to side that um reing as with as with reing is just amazing everything you know if if you know if reing could drive it would win Formula One it’s just um it’s such an amazing great um so that does that does
Everything really well um but it’s been so it’s really it’s a really good balance for me which came about because of that 2016 Frost you know to to make a product which is um a lot less time hungry you know average tree between 20 and 40 minutes a
Tree a year uh for an apple tree um you know where’s my Vineyard well I think they they say a thousand, hours a hectare for a Vineyard and I do everything so I’m you know my and I think my Vineyards get more attention to that because the
They um well attention to detail but also the the the W Garden brings some humidity issues it’s very warm but it does it does give you it does give you some humidity issu so I’m I’m it’s it’s very very hungry of my time between May and
October I imagine and it’s it’s a really interesting um you know Nexus between the engineering of a w garden and how that really does change your latitude basically but it also traps humidity in an already very humid growing season so talk a little bit about that like the the practicalities
Of just growing grapes in the UK to begin with um because of the the moisture the fact that you know if you if you stand in one place for very long mold is going to start growing on you so exactly yeah well some very interesting
Lyans yeah um I mean the UK is a fantastic place to be going great you know it’s it’s it’s a really exciting time now um and it the potential the potential is fantastic um working in a w Garden is is interesting thing it’s for me it’s absolutely perfect because it
Gives me it gives me some real heat accumulation if you think if I take I think in the early years I I had a two weather stations and was monitoring it and in a typical year if I was getting 860 Degree Days inside um outside the wall Garden literally on the other side
Of the wall in in the orchard I was getting um 1150 Degree Days inside so it’s measurable you know increase in the Heat and importantly spring and Autumn you get a lot of heat reflection so those those sort of days where um as the sun goes down you just feel the chill
Come in or you know it takes a while to warm up the the heat retention of the walls it’s I mean you can feel them glowing so it’s it’s it’s a fantastic it’s a fantastic device and and the people who built the Mimi were their understanding of nature was unbelievable
So when I when I originally bought the W garden and cleared it um you Wonder on road Direction and and and clearly north south is your sort of optimal um sun catch you know in order to catch the Sun but there’s quite a lot of work being
Done on in marginal climates clearly um in someone like South Africa where it’s 25 degrees at 8:00 in the morning you’re going to get as much photosynthesis in the morning as in the afternoon whereas in in somewh like the UK where you get those colder starts you you you’d rather
Have some afternoon Sun than some than some morning you trade a bit of Morning Sun in order to get you know when you’re into the mid 20s higher 20s optimal photosynthesis um and the wall is 26 degrees off north south and it’s really interesting because I’ve done a bit of
Work with some other wall Gardens and one of which is um 2 degrees latitude latitude north of me so I’m on 50 degrees and this one was at 52 degrees and their wo Garden was 28 degrees off north south so they’ve gone two degrees further north and it’s and it’s two
Degrees further off the north south and and these are these are these are um these These are calculations that people are doing now you know with with with the of satellites etc etc but but but when they built these walls they really really did understand the climate
You know there’s an old glass house in the in the W garden and it looks fairly sort of in congruously dumped sort of to one side but not at one end or anywhere particularly optimal and funny enough I spoke to the local farmer when I was
Clearing it um when we were starting to clear the W garden and and mentioned that and he said if you wait till midwinter’s day on the 22nd December when the sun shines which it doesn’t always do in the UK so it was a few years before I got to try but the Shadow
From the main house that owned the ward um on the 22nd December at midday the Shadow from that house just kisses the bottom of the greenhouse and so they they bothered to plant it as close as they could to the house because it’s where um the kitchen boy would go every
Day to get the you know the veeg the sort of salad leaves and all that kind of stuff that wanted to be as close as it could without being actually um in cast in Shadow so so the thought process that they went through is incredible so
I’ve learned a lot from the place itself um but I planted I came back from South Africa I planted three varieties you know we discussed Shard recing s Blanc I didn’t talk to any Consultants not a massive fan of Consultants um because they seem to be able to they seem well
They seem to be able to turn up somewhere and pretend like they know it which I think as you’ll know Mimi my my you know and and I’ve got people coming to me me and saying oh this is great we’d like to do this I said well no no
No it works here where are you think you’re growing oh 10 miles away absolutely which is don’t don’t take what I do here as working there so but I planted those th Arles I planted them like a South African so they were all trained with permanent cord and arms um
And I trained them at you know Fring warrant 90 CM because that’s what you did um or that’s what I knew um and but I suppose if you think of a vineard with a 90 CM fru and W if it’s open then if the wind comes across you you’ve got all
That air coming underneath and I don’t get that because the wall essentially stops that so what I’ve what I’ve been doing and it slightly painful process um to 10 12 year old Vines is going through and cutting them off at the ground and letting them grow again and taking the
Fruiting wire down to 50 cm and it’s working fantastically not that my wines before it weren’t good but as everything in wine making for me is incremental and I don’t have not being in a traditional wine area you know I mean if you go to you know I
Don’t know if you go to co depri and Moran you know you know how to plant your Vines because they’ve been doing it for 600 years and they’ve kind of got it off Pat whereas I’m 15 years in and I always say to people you know come back
In 300 years and I’ll have this stuff you know I’ll I’ll have Vine material that’s mutated to the soil and know exactly what it is but it’s a long process so that’s really working well I get more less shattering between the vines and better air circulation so my disease pressure definitely definitely
Is down as a result of that but that’s just getting used to that place are you doing that work all at once or are you taking it you know little chunks at a time so that you don’t lose yeah four rows at a time absolutely because bizarrely well it’s not bizarre but in
My utter ignorants of course they want to grow very fast because you’ve essentially taken off you know you’ve taken off quite a big Vine that will that has a lot of outlet for its energy and you take it down to one or two buds um and and suddenly it wants to grow a
Lot and it becomes in of an of itself um a disease issue so it’s you know that that initial growth becomes much more dense than everything else if you don’t keep an eye on it what I’ve tended to do now is let a water shoot the year before
Grow and and not rub it off at the bottom and let that grow up um and sit there and so then the following the following spring when I’ve cut the vine off it’s got eight nine 10 buds from which to Bud from and I’ll let them all
Go until maybe for two months and then take everything above 50 CMS off so you know the way to sort of absorb that energy but yeah four rows a time um it’s been yeah it’s I’m I’m enjoying it now because because they tend to because
They tend to survive well and you H have I mean we only get the one you know the one time to learn from what we did in the previous year and I I mean I do think that it’s something that I really love and appreciate about perennial agriculture is that we you
Can’t be as impatient as we are programmed to be in agriculture you have to make if you’re going to if you’re going to do a good job you have to pay a lot of attention and I think that one of the I mean one of the things that baffles me especially about vulture
Is how Vineyards are so big and people talk about detail and I just don’t I mean maybe I’m just not capable but if I don’t see every Vine in the vineyard many times throughout my year I feel like I’m missing a lot of detail especially I think so yeah I mean it’s
Difficult when I mean and and and one of the things because I can’t I couldn’t manage any more enjoyably me me don’t get me wrong you know if if if I if I had to manage more Acres I could do it it would just mean Machinery God forbid I’d have to employ
Someone else um and I wouldn’t work for me so you know I would can’t expect anyone else to but but I enjoy my whole my whole my whole outlook is peasant economics which is when I worked in Italy I would go to the market on a Saturday morning um and I’d wander down
There and there was a little restaurant along the way and outside was Grandma essentially sitting there taking zucchini flowers and stuffing them with an anvy and some mozzarella rolling them in batter and just roaring them up and you could you could pop there for lunch
Later in the day and for I me I’ll turn it into because it was like d m it was like a 10,000 l or something so you know literally a couple of dollars you could get a plate of these things for for a starter um now how can they sell them to
You for that and the reason they can selling to that is because grandma doesn’t get paid um that’s just what she does she’s not rotting in a care home at $1,000 a week um but but it’s that mentality as long as everyone pitches in and everyone does it then these things
Can work and that’s the basis of my Vineyard which my input costs if you exclude me are negligible you know it cost me a pound it cost me 85 P for a bottle 14 P for a label and a penny for a crown cap so I’m so I’m in the bottle
For a pound and my Vineyard costs I used to be able to boast that they were less than100 pound but unfortunately inflation means they’re about 160 a year including broken posts which because I use wooden post still um so so so as an economics project if you tell someone
You m you make and sell you know between 1500 and 2,000 bottles a year they think you know they think it’s a hobby but it’s not because I because I do everything and I actually don’t want to go to a shopping M on a Saturday afternoon and spend money I haven’t
Gotten things I don’t want with a bunch of people I don’t like I actually wanted I actually like being in the vineyard unfortunately so there’s my daughter and you we got chickens and it’s just where we want to be as a family so so as long as you’ve got that mentality it’s a
Fantastic life and importantly for me I can enjoy the process I do everything you even when people say why don’t you get someone to cut the grass I’m going why because I it’s it’s it’s a fantastic way of seeing every Vine you because I’m walking you know it’s a it’s I can’t
Remember what it is but it’s it’s it’s like two and a bit miles to walk every side of every Vine um and with the best will in the world even if someone says to you are you’ve got a you’ve got an hour M you go and walk your Vine
You’re not going to because you’re just not going to walk up and down and especially you speed up whereas a whereas a moer goes at a certain pace and so I get to see everything so it’s it’s all those things and I really enjoy it and I believe that actually for
Me what I get out this just an obscene sense of well-being comes from that involvement with the land and being a part of it um whereas you know if it gets too big it’s difficult and when people come to see me and say look I really like what you’re doing I’d really
Like to do it and they say you know I’ve got 26 acres and it’s you know so where do I start and I say sell half of them and then manage the other half I am it’s just it must be very it must be very very difficult you know if you’ve got
Something that takes I don’t know if if you know some of these Vineyards it takes a couple of days to spray everything so you I don’t think you can you must just be on a spray program mustn’t you you know and and and can you
Say that oh if I get you know I tend to get powdery m in the Chardon in this spot here I I don’t know if they you know because it took me seven eight years with an acre to get that level of understanding so how the heck you get
Your head around as you say 20 30 40 50 hectares I I have no idea it must be I supp it’s just a different Prospect isn’t it and and not one I would enjoy no it’s a completely different life because you’re you’re managing prophylactically at that point you’re
Making a bunch of assumptions about what is going to happen and you’re managing according to just a set of assumptions as opposed to a set of observations and I I think that what people would say is that oh you know you’re just being reactive because you have such a small
Acreage and it’s sort of like yes and um and it’s it’s so much it’s such a beautiful way to live and work and I think people people skip over the fact that when you in slave yourself to some kind of job that gives you the the in quotation marks quality of life that
Allows you to go to the shopping mall with people you don’t like to buy things that you don’t want those people are also you know sort of coming undone to be able to spend two hours in a vineyard with somebody like you and it’s it’s all possible especially if
You think about those huge acreages that can’t possibly be managed in a in an intentional way how many people could grow their own food on even still half of that land and and then turn the rest back I mean it is a it’s a fascinating moment
To hold this type of life in the midst of everything else and I think you could actually um say some words about that because you live there with your family you do the work talk about just what it’s like in terms of your interaction with the outside world and and what this
Means to you and and to your family and I mean for us it’s a life which which is which is quite a precious thing I I I must say I don’t think I I didn’t approach it knowing it would be this great Mimi um and I think you know human
Beings tend to always want to take the easy option I think it’s natural in all of us but but when you realize how so getting to know the land working the land working a small piece of land intensely is as is as exciting as discovering the world you know is going
Traveling and I’m lucky because I’ve traveled a lot and I think it’s a good thing to do but I found myself literally I don’t want to go anywhere I mean my wife and my daughter love going on holiday so I go on holiday because I
Love them and I want to stay married to my wife so we go on holiday and don’t get me wrong we have a lovely time but I don’t need to go on holiday I’ve got everything I want here um and it’s it’s an amazing it’s been amazing it is amazing
And I think it has taught me through you know maybe I’m slightly overconfident and I decided this is what I was going to do but my economics which unfortunately we must all you know we can’t ignore economics um was that you know you make if you make a if you make
35 40,000 bottles of wine which I think still considered Boutique you know you’d be a small producer how do you sell it and and and how much do you get for it and in order to make wine on that scale you need you need you’re risking a lot
Of money up front for an outcome that’s uncertain so you may get no crop but it doesn’t matter because you’ve already got a wage bill of X and a quarter of a million pound tractor and a winery that needs you know the power of a small town
To cool everything and all these things and and so I think but I think we’re drawn in on this this this dreaded word economies of scale that this will somehow make you more money and quite interestingly journalist did come to see me who who who had been looking into
This um and and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m one of the most profitable wineries in the UK um and and you know only learned last week that hambledon which is a very well-known Wayne they went bust you know two two or three months ago there’s a lot of wineries you
Know they’ve got big production huge you know wines at 100 1220 a bottle and yet you know they’re still not they’re still not making money and I think it’s I think you know if I if it’s worked on a small scale it’s incredibly enjoyable it’s a beautiful mix of physical work
Which as human beings we need um you know whatever Elon Musk might say about AI we physically need to work um but also you’ve got the creative side of of you know it’s a primary industry so you’re actually making something but you’ve got the creative side you know
What bottle am I going to put it in what does the label look like all all great fun you know and and and allows you to try and convey an image so it’s it’s it’s a really beautiful it’s a really beautiful Journey it’s I think it’s one of the most precious sort
Of forms of farming you can get involved in you because it because the product’s so interesting um and it does attract a really interesting crowd you know I think if I was farming grain um I would struggle to get the level of interest in what I’m doing and mainly because you’re
Selling into a commodity Market which is a nightmare I can’t you know I can’t I can’t I can’t imagine growing grapes and selling thembe it just doesn’t um in the same way that funny enough because I had some wild hops growing in the wood and I
Decided to make some beer um which I wasn’t which I wasn’t particularly good at I’m doing I am doing a bit of a collaboration with a local Brewer which is quite exciting using reselling skins and um but I don’t have the attachment to the product because it’s essentially
Like an artisan Baker which is great skill but all your products then you do something with it whereas I love the connection with with my product um and seeing it all the way through and the philosophy and the you the work and the philosophy in the art I think it’s an
Incredibly rewarding if not financially rewarding um Venture but I would I would counsel people against chasing the money when when happiness is in your head and you can’t put money in your head um so I think it’s you know it’s a it’s something I couldn’t it’s the best thing
I’ve ever done Mimi but I couldn’t I in a bizarre way I couldn’t I couldn’t recommend it everyone because it’s a big change and it you know and it’s a lot of work and you know my day starts at dawn in the in the vine because we have
Chickens and I go down to feed them um and it ends vard putting the chickens to bed every night um and and it’s and it’s amazing it’s powerful and animals all those different elements I’m a big believer in lots of different things you know as as we’ve discussed nature is
Nature is so resilient through its complexity and one of the things if if if you have Woodland and and I can boys death on how productive Woodland is because it’s incredibly productive it it beat my Woodland beats um grain farming into a hat from a productivity
Point of view and I spend two weeks a year in that and it’s unbelievable hey everyone this is Clara Coleman and I just wanted to pop in here real quick and say that if you’re enjoying this show you may also enjoy my own show the winter Growers podcast I
Interview Growers from all over the world about how they produce yearr round especially through the winter months we talk about the infastructure the mental and physical challenges the tips and tricks and I even include a thought-provoking lightning round of questions at the end of each conversation you can subscribe to the
Winter Growers podcast wherever you get podcasts or subscribe to the no till Growers Network on your favorite podcast platform thanks for letting me jump in and I look forward to seeing you there now back to your regularly scheduled programming today’s episode of the no till Market Garden podcast is brought to
You by High Country news High Country news is an independent nonprofit publication that has been covering the western United States for more than 50 years High Country news provides unique on the ground reporting on the land water wildlife and communities of the region with dedicated coverage of climate Environmental and Indigenous
Issues sign up for free newsletters or a trial of the magazine at H cn.org that’s H cn.org till all right back to the show I I have a hard time sometimes trying to explain to people I mean you’ve articulated it very well why if I’m given a day when I don’t have
To go to a meeting or drive one of my kids somewhere or what ever whatever else I might have to do my choice as opposed to going as you say on holiday would always be to spend a day on the land and whether that’s tending the vines or interacting with my animals and
The accountability to a different rhythm is what I would choose but like you say I think we can’t recommend it to I mean I can’t live in somebody else’s head but that is what feed me and I think you’ve articulated it beautifully because you’ve you’ve sort of built this thing
And you couldn’t do it the same way even if you did it a second time I me I’d love I’d love more people to be exposed to it I think the other thing for me m is different because um I I can’t and don’t want to manage anymore but what is
Nice is if people and and it’s it’s probably the it’s one of the apart from the fact I do have an ego one of the one of the things that drives my reputation on I.E becoming well known is that people come to me and they want
To do something similar so you know or they’ve got a couple of Acres of vines and they don’t want to farm it in you know with the pesticides Etc ET they’re using and I love that because it allows me allows me to get involved in or sort
Of grow it by by by actually um getting them infected you know with the same sort of desire and going out trying to help them get there but I do wish more people were exposed to this um than they currently are and it’s difficult because land is you know land isn’t always
Readily available um but it’s yeah it’s something it’s something that I think is it’s a very it’s a very powerful thing to do but also for yourself meaning you know so sometimes people say look I want to plant a Vineyard I really like what
You want to do what you do Tim would you come and help and I was going why on Earth would I come and work in your spard well I’d pay you million pounds not enough because I I don’t want to you know I I yeah literally I was before we
Got on this call I just went to see the chickens and I just start um weeding around the base of some of the vines and I love doing it but I wouldn’t do it for money for someone else and I think this what’s so powerful is having your own
Piece of ground to see it develop and see things and watch trees grow that are going to be at their absolute height in 1502 200 years long after I’m gone but it’s it’s lovely and it’s powerful it takes you out of your own self-importance and your own self-interest but it needs to
Be and it’s not yours is it but it needs to be yours it needs to be your thing it’s not an ownership thing I don’t own this ground it’s going to be around you know the trees that I’ve got in my Woodland are you know some of them are
600 years old so you know they’ve been around you know immeasurably longer than I have and they will be around immeasurably long after I’ve gone so but but I think there is there there’s something very powerful in in that focus on on something that’s that you consider
Yours or as in your path or your life which which is what my ground is totally I mean it’s just being owned by a place and and devoting yourself to a place it is a it’s a devotional act it’s not an ownership act I mean I I I really struggle with the
You know the concept around land ownership and access and who gets it and who doesn’t get it but I definitely feel that to be a good Steward to be a good caretaker you have to feel some level of permanence in a place and be able to see
The future and the past at the same time and that requires kind of being tethered um in a way that for some is the equivalent of of owning a small plot and it’s very different than owning thousands of acres in different places of the world I mean it’s a it’s a
Comp it’s a complete relationship as opposed to an asset yes yeah because I think when it gets to that size then you start talking numbers and when I say numbers you’re talking money and unfortunately look you know I can’t ignore that we all we all need it to get
By but if if it’s that is the sole if it’s being reduced to money as we can see with the economy you know if it’s if all you do is reduce it toone you you’ve missed the main thing and you know if I think of the wines that I make you know
A it’s I always keep you know I’m looking back on now when I made my first Wines in ‘ 04 and it’s a lovely thing to look back on I can’t look back on 15 years of being a chared accountant and see much there that I can I can you know
I can pick up and Ponder how much what a great set of accounts those were in ‘ 06 I love note four on taxation whereas whereas you know it’s just this immense Journey isn’t it and and and trying even when we open a bottle of friends you what were you
Doing in 2008 and it’s just you know it’s a great it’s it’s a great body of work and that’s hopefully that’s that’s what I try in terms of running the place or my life on the ground and the wines themselves is trying is try and put that
Across which is this is what um this is what this place is all about and most people who buy my wines know they’re coming on a journey in terms of you know I don’t have I don’t know how long they’ll last um but we always tend to I
Sell most of them on an open day once a year and so t on a typical open day I’ll say to everyone look if you if you’re coming I’ll open everything I made in South Africa since 06 so it’ll be a bottle of everything so if you happen to
Have half a case of my 06 shz you don’t need to open it come and come and have a try and we can all decide oh God you should have drunk that last year or you know or it’s doing really well and stuff so I think people you know people come
On same journey and I think the wines are you that that’s one of the beautiful things with wines is they do form that record and um and and and and key and key to all Mimi is you can get money for wine you know that’s sufficient to make
This thing carry on you know this whole show so as much as I talk about and it’s so important I can’t overemphasize the importance of the Woodland and and the The Orchards and stuff um and all the other things I do because I got a lot of
Compost and I’m growing quite a lot of veg and stuff is you know the the Wine’s still the main show and it does allow you as as as whatever the goddamn word is it’s entrepreneur whatever to go out and set up a venture that is self- sustained
Because if you buy a bottle of my wine you’re not going to see me buy a fancy car you’re going to see me plant some more trees or or you know all this kind of stuff that’s that’s what it goes into so it it it does allow the whole thing
To make sense economically and on a level I could not have hoped for um from a sense of well-being absolutely off the charts um which is you know just just just the best thing to discover when you put 15 years into something absolutely and
So I mean I it is the the key to its ability to Captivate and I think transcends what other agricultural products are able to do with the exception of other I think you know cider cider certainly could I think stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the greatest Wines in the world and how
It’s How it hasn’t quite managed to get there I don’t really understand that but I think that it’s it’s happening especially with the the changing of the um the wine public I think that those products will get their get their day but talk about
So I want to um double click on the name Charlie Herring and hear you talk about that and and your labels too which are fantastic and people should check those out um yeah so I was so I think my grand plan as I was sat in a lecture hall in
In in stellos studying um was to I wanted to make wine everywhere Mimi I wanted you know any anyone who starts get into wine making it doesn’t take them long to realize that if they can do Northern Hemisphere and southern hemisphere then you’ve got you know two
Vintages of year if you stay with perennial crops you have a limited go at everything um as as a as a greedy chat with a lot more energy than I have now that that was definitely the idea plus I was going to make wine in Italy as well
So it’s going to be England Italy and South Africa wow um but clearly I couldn’t do that I couldn’t have a you know a cloudy Bay or a satow something because it there was a sense it didn’t have a home its home was and as I
Reflected on it its home was a sense of a set of ideals essentially which I think we are our parents’ children whether you like it or not you know and if you if you if you’re going to marry a girl you go and meet their parents because even if they can’t stand their
Own mother they’ll end up like it um and so we we’re all our parents children and I think um yeah that my attitude to pretty well everything I do but specifically in agriculture is was down to that and my dad used to draw us cartoons when we were small he signed
Charlie Herring which is a madeup name he can’t remember why he he my father was a musician and um there was an opera singer called Charles hering I think um around the time he started doing them so he thought it might be that but we can’t find a Charlie Herring so that became
The name of it really because if I’m and this this was quite this is very clear to me from a very early stages that when when you’re doing this it’s not about you you know if you buy some land and you plant you’re a very small element of
It and I think in the Spanish version of Tera tuno you are included within the equation and French don’t even include the human but the Spanish do but only to the extent that the land owns you not the other way around so it makes you a
Part of it so I think to call it Tim Phillips wines is incredibly egotistical and I apologize to anyone who’s who who’s called their wines after themselves but I don’t apologize actually because it’s not about you um and so it seemed seemed a fitting name actually and that if on some of the
Labels you’ll see a little line half a line and a cross which was my mother’s um family crest her Signet ring Crest so um that became yeah I’m sorry no money for the marketeers or any of the uh marketing agencies that was it job done
So it’s a it’s and it’s a question I get um obviously I get called Charlie quite a lot which is which is um which is fine and I just generally accept that I am Charlie when people call say can I speak to Charlie Herring because they don’t
Want to hear I’m sorry you can’t because he’s just a set of ideals um and not an actual person but um yeah it translates I think well and and I always say to people if you come and see what I’m doing and you get what I’m
Doing and you believe in what I’m doing you’re as Charlie Herring as I am so I think it’s and I think that’s relevant it’s born it’s you know it’s it’s worked very well sort of born out um over time that it’s sort of yeah Center the
Journey it’s so great and so are all of those are all of the illustrations were those your your father’s drawings or did you do only the signature was so so when you see Charlie Herring that’s one of my dad’s signatures um the other illustrations were so my san wies had more sort of
Straightforward labels I got a label company out there and they did a very good job I suppose my my reflection is if you go to a if you go to a label company a wine Label Company especially and there’s some great on out there and you ask them to do a label
They the width of their thinking is own narrow because you know because they that’s what they do they make labels and they have parameters about how they do them a bit like if you ask you know you ask me to you know make egg and bacon I’m going to do
It in a certain way because I you know that’s the only way I’m going to think so I think from from a marketing point of view you’re always going to be a bit restricted and I see it in a lot of labels they’re all a bit Samy um you
Know my and and and this really sunk home to me because my daughter when she was about four she got a doll and she wanted to know what it was called wanted to give it a name daddy let’s let’s what are we going to call the doll and I’m go
Dolly Daren Betty and Aris goes dad I’m going to call her Farm shop going to call her Farm Shop why is that Aris because her hair smells like the farm shop now that’s not even in my conscious mie I had no ability I was thinking about bloody girls names I mean
It’s pathetic isn’t it and so that’s why in my mind you know I’m I’m trying to aggress to where my daughter’s at which is this much broader and it’s Al again it’s like you masu fuka one straw Revolution you got to see the whole you don’t want to be a specialist see the
Whole so if I’m going to do labels I’m not going to talk to a label designer so all the labels are designed from a it’s a bit of a crazy idea there was a guy called Tom Phillips no relation who in 1960 late 1960s went to a market in
South London and bought a book for 2 and a half Shillings um and spent the next 50 years illustrating it so he every single page is painted um the the the book itself was called a human document and he basically he paints out words highlights some and it still reads as a
Book I urge everyone you can buy it um there’s a number of additions because over 50 years he he kept sort of redoing some but if you can get hold of it on Amazon or whatever because there is available on that on that dreaded um machine of a sales the devil has some
Copies yes but no one else has it unfortunately so but but it’s literally it’s like it’s like $20 it’ll blow your mind and I got in touch with him he’s in his 90s now and he did offer to put um a page of the book in to make a label but
What I wanted to do was have a single page of text um done in the same way so painted over with some words left and different ideals and so if you look every single label at its bare skeleton if you could see through it if you get all different
All six wines that I make and you look at the labels you could in theory have a single piece of readable text underneath but you only get to see a fragment of it on each one connected up in the same way as that human document which is a it
Probably shows you how my brain works but it’s it’s a it’s all the thought behind each label so his the human document book was it was then cut and painted and and became the book you can buy which is a hum which is the which is
The piece of art it was in I think it was in in they had an exibition in mom in New York and they did they had all all the pages up on the wall so’s he’s an amazing guy but um yeah so so I I the
Main label for my main still wine which is San Blanc based is called a firmament which is based which is a um a homage to to his book a hum and is a play on the sky and fermentations which of course is what we’re all
About um yeah and then all the all the other ones the promised land which is which is um uh which is my resling but yeah on the firmament you’ll see um the words underneath that are exposed this is my church um which is it’s a faithless song
But it God is a DJ so it’s it’s got faith love compassion this is my church per justice of cause and effect but it’s um and that’s what I say funnily enough um as a as a not overly religious person but incredibly dedicated to the land um
And where I live Mimi this is you’ll see a lot um I refer to the vineyard as this is my church um and because it is where I go to um that’s where I spend my life but it’s where I go to worship um but so
The labels are fun yeah the labels are fun the labels are fun and and I had already um looked all that up beforehand but people should really check out the story behind those label it is so cool and I love it when there’s so you you buy a bottle of wine
And you enjoy drinking it and that could be the end of it but what’s so cool about what you’ve done is that there’s so many layers of Discovery built into each label and even the packaging I mean I think it’s it’s just such a nice sort of fully realized vision of a
Person’s Journey that is very unique to what you’re doing and so I just think people should people should explore that and um and and follow all the follow all the little morsels that you that you give them to to study and and discover on your you know in in terms of
The day-to-day and managing a Vineyard and a and an orchard in a in a fairly disease-prone climate what are the biggest takeaways for you in terms of what what have you learned that has really helped you be able to do what you do and what are you still trying to
Figure out um I think it’s the diversification thing’s been very important for me Mimi and as I say it’s understanding what’s where you’re where you really need to be on it and where you don’t and as I say Woodlands are are very very easy you know you can you can
You can not wander into them for a year and they will forgive you Orchards you can do very little for a year and they’ll forgive you um you can ignore a Vineyard for a week and you might get away with it but I doubt it so they’re
They they require you know between it’s always the people who say where are you going on holiday summer oh I’ve got a Vineyard no no no I just wanted to know where you’re going on holiday I’ve got a Vineyard not anywhere um but it’s that’s been you
Know if you want to work organically um you know without without um recourse to to to to some of the more systemic and unpleasant chemicals um what I what I’ve leared at some cost because you know I lost two vintages to powdery milg um 14
And 15 is you’ve got to be you’ve got to be on top of it and not not oh I could do with the leaves you know clearing the leaves around the bunches you it’s got you not you’ve got to have done it by the point you think you need it um so
You really have to be on those those sort of those practices which is the key for me to to to working without chemicals you know and Chardon is the worst Chardon just wants to get sick it really does um it really does you know if the wines weren’t so amazing I would
Have abandoned it a long time ago but um but it does require those cultural practices and and that you really have to be on top of them and I think it’s it’s taking me a long time to really get there especially because I work on my
Own and although you know if you say and I’ll quote the numbers wrongly but if if you’ve got you know a th000 hours to spend in a Vineyard and it needs a th hours unfortunately there’ll be times when it needs a hundred of those hours
And you’ve only got 40 so it’s it’s one of those where you need to and it’s taken me a long time I’m getting better at it and I think as I’ve got used to the land and understanding The Vines themselves it’s allowed me to see things
Less as a task as more as a continual process so where 10 years ago I would go right now I need to Leaf strip I find myself Leaf stripping around the bunches whilst I’m doing other tasks and so by the time I get around to doing it I’ve
Done 30% of it it’s it’s very iterative you know and I think as long as you’re happy to almost live in the place it’s I’ve got to quite a nice point now I mean we had a bad we had a bad summer so we had a very
Weird inverted year this year with a very warm start um which for viticulturist is absolutely you know lovely and and and I I’d be very happy here we don’t need because of the nature of my soils I would be very happy to see no rain for six months we wouldn’t my
Vines would not miss a beat their root their roots are deep down we’ve got very you know very good um water reserves and chalk below the gravel where the water is constantly so it’s a very it’s it’s a very good place um from a water point of
View except it will it does like as in this year July and August it just never stop being damp and it’s just and and it’s a very very difficult time it’s a very difficult as you know iby it’s the worst time to to to have damp is Right
Bang in the middle of the season this year was very warm June hopeless July and August to the point where by the end of August I was quite pleased that I only had I’d had small showings of powdery in the chardonay which I managed to keep under control with bicarbonate
Soda and was only beginning to see Downey at the tail end of August which you know for me once you get into September things slow down and so um but the grapes were so far off ripeness I mean it was it was going to be another 2021 which was a hopeless year with
Nothing got ripe you know not even for not even you from the sparkling guys really which you know essentially is under rpe grapes um and but we had a massively hot September and October continued to be really warm so bizarrely we we came up with an very interesting
Um crop low in acid because of the late heat um but you had to have worked all the way through the summer so I think the fact that my GRS were as good as they were reflects on being better at cultural practices now in terms of
Trying to avoid it but it it’ll it’s never easy it’s one of those things every viticultural area has its own issues you know so whatever people say you know oh it must be easy for you because you know like growing grapes in South Africa you know you I mean I I
Think there are I think there very possibly people who grown grapes in South Africa for 30 35 years and they’re spraying systemic chemicals to keep mili away and they’ve never seen milu in their life they’ve seen it in a book but they’ve never actually physically seen
It so that makes probably may say to you and I well wouldn’t we all like to go to South Africa well I can tell you in uh in late March when I was making wine in the ham andard if you went away for the weekend the baboons would clear your
Vineyard I mean they’d take two two and a half tons out of a block in a weekend so we may not have mil you know we may have milu but I don’t have baboons so I think everyone has their issues and it’s part of the you know I don’t think
There’s anywhere where it’s very straightforward to grow grapes um and definitely nowhere where it’s straightforward to grow grapes responsibly you know sustainably I think it’s I think it’s a challenge but a great one yeah and to that point um if you don’t mind I do I agree with you and
I I I share this with the with the wine drinking public who may or may not be listening to this but the K is a very exciting and upand cominging region for wine I think and it’s growing really fast and I wonder how you feel about that I wonder
You know what your thoughts are having because for me I grew up in a place where you know we were one of a handful in in the early days in Oregon and now I I mean every day that I go out of my own little um hole that I live in there are
New and developing Vineyards everywhere and that that comes with a lot of mixed feelings for me and I wonder how you feel about the UK in terms of the the growth of the wine sector and and where you think it could go and where you
Think it is going and yeah like you I’m I’m amazed always I suddenly see bottles of wine you know people saying oh this and I’ve never heard of them so it is it is growing at a rate and and and and I think um it’s still very small so if we
You know if we look at if we look at levels of production yes when I planted the grapes my Vineyard in 2008 you know production in the UK was you know sort of half a million bottles and now it’s 13 14 million bottles um but as a nation
We consume T you know hundreds of millions of bottles so it’s not we’re not a big area you know we which which I think is good and geographically we’re not wall to wall with them which I think it’s good um so I I I think that’s
Exciting what what find um a little sad that despite being really a very young Wine Country um we seem to have started off in the 70s so we we’ we’ve got organizations behind it that are I think very sleepy um we have wine regulations
I mean let me tell you you know if if the highest you can make you can make um you know there’s a sort of um basic wine then you can have uh varial it’s called a varietal wine and then there’s English sparkling wine if you’re making bubbly
And you can and and but the highest label um is quality in this sparkling wine but the regulation and remember these these things weren’t dreamt up in the 70s these things were dreamed up 10 years ago you cannot it cannot be a quality English sparkling wine if it’s
Made from anything other than shardon P Noir and P and that’s I just don’t get that that had that had Italians going you know dropping out of docg in the 80s and 90s it had you know sort of the Avant guard in France going for Van dupe
And dropping all the stuff why on Earth come out with this pathetic notion and plus I’m so I meant to send six bottles of my resling to some you know numbnuts who’s going to taste it tell me whether they think it’s quality or not I mean
You know you don’t even have you don’t even have an export board in Australia anymore because if if you know XY buyer in the UK wants to buy the wine and by the way he’s been there and he’s tried it it’s not 1950s where it’s put in CK
And sits on a boat for six months so your you know your reputation’s at risk the country’s reputation is at risk if someone starts selling rubbish it’s it’s just ridiculous we should be we should be embracing the change and the interest and and literally I’ll go and visit a
Vineyard and hi you know what have you planted we plant three varial stop there seriously just stop there I know what you planted and and and and they’re trying to make the same bubbly wine emulating champagne when we’re not in Champagne um and it goes into the same
Bottle it’s probably made by the same bloody wine maker um and it gets the same pointless tin capsule which does nothing by the way um and a label with a bit of gold on it that’s made by the probably one of three label design and it’s pretty dull now on the plus side
The quality is uniformly pretty bloody good so in terms of as a sparkling wine the level of quality really is you know on a global scale it’s it’s really really high but just boring and and and and I do think you know is a if you’re going to make money in agriculture you
Need to get you know you need to go the whole hog I think you know you you need to grow the product make the thing that’s whether that’s how to make a sustainable business but surely you don’t want to be in a Marketplace and I think we’re beginning seen this where
What what have you got to sell oh I’m selling a sparkling wine made from the yeah yeah yeah seem same three varial and if you go into the on trade or something they’ll go well this guy’s at450 plus fat what’s yours 15 well I’ll stick with his then or I’ll wait till
Something comes someone’s got a distress and they sell it whereas if you want to buy sparkling reing m in England you’ve got the choice of one and um and I think so I just think it’s really it’s a shame that 99% of our of the white made is
Largish middling scale because most of these places are producing you know 80 to 100,000 bottles A year of very much the same product and even when I go and visit them and say well is nice and they’ve made 25,000 bottles of a Blan to
Blan oh um how how long on Le oh you know 24 months okay what did did you leave any aside how do you mean did you put a cage behind 500 bottles and leave it for the next two years three years to see uh no no oh why not I just don’t
There’s you know complete lack of sort of experimentation For the Love of wine I think and and and I’d like to see you know more who you know why isn’t someone planting game planting shenon Blanc or why isn’t and of course there are and and there’s a fantastic guy near me um
Who’s got a who’s got a um a Vineyard setup called the war experience he’s planted pews which is and he’s great he’s in his 20 you know he’s he’s uh full of all the certainty of Youth and he’s planting you know PB varials which is fantastic um but there’s not enough of
That and I think that’s a shame given I think we’re in a drinks industry now that is more accepting of anything isn’t it now M I mean you know can you imagine in N can you imagine 30 years ago making um wine and cider and beer you know
People would look at you like like you’re mad whereas now you can make wine with cider in it you can make beer with you can you know no one bats an either do they if they taste it and they like it and I think so it’s such a fantastic
Time to be doing all these different things and yet for some reason yeah it’s just disappointing that England we we’ve just gone we’ve just gone in a very very vanilla type way at this um and I’m not quite sure what it says about us because as you say it’s
Such an exciting time to be an English wine yes and and I think the the Pioneers like yourself and the the youth the youth who haven’t had their curiosity beaten out of them um you know I think land access has a lot to do with
That and the cost of you know the cost that it takes to even get yourself to a piece of land that makes people very risk very risk averse and then on top of that you have a very sort of um forgive me for maybe stating the obvious but a a
An English cultural heritage of of just generally um issuing the uh anything that seems out of bounds yeah no yeah know I I agree I agree I mean land isn’t you know what land isn’t a crazy price it’s just I think out of most people’s conscious I have to ask myself sometimes
What was I thinking when I went and bought land you know my wife is still perpetually fearful as we drive around if there’s a for sale board up you know literally my neck snaps and I you know round to have a look as we drive past
He’s go no no more land Tim um but it’s you know I think I mean property in this in in the UK and especially where we live which is a lovely area it it’s unaffordable it’s absolutely unaffordable we’ve we’ve managed by essentially living in you know we’ve got
A a small cottage and the vineyard’s about a mile away from that and the winery in The Woodlands another mile away from that um and and and 10 years in what 12 years in now we’ve just got planning to live at the winery because there’s an old shed so which is which is
Brilliant because that’ll be more it’ll be easier because as you know when you start working on these things MBE you can you know it’s a it’s a running joke in my house if on a Saturday morning I I’m just going to go and check on the chicken my
You’re going to be back in lunchtime dad oh I I won’t be long because it does eat you know it does really eat into your time so living down at the wi will be great because it means you know I’m up before everyone else is up and it means
I can do 40 minutes but I’m just you know I’m just outside do a bit of bottling do a bit of labeling whatever but it’s it the the the options are there I just think where um there’s too much peer pressure you know my dad taught me to think M and I’ve always
Thought to the point where when I left you University I said I you know I openly said I didn’t want a job and not because I I was lazy because I looked at what their options and and why why do people do it and and and I still think
Doesn’t mean don’t do it but I I do think people don’t think you know people just do do this and you know you know in Reading you know you know I’m sure I’ve mentioned it once or twice but if you read masanobu fog’s book The One STW Revolution he’s really interesting on
Education because in theory even when I look at my daughter’s education a lot of it’s it’s preparing you for a life of work not you know you don’t need as as he says you don’t children don’t need to be taught what nature is they can see it we can’t funnily enough because we’ve
Been through education and suddenly we’re lost because we we can’t actually see it so it I think it’s really interesting as you go through life but but the key is and I think if I’ve got anywhere it’s because my dad made me think about about everything I did and I
Think it’s why I’ve come to wine making the way I have an agriculture you know I wasn’t bound coming not having come from a farming family it’s you know it might have been nice if I had because I had a farm which I wouldn’t have had to try
And buy but then you you you probably got you’ve got the way it’s always been done in your head and I think it’s quite hard to break away from that plus you probably got your you know your parents leaning over your shoulder you’re asking you why you’re not doing it like they’ve
Always done it um you know I don’t know if you read is it Gabe Brown’s book dirt to soil I thought it was a fantastic book but you know just just the fact that he came in and approached it his poor wife who who married him to try and
Get off the farm and he took over the farm and spent the rest of his life farming it which I think you know it’s it’s amazing but it is it does take I think often it takes that perspective or that ability just to really think about
About what works um to make it happen and I don’t think I don’t think enough of us um are lucky enough to do it till maybe it’s too late yeah or even see what we’ve been missing until you know the thought occurs to you to maybe look
At it from a different angle and all of a sudden it’s like your life is gone um I feel very lucky actually that because I do think there’s so much chance involved in who who passes through your life and what things affect you to make you think
About not even you know sort of critically think about who we are and how we live but also why why this why that and even questioning things I think now has become I guess unted because it’s exhausting and you know people are just in the habit of doing and doing at such
A pace as you say that um we don’t we don’t teach our children to think anymore if anything we teach them to to avoid it at all costs and it’s such a tragedy because being able to find your the life’s work that isn’t work you have to be able to think if
You’re going to live that way I think and what a gift and keep it broad M me yeah I think because and that’s why I think if you want to if you want to grow grapes if you’re if you’re bounded by this idea you know if you’re enthused by
This it’s there’s so you know if all you do is have Vineyards then all you’re going to do is meet wine people and grap people and people talking about those crops whereas as soon as you plant an apple tree or you as soon as you start doing other things not it brings more
Interest you it brings a broader thought spectrum and and you inform you know so much on the other things that have informed me as to what I do what you know whether it be you know as we said earlier you know whether the fact that I
Was a you know an accountant before it’s not a negative you know and and your background your background is more forestry is it was it Forestry and I think those you know I think those things are massively important but and and the broader you
Know if if we call you know if we call the do farm shop I think the broader you can keep things is the the more it helps you actually with with the very specifics of what you’re trying to do and and I and I think that’s uh being a
Generalist and I call it sometimes on my blog in support of the generalist and I think it’s it’s frowned upon we like to be experts but I think if you become an expert for to some extent especially when you’re working with which is life is you become too narrow
And you could you cannot see the wood for the trees well exactly and we use the word special in place of narrow which is what it really is and we should be I mean instead of calling ourselves generalist I I prefer the term renaissance man myself and I I I think
This is definitely I mean I see this in your wines I taste this in your wines but I think about it in terms of like my wine making process I could not make the wines the way that I make them if I didn’t play the piano if I didn’t love math if I
Didn’t you know do I mean I’m terrible at drawing but I love doing it and I think that those are the things that we Whittle out of our lives so that we can do more of the thing that we that we specialize in or that we narrow down
To and it’s a it’s a killer it’s just a killer yeah yeah I think it can Hollow the whole thing out yeah so um yeah no I’m a mass I’m a massive Advocate and as I say I think the really critical end point Mimi when you talk about this
Because a lot of people go well that sounds fun but not for me is is it can make sense financially you know I I mean it’s not you know there would have been a time I mean I if anything I call myself if I had to call myself a title
Like that mean I’ll be postmodern so it’s that idea of I mean my my Outlook is forget the last 100 years which been a fairly disastrous um period of Agriculture you know forget them and just and go back to when there is Magic in these things you know and and I think
You should if if you know if fermenting you know if fermenting wine you know or grape mus doesn’t excite you um I think it’s a shame you know and and everyone yeah well that’s because soone said no I don’t want to know about peptide chains
And stuff like that I I know it and it’s important to study it but look at the magic of it look at the population look at what’s going on you know just just take in the the magic of it all and I think it is you know I I I think it’s
Very very important to have that um to to have that more um wide scope and as I say yeah the the idea this stuff is Magic you know we’re talk as children you believe in magic education is beaten out of you and it’s only when you know
You’re an old Duffer like me that you you realize the Magic’s there we just just you know people told you it wasn’t but it is it’s there and and and in the wines too oh for sure I mean if anything it you know it doesn’t it doesn’t really
Work if if it doesn’t really work but it really does work and I think that that’s um that’s the message is you know you you can one can taste curiosity and devotion and when a person really and truly connects with what they do it shows up in the in the
Product and that’s why I love discovering people like you and you’ve been so generous with your time and I can’t wait to share all the links to your website and we’ll put some nice pictures up for this um for this episode but is there anything that we didn’t
Talk about that you wish that we had um I think the the only thing that I’ve found so if anyone’s interested in wine I think that my scientific but non-scientific Discovery M has been that um albe it that we grow the UK vit culture is such an amazing scene and and
For the boring techies one of the reasons it’s so lovely is because the PHS are just beautiful you can make wines that are not over acidic and they’ve got PHS of 3.2 3.3 which just means um from a from a analys stability yeah absolutely they’re absolutely fantastic and it’s a and look
This may be a window the last 20 years but it’s absolutely from a point of of our climate and teror it’s amazing but what I found and and for people who farm with um all the phosphates and all the all the systemic stuff they will be seeing broadly the same thing but the
One thing I found from farming here like I do is and in the way that I do is the resilience of my of my wines is off the charts in a way that I I don’t care about discovering why it is but I know why it is and it’s
Because the way I grow um the crops they’re so there the crop itself is so beautiful and so robust that the wines I make I’ve I’ve made the mistake over the last 10 years of making wines that in my own head you know it’s a s on Blanc it’s
You know what’s it’s got you know probably lovely in two years but drinkable on release you know after two years from from Harvest it’s probably going to drink really nicely for a couple years it’ll probably be interesting for follow following five and I’m finding that after 10 years they
Taste like the they were made and they’re incredibly incredibly robust is the wrong word because then robust makes it sound like it’s beefy and stuff but there’s there’s something amazing about it and I think I see it in postwar wines um so if you if you’re lucky enough to get a hold of
Bordeaux from the late 40s or um I I I’m massively lucky to try a bottle of DRC eazo from 62 last month and it was mind-blowing utterly mind-blowing but made in a very artisanal way and and the grapes are grown in a very artisanal very natural way and I
Think I think this it’s an incredibly powerful thing that’s resulted from that and I’d like to if there’s one message to go out to people who are thinking of doing it and believe you me it’s easier to walk away from this and go down the chemical route and you’ll still have
Grapes and you’ll still be able to come up with zany labels and still be able to show off to your friends um but if you go down this route you’re going to make something extraordinary and I think it’s and I think it’s for that reason alone
It’s worth doing but of course it’s it’s it’s the only way that’s a great note to end on Tim it is such a pleasure to connect with you again I enjoyed meeting you so much and I hope um I hope sooner rather than later I can visit you in
Your beautiful spot and that you will visit me um because I I’m very attached to mine as well and I look forward to sharing your wines with anybody and every everybody and I I hope that you continue to discover all kinds of new and amazing things about where you are
And what you’re doing and um Long Live Farm Shop I’m telling you that that’s the best that’s the best part of my day today I’m gonna make a t-shirt so um Tim thank you so much for your time and I really I I really hope we have a a lifelong
Friendship yeah definitely May thanks so much for having me on I feel very very privileged I was slightly daunted I must say not at all but we’re the privileged ones thank you for sharing your time with us and um don’t hang up because I’m going to uh going to stop the recording
In a second but I want to I want to catch up just for a second so let me let me stop the there we go recording stopped okay now we can re now we can relax um thank you right that was great it’s going to be so great people are going to I
I there’s always this danger when you’re talking to somebody who um like I interview a lot of scientists and I get really excited because maybe they’ve written a paper about something that I find really interesting and then I’m so disappointed because it’s like they they’ve they’re so deep in
Their academic hole that they can’t even express The Wonder of what they’ve been studying it’s like it’s like antithetical to the scientific way to to be enthusiastic about something and I I think that this is going to be um a very refreshing tone because people aren’t excited about anything anymore
And there’s so much to be excited about so I’m I’m so glad I’m so glad you were up for it awesome no no it’s great I’m I’m my only problem is I I can’t structure anything I was kind of nervous and I but I said to my wife I can’t I
Can’t plan it can’t literally I wrote Gabe Brown and um masu Fukuoka there just just so because normally um you know I read quite a lot now um I’m quite slow at reading because I really kind of digest it but I re I really like reading and and um you especially some things
You know I mean I you know I got turned on to you just that comment in the New York Times article where you said nature was you know resilient through complexity and these things like I think are really you know as you say you depends comes through your life as as to
How these things shaped but you’ve got to be alive to the to the good stuff and I always remember Gabe Brown saying in his books that he goes through things and people laugh at him because he’s different and he says just turns around and say I’m laughing at you guys because
You’re all the same um but every time I want to say that I go who was the guy who was the guy so I write down gab Brown and and yeah so my problem is I’ll always end and go oh I didn’t talk about that I
Didn’t want to talk about that I didn’t talk about this I didn’t talk about that but as you know I can no it was great all day so so you know the one thing I wanted to ask you before you get off because I feel like you’re going to have
A good idea for me I I want I did I left it out of the conversation with you because I didn’t want to distract from you know the the wines and what people are going to be really interested in but I do want to do an episode about cassing
Um because it’s really not a thing here and I mean there’s few people who are sort of like toying with it but nobody’s doing it in a in a very intentional way is there somebody there that you think would be an excellent interview about what it is and what you know kind of
What the opportunities are and what it looks like and all the history behind it and I mean it’s so cool and and so misunderstood and totally unknown in America the short answer is I don’t know Mimi it’s one of those there are a few slightly geeky groups of old bearded men who go
Around doing it and have copers in groups but it’s not it’s not massively actively practiced I would say if you’re not going to rush me me when you were next over here I’d love to show you what I’m doing but we would also connect you with I I’d find people
That you know who who run because there’s a thing there is a thing called the Hampshire cassing group typically I have nothing to do with because I don’t do clubs but but there are there are coping groups if you know if you went on to Instagram and put coping in you
Probably find you know with with links and stuff um there’s probably a few books on it I mean it’s one of those lovely really practical skills um that that and amazing because we’ve got it you know it’s a very if if you want you know if you wanted to Copus
That the the the the sad thing is of course is the first 15 years you just got little trees and and then you’ll cut them off at the base and then you’ll wait another 15 years and then you’ll do it again um and so it’s one of those things it’s sort of
It’s for your it’s for generations to come but when and and liter I just bought the building the winery Mimi and it had two acres of Woodland I paid it no attention whatsoever and then realized that these you know they’ve got Hazel stools that are 250 years old and
They’ve been coped and coped and coped and Copus and and and and this men this blows my mind you know I think Bard you with it but a Hazel plant you know plant plant a hazelnut and it grows into a tree and it will it will grow and die in
75 years coopos it every you know seven to 15 years cutting off to the base absolutely to the ground so you look like you’ve murdered it and that tree will last 750 years right and that’s yeah I mean it’s the thing about it’s hard to convey this with with wine and
Even you know if I if I were to try to talk to a Forester there’s just this production mentality but it’s on a it’s on a human time scale and what I love about compassing is that it’s like you can’t it’s comparing apples and oranges if we’re talking about productivity and
You know biomass and all of the contributions to an ecosystem which is a it’s a total human intervention that has actually been I can’t think of any other I really struggle to think of other interventions that are actually better you know and that’s the I totally agree absolutely I mean 10,000
Years ago in the UK they chopped down the first trees and realized that what grew back was better and they didn’t understand the subsoil they didn’t understand the mic risal networks but but the at the point of which I you know I I’ve got out of two acres of Woodland
You know I can take between five and six cubic meters of wood a year now that’s that that chopped and logged which would take me to days that I can sell for more than you would get wheat farming on two acres it’s insane so it’s Madness it’s
Utter Madness that that and and it’s just it’s manageable but not on the thing is it’s not manageable on Bloody massive farming scales and the sad thing is is that the only thing they plant for Comm commercial forestry is the only soding tree that you can’t Copus you
Know everything you know oak tree Holly Hazel Birch Beach thicko they’re all copies to anything what let what should we plant let’s plant pine trees why it’s the only thing you can’t Copus and it’s just it’s just it’s just absolute absolute madens and it’s it’s it’s yeah
And because we’ve been doing it so long Mimi it’s there are things like fillery butter and stuff that have grown up with that in that process and they can only they can only breed in actively managed Hazel C and I’ve got plants that live in
You know in the base of the Woodland and and you literally you come through and you clear that bit and it’s been 16 years 20 years since it was last done and the in two months time in the spring up come all these flowers they’ve just
Been waiting and they live in they live in that soil and they’re just waiting and they’ve got five years of light and all the old U trees make hay while the sun shines and all their bark you know use that can their leaves can come out
Of the bark they don’t bother with a branch they’re so intelligent just go let’s get going and and they just become bathed in green to take the advantage of the light um because you know they’ve got four or five years of great light and then
They’ll be dark into the dark for 10 is shade for 10 years and then and then back again it’s just it’s just just beautiful um but so productive so manageable um especially for a small scale because we know we heat we heat our home on it Mimi and it’s utterly
Utterly um I mean it’s there is no negative apart from the only thing I’ve become attune to now is the noise of the Chainsaw Mimi and and not so much for my neighbors because things like bats and stuff if you’re the the things thing things that are um are hibernating in
The Woodland if you’re too noisy you can wake them up and and then they’ll die because they can’t go back to sleep again because they they so that’s the only thing I’m cognizant of now but that’s literally the only and and I’m not I’m not strong enough to not use a
Chainsaw you so the amount of work I can do with a chainsaw I’m literally how long is that saw running for it’s going to be it’s it’s going to I’m going to be running that saw for 4 hours a year so but I’m more I’m more conscious to do it
Early rather than February get it done in November get it down before things up before everybody’s really asleep yeah yeah he solidly asleep well maybe so like maybe when I come we could do we will like do a video and we can put it on the YouTube channel
People would love that I think it would be really awesome yeah and we could visit a charcoal manufacturer at the old because there’s old in the New Forest because that’s what a lot of coppering used for is they make charcoal and I know there’s a really interesting old
Charcoal producer here which would be really interesting because obviously there’s I mean I use I use it for I use it for wood you know fuels everything Mimi there’s traditionally there’s a lot of hurdles fencing all those things were made out that’s that’s where you made
Your living so if you had two acres of Hazel you you were doing yeah and that you owned that land you were doing very well and you would make a good living but come Manu the manufacturer of wire and Barb Wire and first world war basically that the the bottom dropped
Out of the Hazel Mark in literally you know overnight and and these and these places were left but but so but you do get some of that but of course it’s never going to be that great because if you if you can put up a wire fence why
The hell would you put up a rotting Hazel herle except that they’re so beautiful oh oh they are absolutely lovely but you will see but but some of these guys are doing charcoal manufacturer which is great um and that and I think visually it’s a good thing
To see you know in terms of so if you could visit some compasses and there’s lots of guys doing really good stuff with Hazel um I’m just too untalented so I just I tend to log it chop it stack it I mean it’s part of yeah it’s part of
The economy of your home I mean it really makes all the sense in the world people really undervalue yeah I mean it’s it I mean I’d say the rate I get through it Mimi with we’re not just carbon neutral we’re the other way because it grows faster than I could I I
I can cut it and by the way I’m not you know I don’t sell it so I’m not interested in anyone buying as soon as you bring money into the equation now you’re wasting your time now now I’ve got to value my time which is I quite like Saturday morning chopping wood but
Not for someone else I the second you have to do it don’t no no no more listen M me I really want to come and visit you too so I need to when we when I when I went to see L gar Easter my wife was really surprised because I said why
Don’t we go to Boston for a holiday and she’s going this is weird and my daughter’s this is weird and then we got there and I went do you mind if I go to ver yeah so so I’m going to Pedal the idea of getting out to the West Coast
And then they’ll realize why I hope so bring them all we will we will love having you I I really appreciate your time thank your family for me um say hello say hello to farm shop keep keep that dream alive I better go and put the chickens
To bed in the dark it was great speaking with you Tim I look forward to keep keeping in touch what a delight I’m telling you so after the fact I had to um I had to look up this human which I don’t know I mean sometimes if you’re listening to a an
Aidite um Englishman you you might miss a few words but the the book that Tim refers to that inspired the art on his labels is from a book called A humant which is actually an actual book that was then taken by a gentleman named Tom Phillips who just recently passed away
And is of no relation to Tim Phillips just a coincidence so I’m going to quote here Adam Smith’s substack um which I which I need to subscribe to because I’m I’m I’m quoting him extensively here on a Saturday morning in November of 1966 Tom Phillips picked up a book at random
From a pile of novels at a house clearance sale in peckam rry got to love those British names Phillips had never heard of wh Malex a human document from 1892 but he likes the title and the yellow cover and hand it over three Pence back at his kitchen table Phillips
Began a process of remaking or treating the book by painting over most of each page with a crylic go or ink he left visible a stream of text which in dialogue with the images he added told a new story he goes on to say or refer to
This reworking as a a pruning a new pruning which I think is just such a delightful metaphor for Tim’s approach with this new sort of way of coming to wine and bringing in all of the traditional practices like cassing and the way that our agriculture can continue on if we are willing to
Continue to retell these stories of the land with new variations and Artistry of our own anyway that was a very long outro I want to again thank my uh my comrades at the no till Growers Market Garden podcast and all of the other great podcasts and just thanks for uh
Coming on this journey with me I look forward to next time All right I hope you enjoyed that episode real quick uh some things that we have going on first huge shout out to all the new patreon members the patreon page is just continues to hum and we appreciate you all so much the support the YouTube channel is also going strong
With new content for the 2024 growing season uh you can check out that channel by searching no till Growers on YouTube we will also put a link in the show notes Hannah and I announced our on Farm no till field days for 2024 here at Ru
Draft Farmstead we do only like three of these a year because time is just not a thing for me doesn’t happen very much uh and tickets are limited because space is limited so check those out if you want to come see my home Farm here in Kentucky as for the other conference
Stuff the last conference I am attending will be like next week in Riverside California for the grow Riverside and Beyond conference uh all the links for that in the show notes as well and also LinkedIn the show notes is our shop where you can find the living soil
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A
1 Comment
I hope you can find someone to talk coppicing! Sounds interesting.
This was a great interview