Environmental features

We have been growing fruit at High House Farm since 1958. We care about our land and have always done our best to look after the environment.

As part of DEFRA’s Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS) we have created:

a meadow of nectar and pollen rich plants to provide a food source for bumblebees, butterflies and other pollinating insects;
an area of mixed seeds to help farmland birds over the winter months;
strips of naturally occurring arable plants which form habitats for insects and other invertebrates;
a pasture of low-input grassland comprising a ley of grasses and wild flowers.

Between the orchards are long-established shelter belts of native trees which provide cover and nesting sites for a wide variety of birds and insects, as well as wind protection for the fruit.

In areas not being used for fruit, we leave the meadow grass to grow long until early autumn creating valuable habitats for insects, amphibians and small mammals, and an ideal hunting ground for barn owls.

We have planted a ‘traditional orchard’ using a mix of old varieties of apples, pears, plums, gages and nut trees. This is the sort of orchard that would have been attached to most farms between the wars and has now all but disappeared.

CSS and HLS plantings established with advice from Suffolk FWAG

Artwork funded by the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, delivered locally by the Coasts and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Our 12 ha of grazing marshes (not shown on the map) are farmed under DEFRA’s Higher Level Stewardship Scheme (HLS). These provide over-wintering and breeding areas for wetland birds such as lapwing and common snipe.

We have been awarded Silver Level accreditation by the Suffolk Carbon Charter for the progress we have made in reducing our carbon emissions. Also, we have been shown to absorb more carbon than we produce, making us ‘carbon positive’.