Nature Reserves

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'Cultivate', Little Wittenham, South OxfordshireStreet MapGoogle MapPhotos

'Cultivate', Little Wittenham
Managed by:Cultivate
OS grid reference:SU 562 927
Nearest postcode:OX14 4QZ
Usual work:Fencing

Cultivate is a new cooperative social enterprise that will bring fresh, local, organically-grown food directly from farmers to the city and surrounding area. One aspect of the project focuses on growing produce, which Cultivate will sell via its VegVan to support the cooperative and further its social aims.

Cultivate will begin growing in early 2012 on five acres of land, based at the Earth Trust in Little Wittenham. Best practices will be used for growing, including using a range of crops and trialling heritage varieties, working to conserve crop diversity. Cultivate will also be working with the Earth Trusts to improve the land (which has been traditionally cultivated) and increase biodiversity on the site. There will be crop rotations (good for the soil and reduces pathogen buildup); hedges for nesting birds; wood piles for invertebrates and hedgehogs; and a lovely compost heap which will be great for worms!

Conservation Management

The site will be run in a way that both protects and works with the wildlife in a traditional and organic manner. Bird boxes will provide shelter for wild fowl that may also help keep pests at bay, while wood piles and compost heaps will provide warmth and shelter for invertebrates. OCV will be assisting at this site in order to create fences that will protect the organically-grown food.

Directions

Leave Oxford on the A4074 towards Wallingford and Reading. At the roundabout for Berinsfield turn right towards Abingdon. In Clifton Hampden take a left at the second set of traffic lights towards Long Wittenham, following the brown Project Timescape signs up to Long Wittenham. Then ignore the next Project Timescape sign which takes you a long way round and instead carry on across the crossroads in Long Wittenham following signs to Little Wittenham. Take a right at the T-junction and follow the road round the bend. The car park is at the Northmoor Trust.