This year I declared war on the brambles (and nettles) in the field. It's not their fault. We love letting nature take its course without interfering too much and for 15 years I have let them grow unchecked and they have taken advantage of my generosity becoming the dominant plant in at least half of the field. So this year, prompted by my good fortune in February of the railway contractors who cleared the 5 metres of scrub and brambles along the northern fence, I decided to make a concerted effort. First in February and March I cut the grass and brambles short and chopped down all the saplings. Then in April I cleared the southern boundary along the fence as I repaired it.



​The truly remarkable and scary thing about brambles is they grow upto 3cm a day so by May the brambles I had cut in March had grown back in the field so I have been working out how to reclaim it for the grasses and wild flowers. I did some experiments. First I spent two days digging up a 3mx5m patch and attempted to extract all the roots. It was very hard work and I knew I couldn't repliecate it for the whole area infested by brambles. Next I did some burning which seemed to be effective for areas where I had a fire for several hours but not for areas of superficial burning. Then I tried a trio of herbicides and eventually found that vitax SBK worked best. So I painstakingly criss-crossed the field many times with my 1 litre spray bottle administering every plant I could find.  After 3 weeks I can see that I have had some success and I am perhaps half way to acjieving my goal. I made a short film to explain my project.