POST #19 PATHWAYS TO A MORE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
We have reached mid August and that part of the natural cycle where it is necessary to cut the grass and wildflowers that have gone to seed in the natural garden meadow. Nature teaches us that this cycle of plant life that has nurtured the insect pollinators over the summer months is now passing on its genes to begin the next cycle of life.
Our Re-Betchworth team offered a scything workshop last weekend so I joined it and over the course of the day was introduced to the scythe and the mowing technique and gained a few hours experience of cutting wildflowers and grasses using the scythe. The workshop was excellent but by the end of it I realised that it was much too slow and labour intensive to use on my wildflower meadow.
We have reached mid August and that part of the natural cycle where it is necessary to cut the grass and wildflowers that have gone to seed in the natural garden meadow. Nature teaches us that this cycle of plant life that has nurtured the insect pollinators over the summer months is now passing on its genes to begin the next cycle of life.
Our Re-Betchworth team offered a scything workshop last weekend so I joined it and over the course of the day was introduced to the scythe and the mowing technique and gained a few hours experience of cutting wildflowers and grasses using the scythe. The workshop was excellent but by the end of it I realised that it was much too slow and labour intensive to use on my wildflower meadow.
A walk through the meadow demonstrated that there were still plenty of buterflies and pollinating insects foraging so I took my time cutting it with the tractor, one area at a time, rather than tackling the whole thing in one go which I had done in previous years. I began with a high cut, to encourage any animals to escape, allowing the grass and wildflower cuttings to lie for a few days for seed to drop. Then using the mower I made a low cut and hoovered up the cuttings for composting. It was quite time consuming but the task was completed by spending a few hours a day for a couple of weeks
My wildflower cultivation is a mass of flowers and a delight to behold. It began to flower in late June as the oxeye daisy meadow finished flowering, and it has continued throughout July and August attracting a lot of insect pollinators. I consider it to have been a great success with all but one of the areas sown flowering. It has motivated me to extend my experiment and made me think about how might extend my own wildflower cultivation. I wanted to add another strip deeper into the field but I also wanted to incorporate the natural wildflowers in the field especialy a patch of thistles and a patch of ragwort which I had been realised were very important for pollinators. I did some grasscutting and began digging up the turf in a new strip about 1.5m wide by 30m long. I will purchase more wildflower seed and sow this area in September. I will also add some of the oxeye daisy seed I collected from my garden meadow.
Below: Expanding the wildflowerf meadow into the field from left to right - existng cultivation, grass path, new strip being prepared by taking up the turf, grass strip (the grass will be kept short), existing field containing ragwort, thistles and other wild flowers.
Below: Expanding the wildflowerf meadow into the field from left to right - existng cultivation, grass path, new strip being prepared by taking up the turf, grass strip (the grass will be kept short), existing field containing ragwort, thistles and other wild flowers.
| I edited our magazine and it was published last week. I contributed an article summarising the progress we have made on our village biodiversity line. I met with my B-Line team mates to plan the next stage of our community project and we agreed a strategy and a division of labour – to knock on doors and invite residents in the southern part of the village to sow wildflower seed in September. Our intention is to extend our biodiversity corridor down to the southern boundary of our parish – a distace of around 5km – 2 km further than we originally intended. |  |
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