Winning against the docks!

As the wildflower meadow is due to be cut early next week (several days of good weather are forecast for haymaking) I have been going round and cutting the seed heads off from all of the docks that survived my Roundup Gel earlier in the year. There are so many fewer this year, so a job that in the past has taken two days only took me an hour.

It is very satisfying to see how many dock seeds I am preventing from hitting the ground - I often think that one dock head is like a packet of seeds! As I have been doing this for nearly 10 years just think of the number of seeds that are now not in the meadow.

The early summer flowering plants have now set seed so it is really time for the hay to be cut.

This year I am going to 'top off' the meadow a couple of times during the late summer and autumn to try and reduce some of the coarser grass which is taking over in part of the field.

Is the Little Owl in residence?

Coming home at twilight a little owl fledgling was sitting in the road about 20 meters away from a tree where I have put up a little owl box. The bird sat in the road then flapped up into a nearby tree. When I put the box up 5 years ago it looked like a good place - a big horizontal branch for the chicks to site out on and tucked away in the ivy near the main trunk of an oak. I thought that it was empty, but I will be keeping a close eye out for 'branching' chicks from now on - and I will make an expedition today to look for pellets under the box.

The little owl box has a 'turn' in it as they like to be hidden away without a direct visual line to the box entrance. The pictures below are of another little owl box which I had a camera in - unfortunately the whole branch that this one was on fell down and I haven't put this second little owl box back up yet - another job for the autumn.

Collecting the Rattle seed

Top job at this time of year is collecting the seed from the Hay Rattle before the Wildflower Meadow is cut next week. There is a relatively brief window of two or three weeks between the seed ripening and the grass being cut for hay. The old country saying is that the hay should be harvested when the Hay Rattle rattles - the sounds the seeds make in the dried seed-heads.
Rattle is a vital component of the Wildflower meadow as it is semi-parasitic on grass and keeps the vigour of the grass down allowing the wild flowers to come through. In the upper half of the Meadow the grass is long and quite course, with very little Rattle so I need to spread seed in theses areas, as well as do an autumn 'topping off' of the grass. The Rattle seed is expensive, so harvesting our own is time well spent.

The seed is collected by looking for a newly ripened seed head, holding on to the stalk below and pulling up to remove the seed pods. If you don't hold on to the stalk with one hand while harvesting with the other you will uproot the whole plant. The seeds are collected in a plastic container, and then emptied into a cardboard box so that they dry out and all the seeds are released.
I have scattered them on earth areas in the winter in previous years, but I have noticed that lots don't get to the ground - so this year I am going to scatter the seed straight after harrowing in August.

Ragwort Pulling

I have mixed feelings about pulling up the Ragwort - my neighbours certainly would not thank me for leaving it as windblown seeds pay no respect to the boundaries of the Woodland and Wildflower Meadow. However, I really like seeing the Cinnabar moth caterpillars with their bright orange and black "warning I taste bad" stripes.

Quite a lot of Ragworth has moved into the Meadow this year from an uncultivated strip on a nearby field. It needs to be pulled up by the roots to remove it - so I spent a sweaty couple of hours tugging at the plants. The result was a field clear of ragwort - and there are several places nearby with plenty growing, so the Cinnabar Month will still have a home.

The best reward for hard labour of ragwort pulling was finding this Marsh Thistle growing in the damp area at the bottom the field - a new plant for the Meadow which I hope might get established.

A battle with the Docks

As with all horse grazed fields we had a lot of dock growing in the beginning. Each year in the spring I have been spraying them with Roundup, and then at this time of year cutting off the seed heads. There are many fewer this year that cutting the seed heads only took two hours (previously it has taken up to two days!).

This year I have also discovered Roundup Gel - the trouble with the spray is that it killed a section of other plants around the dock and left a bare patch where - more docks grew! The gel is selective and seems to work very well.

Next task is pulling the Ragwort.

Grass Cutting among the trees - my least favourite job of the summer

A weekend of grass cutting around a shelter belt of trees to the north of the Meadow which was planted 5 years ago. I have left cutting rather late in the year so there is really thick, rank grass growing which has really smothered the row of holly.

I have tried some 'natural engineering' using 4 rows of trees to create a wedge shape to take the north wind up and over the house - the furthest north two is holly (low and slow growing) then mixed blackthorn, hawthorn, crab apple, then two rows of tall and quick growing birch with some climax vegetation trees mixed in (oak and beech) to take a very long term view. This creates a wedge - although I think that the wedge is really too narrow to have much of an effect.

Cutting the grass between these trees is a horrible job as the ground in uneven, the vegetation coarse and the are hundreds of horse flies living in it which swarm out so whole body protection is required - which is so hot to wear in the sunshine. It used to take me 2 days to do the cutting, but investment in an Allen Scythe, or front-bar cutting mower (known in the USA as a motorised sickle),  has decreased this to about 4 hours!

The mower is from AT-KO and was a bit of a pain to assemble - but it has transformed my ability to cut grass. Definitely a good investment.

As you can see from the photos above there is still a lot of grass around the holly which will need to be removed buy hand - 5 minutes per tree multiplied by 60 trees. Looks like another day of work before I finish completely. Four of five of the Hollies have died so I will need to replant in the autumn.

Digging a bumble bee nest

I was initially puzzled by a 10 inch deep hole with a mass of bumble bees at the bottom. There was newly dug earth around, and I realised that this was the overnight work of a badger digging out a communal bumble bee nest to eat the larvae.

Lots of path  clearance at the moment as the grass and hogweed is falling over in the regular thunderstorms that we are still having. However the Meadow Cranesbill seems to stay upright and there is a lovely display of blue flowers.