Since my last post much has happened in the field and with our plans for it and late summer has gradually given way to late autumn. The summer flowers are long gone and grass growth has slowed up.
150 sheep were put on to graze the whole field in late August/early September and they did a good job of the haymeadow area. They much preferred the soft, lush green aftermath grazing of the haymeadow to the drier, longer grasses left on the anthill tumps, so we restricted the grazing to the lower part of the field in September to try and get the anthill area more tightly grazed. The sheep did a reasonable job for a week or so, but after 10 days the farmer felt they were pretty keen to return to the easier grazing so rather than risk a mass breakout, we let them back into the larger field. We've currently got around 40 of this year's lambs grazing the whole field and we've noticed they are spending a bit of time on the tumps voluntarily and are gradually making inroads. But we may still have to take some of the remaining long grass off there by hand. So sickles, scythes,rakes and rough grass mowers are being mentioned a bit more meaningfully now. We have to do this to encourage next year's flower seedlings to grow, to remove the 'mat' of old grass growth, keep fertility levels down and prevent coarser grass species spreading in future years. Ideally we would have done this grass removal earlier in the autumn. Next year we will be better prepared!
The future plans for the field have undergone some further refinements and changes (new, updated plan here) and we await news of grant funding in the next few weeks which will hopefully enable much of the work to take place over the next 12 to 24 months. So, exciting times! More on this in a future post.
Meantime we are taking the opportunity to talk to anyone who owns and manages land (be it meadowland, woodland or wetland) and visit them to learn more. We've also been to our first Marches Meadow Group meeting which was a Q&A evening - such a lot of expertise and encouragement to keep us going from a knowledgeable group of local people.
