What I did today 2021

[Purple Primrose]

Covered two vegetable beds with homemade compost.

The experiment with letting the front lawn grow untended for 3 years to see what interesting wildflowers grew on their own only resulted in dockans and cow parsley. The knee-high grass has now been strimmed so that it can be killed off shortly and then sown with a wildflower mix and some other pollinator-friendly flowers.

[ameno]

Covered two vegetable beds with homemade compost.

The experiment with letting the front lawn grow untended for 3 years to see what interesting wildflowers grew on their own only resulted in dockans and cow parsley. The knee-high grass has now been strimmed so that it can be killed off shortly and then sown with a wildflower mix and some other pollinator-friendly flowers.

Wildflower meadows are usually mown once or twice a year. If you never mow them then you won't ever get many wildflowers, as the soil gets no light so the seeds cannot germinate, and the plants themselves cannot compete with the long grass.

[Purple Primrose]

Ah, that'll be why we got what we got then.

[ameno]

Ah, that'll be why we got what we got then.

To get a good wildflower meadow you ideally need to reduce the nutrient levels, or more precisely the nitrogen levels, of the soil, too.
Fertile soil favours grass, and even if you seed it with a good mix, eventually grass is likely to take over.
Long term, cutting the grass then removing all the cuttings (and of course not adding any more fertiliser) is the best way to do this.
Shorter term, you can dig sawdust into the soil. This locks up soil nitrogen as the wood is decomposed by soil microorganisms, but the effect only lasts as long as the sawdust takes to rot down (6 months to a year), then the bacteria die and the nitrogen is returned to the soil.
Very short term, you can use sugar to the same effect. Sugar produces very fast results (unlike sawdust, which takes a month or more to start having an effect), but the results only last a month or two before things return to normal.

[nick the grief]

What you need is Yellow Rattle will weaken the grass too. Its like a parasitic plant and seeks out the roots and draws mosture and food from them. But to sow this you need to cut the grass short, removet the cuttings then de thatch it removing any old grass and mosss and exposing the soil and then sow the Yellow Rattle (before November). When we did a wildflower medow for a school we used plu plants of wild flowers that way we could get a balance mix - some of the seed mixes tend to have a lot of the more vigourous plants that take over if you're not careful.

[Purple Primrose]

Thank you both for taking the time to post your advice.

I've never heard of adding sugar to soil for any reason. I think any passers by would think I've gone nuts if I go out there with bags of granulated and sprinkle sugar all over the lawn! I'm intrigued by the idea though so I think I'll try it on a designated area.

I'm not able to put down sawdust as it'd just blow away. Even getting the grass cuttings into a wheel barrow to cart off to one of our compost heaps was quite a battle. I had to use a fork, spade and rake on top to hold it down while moving the barrow. To hold the grass cuttings on the heap, I covered them with some turves that were cut last spring and have partially rotted down.

I need to put in an order for a few more seeds so I'll order some yellow rattle. It'd be interesting to split the lawn into different areas and compare the effects of adding sugar, yellow rattle, plug plants and just seed. I feel an experiment coming on!

Meanwhile, today was 'chop down the elder before it pushes over the drystone wall' day. It has to be done every few years. I've kept the sticks as they're very useful for holding up plants against the wind. The short trunks are going to be added to the rotting wood pile to help out the beetles.

[ameno]

Dug some more of the main veg bed.

[nick the grief]

I actually dug out the surveyors tape and measured the space I have at teh lotty ... I have nearly twice as much as I thought I did

[ameno]

Cut the dead leaves from the second strawberry patch, then weeded it.
I had wanted to do some more digging today, but it rained heavily this morning, and the ground was too wet.

[.commander]

Took down some more woodchip.

Admired the swamp.

[Ms-T]

Potted up some tomatoes.

[Jungle Jane]

We’ve got quite a bit of snow here in Braintree,I looked outside & the pigeon was looking sad nestled in the ceanothus & I thought oh no he’s unable to feed off the ground like usual so I moved the Christmas tree that’s laying on the grass (ready to cut up) & revealed a lovely clear patch of grass,put some seed & mealworms down & went indoors. Then the bird kingdom came to the garden,it was really nice,starlings alert lots of other birds to the area,I don’t know if some follow them around. My broccoli looks really wilted -

[.commander]

Planted some Ailsa Cragg onion seed on my wondowsil. The allotment is underwater.

I'm also stockpiling Christmas tree woodchip for paths and weed suppression.

Gonna plant my leek , greyhound cabbage, leftover broad bean seed from last year and some lettuce/spring onion over next few weeks.

[Bren In Pots]

I’ve been sorting through my seed box because its time to finally make a start

[MelanieSW]

Wrapped up the perennial kale as up to -7C are forecast for tonight.