If you have visited the Community Orchard & Nature Reserve recently you will have noticed how much the grass and thistles have grown.
In order to start preparing the area for reseeding with wild flowers and less vigorous grasses we need to reduce the fertility in the soil. An effective way of doing this is to cut the site and remove the cuttings. To achieve this on Sunday 8th June the grass was cut and over the following days was turned in preparation for baling.
On Friday the grass was baled, thanks to the loan of a baler by Terry Farwell, and all the bales have been collected.
This process will prevent the more vigorous grasses and thistles seeding and will hopefully mean they will not reappear next year.
Cutting for hay now will result in further growth over the summer months and will probably mean a second cut later in the year, that will remove more fertility from the soil in advance of preparing it for reseeding in late autumn.