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| Sward to Sweater spinning |
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| Sward to Sweater dyeing |
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Sward to Sweater slide show
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John Josephi open day
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| Coffee and doughnuts |
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| Scythe Festival |
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| Moles |
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| Meadows |
Here you can post any ramblings about your land. Maybe you've had problems with water or foxes, or perhaps a new regime of cutting or grazing has worked rather well, fruit harvest was late, hornets have been a pain, or the orchids were wonderful. Although you may feel it is trivial, it might be very interesting and helpful for someone round the corner who has been puzzling about the same problem all year.
So, send me your ramblings and I will post them here. Just e-mail:
info@parishgrasslandsproject.org.uk
Sward to Sweater - Autumn meeting
Our autumn meeting on Saturday 29 October proved to be the most popular we have held in ten years, save only for an even more popular evening on bats a few years ago. With 56 people crammed into the loft of the Village shop we heard a succession of local speakers talk about keeping sheep: Tony Eggar, Sarah Sawyer, Mike Topp, Louise Frankel, Phil Morgan (in absentia), Brian Matt and myself. Apart from Tony, who employs his solely as lawnmowers, all are, or will be, ‘utilising’ their animals for wool, fleeces, meat and hides, so we heard about not just the pleasures and satisfactions of looking after sheep, but also some hard-nosed considerations relating to choice of abattoir and methods of butchering. Several have rare-breed sheep, partly as a contribution to maintaining the breeds. And, for Sarah and Louise, sheep-keeping has become a whole-family concern. The only ‘misfit’ was myself, who merely provides herbage and grazing for Bill Creswick’s sheep, though occasionally I have had to haul them out of fences or bramble patches.Food from our Fields - Autumn meeting of live sampling
The people who arrived to fuel the growth of
settlements in the areas of Brockweir and Hewelsfield
from around 1830 onwards would have been compelled to
maximise the produce from the plots they, in most cases,
“appropriated” on the commons (known as ‘encroachment’)
and from the natural environment around them. It was
simply a matter of survival.
Those of us now inhabiting these old properties
may grow fruit and veg, but safe in the knowledge that
in case of emergency there is always a supermarket not
far away.
By way of a novel idea for a meeting of the
Parish Grasslands Project, it was decided to see what we
could come up in the way of wild ‘eats’. One of the
first things we had to confront was the vagaries of the
weather, meaning that there was a dearth of fungi, a
core item that perhaps most people would associate with
food from the fields. Undaunted, the “Food from
Fields” meeting on Saturday 2nd October was
able to produce four trestle tables laden with food and
drinks made with what we had culled from field and
hedgerow.
The meeting, chaired by Sarah Sawyer, opened by
serving to the audience a “dose” of rosehip syrup, the
old-fashioned vitamin-C rich protection against
childhood colds. The various items of produce were then
introduced by those who had prepared the dishes. John
Josephi’s account of trying to skin a squirrel with two
pairs of pliers made for some laughter. Nettle and
mushroom soups featured along with game pate, rabbit and
the aforesaid dish a number of us were keen to sample
for the first time – squirrel (a fairly chewy, gamey
kind of flavour). Steve Orledge from St. Briavels
made an offer we could not refuse, to bring a pheasant
stew and some venison, which he sauteed freshly at the
meeting. Among the vegetables, we were able at the last
minute to source a platter of parasol mushrooms,
together with wild green tartlets (made with nettle and
ground elder), jellies of sloe and quince, and
elderberry chutney. An interesting green salad
combination included sorrel, clover, lamb’s lettuce and
dandelion. Desserts ranged from yogurt with cherry plum,
apple with blackberry and apple with elderberry cakes,
along with baskets of nuts and fresh rosy red apples to
finish.
On the drinks table we sampled (well, ‘sampled’
is perhaps an understatment!), the wines of parsnip,
blackberry, tayberry and plum (generously provided by
Arthur and Andi Cale), elderflower champagne and
elderflower cordial.
Mike Topp gave a short resume of the Slow Food
Movement, which started in
In these credit-crunch straightened times, the
cheapest option is also the healthiest.
Jean Pitt
posted 22/10/10
Field Visit to John Josephi's Orchard
Sunday May 23rd was a beautiful, hot, sunny day –
perfect weather for a relaxed walk around John Josephi’s
orchard on St. Briavels Common.
Around two dozen people turned up to hear John start by
explaining that he had inherited the land from his
father, and was continuing to manage it under DEFRA’s
Countryside Stewardship scheme. Under this scheme DEFRA
offers payment per hectare, plus a tariff of payments
for various aspects of that management, such as hedging,
walling, planting etc.
John’s first objective had been to reduce the fertility
of the soil, in order to bring back the wild flowers,
and started by removing the dung produced by animals
that had previously grazed the land.
Turning to look at an adjacent patch of woodland, he
pointed out where he had thinned out trees to maximize
growth of native species (holly not being one of them!).
He reminded us that it was the trunk of a stumpy-growing
oak that he had felled from this woodland that was now a
central pillar in the village shop.
Leading us to where a 90-year-old felled oak lay in
sections on the ground, John then proceeded, despite the
tropical temperature, to split and trim a length of
lower trunk, to illustrate how he made gate posts,
stakes etc. In a novel arrangement of lengths of the
thinner timber corralled in a tall stack between stakes,
he showed us, using a chainsaw, how to slice down the
stack in one stroke, producing the maximum heap of logs
for the minimum of effort.
We next moved to his individual fruit trees – wrapped,
staked and netted for maximum protection against voles,
rabbits, deer etc.
Finally we walked through the woodland to see at closer
range the effects of thinning, and on to his neighbours’
property where the grass management here had consisted
of cutting it and leaving it in situ. The difference
between this and John’s land was clearly noticeable.
A professional grass management expert in the group said
that research had shown that removing the cut grass was
the preferable option – not least because leaving it in
situ encourages slugs.
As we moved back up the orchard, John was able to show
us where orchids were now appearing, after giving the
patch of land a timely dose of Roundup, together with
yellow rattle and lousewort.
To round off the visit, we retired to the welcome shade
of an old pear tree for ginger beer and John’s, now
legendary, doughnuts.
Our thanks are due to John for such an interesting,
informative and hospitable afternoon. We may have even
recruited some new members in the process!
Jean Pitt
Posted 28/6/10
Scythe Festival
I spent Sunday 13 June in a large field near
Muchelney in the Somerset Levels at the annual Green
Scythe Festival, mainly so that I could see scything
done properly. The event attracted all ages to an arena
of well-grown ley grassland, set amongst an extensive
car park and a ‘street’ of small marquees
exhibiting not just scythe-related paraphernalia, but
also numerous broadly green exhibits and a gipsy
caravan, its horse and a tea kettle blackening over a
wood fire. Whilst the Scouts, Wildlife Trusts and Soil
Association joined the Hampshire woodworkers, green
energy firms (or, in one case, ‘solutions’), a pressure
group against nuclear expansion at Hinkley Point, a firm
marketing organic dog-waste disposal bags, a
demonstration of pit-sawing, numerous food stalls and
much else, the actual scything was organised by the
wildly enthusiastic black-bearded man who runs the
scythe shop from a farm outbuilding elsewhere in
Somerset. All-comers could try the ‘all you can mow in a
minute’ competition, but the main events were a team of
4 race, a scythe v strimmer challenge, and an individual
competition in rounds that ended with the title of
champion scythes man or, indeed, woman. The best
competitors could wield a large blade smoothly, without
evident hurry, mostly men in the 30-50 age group. There
was much sharpening of blades on the sidelines; scythes
lying beside the arena; chaps doing running repairs on a
scythe anvil, bashing out nicks; and people everywhere
carrying scythes. Spectators like myself had to be wary
of standing behind off-duty competitors carrying scythes
over their shoulder, but there was no sign of health and
safety officials, and one competitor scythed bare-foot.
The whole lot was conducted in an informal
light-hearted, bantering manner, except when actually
scything. I left not entirely sure whether it was
serious or a long, elaborate, tacit joke (probably the
former), but it was certainly an enjoyable day, and some
of the scything was every bit as good as I had seen from
traditional farmers in Romania recently.
The crowds were also entertained by
story-tellers and vigorous dance bands; a rabble-rouser
on stilts; a hay-play den for children, lots of mostly
vegetarian food; and only a few of the hippie
persuasion. Most of the cars parked on the margins were
not young.
posted 23/06/2010
Moles
Every year a few molehills appear in our fields, usually
in clusters, which I'm told are due to single moles
setting up runs and 'worm-traps'. For a year or two
I recorded the distribution of the clusters and found
that they were not concentrated in any particular area,
so either moles move on or die, or else they stop once
they have set up their runs. Our lawn, too, is
mole-ridden and, although the molehills are raked out,
the ground is actually a dense network of mole runs just
below the surface. 
This year the moles have surpassed
themselves, turning most fields to a state that recalls
the worst attacks of childhood chicken-pox. During the
repeated snows on January and February, we were forcibly
reminded of how many there were when we tried
cross-country skiing - which is hard enough anyway, and
doubly so when one hits frozen mole hills repeatedly. We
were also treated to displays of molehill digging as we
skied - fresh mounds appearing above the snow as we
stood there.
The sheer number of hills moved me to
work out how much ground they cover. Using a tape and
random transects, I calculated that molehills occupy 24%
of the ground in the densest clusters. They must depress
grass productivity and they are a menace to haymaking,
and so they will be scarified out shortly, but they help
the flowers by providing fresh germination sites. As
happens so often, the greatest biodiversity is
associated with conditions that are not ideal for
farming.
George Peterken
posted 7/3/2010
Last week I went to Shirenewton to talk to the local history society about meadows and traditional haymaking. It was arranged a year ago, but it turned out to be well timed, for Shirenewton village has just acquired land for a village meadow. The village has two centres, separated by small fields, and it is for these that the community raised a nearly-six-figure sum. I did not see the field itself, but I understand that its a pleasantly flowery meadow with lots of colour but no great rarities, and that it is studded with 25 oaks - a meadow-parkland, in fact. The idea is that this will remain a public open space; that it will be treated as an ordinary meadow with grazing after the hay has been taken; and that it will be used for teaching by the local school. In the not-too-distant future, I hope to be invited to a village haymaking gathering, one of the lost traditions of rural Britain. An example for our own community?
A postscript on Shirenewton's parish meadow.
George Peterken
Posted 4/3/09 - PS added 3/4/09