Harvesting Greater Knapweed

Today’s harvest with Glorious Grasslands was pretty local, so I didn’t leave until 8.50am and picked up Niamh along the way. This is the first time I’ve done this site, however I have visited briefly before while dropping off plug plants for Anna a couple of years ago. The site is truly unique among mature species rich grasslands. You could see every herbacious plant individually at calf height, and the grass was suitably diminished. The wild carrot was the obvious one ready, but the real prize was the huge amount of Greater Knapweed across the site. Mid-morning seed haul Only one harvester today and four of us, so all fairly relaxed. There was really not much grass coming off at all, so it was a high quality, species rich mix right from the off. We had a visit from the land owner mid morning and it was very interesting to hear how they manage the land with the beef cattle. They are due on this field in the autumn. We finished up around 2pm because Tom had to get back to the barns.…