Harvesting arable margins

It was predicted to be well over mid 30s today, so an earlier start with Glorious Grasslands and aim to finish by noon. I met up with Tom at Woodmancote (a site I also did earlier this season), but today we were focusing on the field margins. The farmer hadn’t cropped this year (almost certainly a good decision in retrospect) and the arable fields have temporary leys. But a few of them have species rich margins which we would tackle this morning. It was very easy to set up the tarpaulin on the flat corner of the arable field under the shade of the woodland. There were three of us, but Tom seemed to do each run much more quickly, so there was still quite a pace overall. The field scabious, cowslips and hoary plaintain had all gone over, so a rich haul. There’s even still Yellow Rattle which is amazing for this time of year. Quick tea break then we headed over to a second field. We just took the trailer and drop tarp with us and sifted straight into bags. Much easier than loading and…