The blossom on the field this spring was beautiful, best year yet – our young trees are growing well, though we will need to remove most of the fruit from our orchard trees again this year to give them a chance to strengthen a bit more.
We’ve been busy in the last month, having got agreement at the FoDGS AGM to spend some money on more landscaping, we asked Hortiservices to remove a load of top soil from the top of the mound and create and seed a second dry dip. The maintenance contractor has mown areas of the site for picnickers this weekend, but will leave the meadow long for the summer. The new seeds have germinated and hopefully with the recent rain will now thrive.
A fox has recently been spotted on the mound and muntjac skat was seen today. We had hundreds of tadpoles, some of which will hopefully survive the hundreds of fish, from large carp to small fry, who seem to be multiplying daily. The heron tries his best, but the fish are canny and stay in the deep water – however the tadpoles are equally canny and stay in the super-shallow areas!
The meadow is looking great, the grasses are reducing, the yellow rattle has germinated and is now in flower (must remember to harvest the seed!) and the original dry dip is chock-full of pollinating plants, almost all self-seeded.
Hope to see you on the field – do stop and say hello if we are working – or better still, join us!
