Field Study's Man in E17 says a fox ate his fieldwork
We think a fox has chewed at the side of the polytunnel (of Love Supreme). There were several areas of scratches and holes, including what appeared to be incisor-like patterns of toothy penetration. We have protected the side of the polytunnel before with chicken wire and we may well have to re-install that mesh to prevent more damage. Field Study's Man in E11 was, however, grateful for the foxes' demonstration of creative mark making. The fox's example may be useful in the process of making maps - to recreate an archipelago of windows through which to view and explore the rest of the allotment site.
I am disappointed by the field student's efforts in cartography. He has taken to making excuses for his lack of creative thinking and progress in the field. Last night he tried to convince me that a dog fox had eaten his fieldwork. I said, 'dog's dinner this may be but pull the other one'.
Anyway, if the field student is failing to map the site creatively we cannot let that interfere with and hinder our efforts to cultivate it. This weekend found us in the area corresponding to B6 in the fox chewed map (above) or B6 (again) in the less intricately wrought map or plan below.
Below is a slightly more detailed field sketch of 'B6'. The numbers denote:
1. Corner of polytunnel
2. Rose, nettle, comfrey, honeysuckle hedge
3. raised bed
4. Jerusalem Artichokes - raised bed
5. raised bed
6. raised bed
7. embedded railway sleeper
8. compost bin
9. raised bed
10. new compost bin
11. raised bed
12. Hawthorn tree
13. Rose bush
14. Bay tree
15. Comfrey patch
16. Liquid manure barrel
17. Willow
18. Wood scrap pile
The raised beds 3,5,6,9 and 11 were re-established this year using straw, and municipal compost created and delivered by North London Waste. The beds are a spit deep and they were used for growing potatoes in 2013. Our main tasks this Sunday (17th) were to harvest the Jerusalem Artichokes, weed/remove more bindweed roots and sow green manures - field beans and winter rye. The raised beds, 11, 9 and 6 were treated with 'rock dust' and compost, and then covered with a tarpaulin soon after the potato harvest in September. Beds 5 and 3 were rock dusted but they have been bare and exposed since the harvest.
Winter Rye went into Beds 9 and 6 - temporarily covered with horticultural fleece
Field Beans went into Beds 3, 5 and 11- temporarily covered with polythene cloches.
Worms ('Darwin's Ploughs')
- there was a question regarding the wisdom of digging the beds to weed out bind weed roots. Were we harming the worms? Some worms were definitely harmed as they were excavated, impaled and decapitated on our garden forks. Were we disrupting the beneficial interactions of the 3 main types of worms - these being:
1. the surface worms that pull down organic litter.
2. the persistent vertical burrowers and borers (which create worm casts) - 30 times their own body weight in a day.
3. the movers and mixers, which live within the soil matrix.
According to William Edmonds, in, Weeds Weeding (& Darwin) - The Gardeners Guide, bind weed can colonize land to a depth of 5 metres. The plant's rhizomatous roots develop via an extensive system of short vertical tap roots and relatively long lateral roots which can grow down 1.2 metres a year, depending on the soil type and other conditions. The roots are brittle and a new plant can develop quickly from each fragment. To what extent were we actually controlling the plant and at what 'cost' to the worms?
One of the purposes of sowing green manures is to cultivate plants which will compete with weeds. When chopped and left to rot and/or be dug in, the green manures will also provide organic matter for the worms; our reparations.
In a recent Shared Planet programme (here) a soil scientist explained the severe eroding effects of rain on bare soil. Heavy rainfall can easily wash away a millimetre layer of agricultural soil (15 tonnes per hectare) in a very short time, yet that thin layer can take 20 years to restore. I assume he (Professor Wilfred Otten) means 20 years to replace by the various natural systems and cycles. Changing weather patterns and exhaustion of soil fertility (owing to what is agriculture as 'mining' of nutrients by over cultivation) is making for a worldwide soil crisis.
It was awareness of this crisis which created a sort of super heroic (!!!) urgency in our otherwise humble efforts to maintain the health and vitality of our borrowed patch of planet.
Field Study's Man in E11 reappeared from a diminutive piece of dirt, stripped naked and rolling around in the mud of a particularly boggy corner of the site, smearing himself with the sludge and ooze, dancing, and then inscribing numerous s shapes upon himself, each one, he said (or rather sang) being for each species of worm resident beneath our feet, a bizarre recitation to imagine witnessing. Surely it did not happen?
Comments
Post a Comment