Environment
Time to reflect and take stock - David Chapman suggests resolutions to help save the environment and salve the conscience!
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| This photo shows a hedgerow that we planted 11 years previously and some of the wildflowers that have grown underneath - notice a couple of orchids bottom left |
THE excesses of Christmas behind us, it is time to reflect, take stock and plan ahead. The long dark nights of January are a good time for thinking about priorities and maybe, even if you are already environmentally friendly, there might be a few more things you can do to protect your local, and even help to protect the global, environment.
On your smallholding why not set aside an area as a wildflower meadow? If your partner took up my suggestion last month, you might even have received a selection of seeds as a Christmas present! Creating a wildflower meadow is quite simple and can cost nothing. All it actually entails is leaving a small area un-grazed during the spring and summer, we manage to leave about three-quarters-of-an-acre fallow between April and August using our other fields for the sheep in these months. Our strategy is to have our fields split into fairly small sections so we can take full control of the grazing by rotating the sheep from field to field regularly.
If left un-grazed from spring to summer, wildflowers will germinate themselves and it is interesting to see which species emerge but to enhance the wildflower meadow it is also possible to sow the seeds of further species. One species to try is the yellow rattle. This is a semi-parasitic species competing directly with the grass. As well as having a beautiful and uplifting meadow to admire, we can also rest happily in our beds at night knowing that we are providing food for butterflies, bees and many other insects.
To help save the environment you could try to reduce the quantity of chemicals used on your land. Chemicals have a double environmental impact, not only do they have to go somewhere when you use them but they have to be created in the first place. On our smallholding we use just two chemicals. One is the solution we put on our sheep to stop them getting fly strike. There may be others but we use Vetrazin. Anyone that has seen fly strike and the effects that it has on sheep will realise that prevention is far better than cure. The other chemical that we use is a worming agent for our animals. This, too, is unavoidable but the frequency and quantity of use is controllable. As smallholders, it is possible for us to keep a much closer eye on our livestock than it would be for large-scale farmers. It should also be possible for us to be able to keep stock at low levels and move them regularly to fresh grazing. All of this means that we should be able to minimise the amount of wormer we use.
Another of my suggestions last month was to buy your partner a nest box for Christmas. If you received one, then get out and put it up; if you didn't, then use some of those old off-cuts of fencing timber to make one, or more. If you have been promising to do it for years, then do it now. If you have already done it, then get out there and clean out the used ones before spring arrives. You may have a few nest boxes for tit species but what about being more adventurous. There is a whole host of bird species that can be attracted to nest boxes, for example in the last couple of years we have been successful in housing a pair of tawny owls and it has been wonderful to be able to watch the young owls watching us! I have found a very useful web page for providing measurements and designs for nest boxes at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust website: www.lincstrust.org.uk/factsheets/nestbox.php
Back to the wider environment, it's time to stop using plastic bags from the supermarket. If you visit supermarkets, then get yourself a jute bag; they're dirt cheap and will decompose when they have had their day. Just get into the habit of leaving a couple of these bags in the boot of your car so they are there with you when you go shopping. It won't be long before you are asking why you ever started using plastic!
Plant a tree, or a hedgerow, or an orchard. This sounds easy enough, though it does come with problems because you need somewhere to plant it! I've planted a few trees on our smallholding and later regretted it when I have found it impossible to keep sheep away from them. Planting a single tree will probably require some permanent fencing around it but maybe if you can afford to set aside an area of land for an orchard it would be possible to just graze it in the winter.
If you already do all the things I have suggested, then consider doing a simple thing for a wildlife charity. This year we are going to have a charity open day in the summer. Our aim is to make refreshments, get people from our local community to help on the day and then invite people to come and have a look around for a fee. The money raised will be donated to our county wildlife charity, the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. I will give guided tours of the land talking about the animals that we keep and the wildlife that we see, I will explain about our use of the land and what we have done to our smallholding while we have lived here. We will publicise it in the Wildlife Trust magazine, in local newspapers, magazines, radio, by putting posters up locally and by word of mouth. We will ask people from our village to bake scones and cakes, but don't tell them yet we haven't mentioned it! Our open day will be in June because this coincides with some of the best flowers in our wildflower meadow and there is a good chance of being able to see a good variety of birds and bees as well as possibly badger cubs in the evening. If you would like to come to our open day in West Cornwall then please contact me on 01736 850287.
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