In 2021 White Peak Farmers has continued with its work to try to help wildlife on their farms by carrying out further restoration of wildflower meadows at Old Hall farm in Middle Mayfield and at Bradley Nook Farm in Hulland Ward.
MARNA and other volunteers have been busy from May right up until Christmas. We have been out and about with permission from other land owners collecting wildflower and tree seed by hand. Good amounts of seed were collected again this year including, devils-bit-scabious, common knapweed, meadow vetchling, tufted vetch, birds-foot trefoil, lesser spearwort, sneezewort, common valerian, ragged robin, common spotted orchid, water avens, pignut, harebell, great burnet, and wild angelica, as well as seed from trees such as hornbeam, field maple, hawthorn, blackthorn, crab apple and guilder rose. Some of this seed has been sown in trays to grow plug plants which will be planted out in the fields next year.
The volunteers, project leaders Alison Ash and Ann Cantrell, and farmer Graham Prince have created a plant nursery at Middle Mayfield where we work and store out plants.
Two greenhouses were kindly donated to us by Liz in Mayfield. Some of you in Mayfield have seen us carrying the greenhouses over a fence and a hedge and on to a trailer before being towed away by a tractor through the village!
The plant nursery now also has an outdoor growing area covered with netting to keep rabbits, squirrels, birds, rats, mice, pheasants and local chickens from eating all that we have sown. Another project we are working on is to increase tree cover and ensure we have trees for the future on our farms. Land owners and volunteers have planted out 350 trees on a site close to Ashbourne and we are growing many more, but it will be a few years more before they are ready for planting out.
Next Spring we will be starting again and the project is always looking for more volunteers, so if you are interested in joining us, please contact Alison at White Peak Farmers.
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