Saturday 20 April 2013

The bracken on our farm is a real nuisance. It suppresses wild flowers and grasses. We've found a novel way of bashing it, which is the most efficient way of weakening it. A quad, pulling tractor tyres joined with chains, emulates a herd of oxen crushing the stalks.Supposedly in olden times, everyone would have collected the bracken for bedding and animals would have helped to trample it. On our farm the steep slopes pose a problem so not everywhere is accessible. Here you can see green coming through where it has been successful and brown on steeper parts which can't be got at other than heavy tramping! ,