A day at Buttercup Meadow

I spent a good day working at Buttercup Meadow today, a field gradually turning into an organic, ecological, biodiverse, multi-habitat, community education and event space in Northumberland.

The day was accompanied by the sight and sound of a pair of lapwings dancing over the fields beyond and the high twittering sound of skylarks. Two of my favourite birds, memories of growing up on a Northumbrian farm. 

There’s lots of work that has gone into the field over the last few years mainly by owner Andrew Davenport of Gardeners Cottage Plants. He got the water supply to the shed working today which is a great milestone reached and there’s even a composting toilet! 

The no-dig veg beds are created by covering the ground with a layer of barley straw to kill off the grass and weeds. The field can get quite soggy so trenches have been dug between the beds to allow rainwater to flow away and down to a pond at the end. The beds are mulched with spent hops that Andrew collects weekly from a local brewery. The hops do a great job of feeding the soil and the worms - of which I found lots of when weeding today. There weren’t actually that many weeds as the hop mulch also does a great job of protecting the soil and preventing weeds taking hold. 

Other jobs today included planting out hardwood twisted hazel cuttings at the bottom of the field which will hopefully eventually turn into a small copse. Planting out rooted dogwood cuttings, raspberry and blackberry canes and planting wildflowers. 

Everything we do at the field is for healthy, thriving biodiverse ecosystems of plants, soil, creatures and nature.