Featured this month: Meadow Magic updates; One Acre Meadow one year on – meeting 2nd September; Plot that plastic app launched; Reeth Surgery Community Beds: plans; Reeth Arts Festival 31 August Sustainable Swaledale stall; Reeth Surgery Tree Nursery update; Save our Swale talk: thanks; Tree planting and rewilding project results in 700% increase in prolific pollinators; Tree seed collection; YDMT Seed to Sapling newsletter launch
Meadow Magic updates
Those of you who visit the Sustainable Swaledale Facebook site will already know that our FiPL (Farming in Protected Landscapes) bid for funds for some equipment to help maintain meadows was successful. FiPL grants only cover 80% of the cost so we are grateful to Tees Swale: naturally connected for providing the other 20%. Meadows do best when the grass is removed from the field so that the field becomes less fertile, benefitting wild flowers (which favour less fertile soils) and inhibiting lush grass growth which can otherwise overwhelm the flowers. Where a site is too large to use a lawn mower/scythe but not large enough to be attractive to a farmer/contractor to cut, people have struggled to get the grass cut and removed, which has to be done year on year. Such difficulties are a barrier to getting a meadow established or restored to its former glory.
Sustainable Swaledale now has a walk behind tractor and a hay rake which will allow us to cut the grass and remove it from such small plots as long as they are reasonably flat. At the moment we can only produce loose hay but we have found some people able to make use of it.
Another way of improving meadows is to introduce meadow flowers through plug plants. The Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust are funding plug plants for a meadow site in Swaledale, which has some nice flowers (including the melancholy thistle), but would benefit from some attention. Sustainable Swaledale has been asked if we could provide some volunteer assistance to plant the plugs so watch out for our call for volunteers when dates (provisionally 2nd November) and details have been confirmed.
One Acre Meadow One Year On – meeting 2nd September
A free informal meeting is being held at Reeth Memorial Hall on Monday 2nd September 7pm, following up on our One Acre Meadow project. Last year we helped over 30 residents around Swaledale and Arkengarthdale develop small wildflower patches in their garden or field to create a home for wildlife and pollinators. The original aim was to build up small areas to total 1 acre of meadow, but we achieved 2.3 acres in the end!
The evening, led by Cath Mercer, the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) Hay Time Officer, is intended to give advice on ongoing maintenance for those who started last year and also encourage more people to start a wildflower patch, however small. A certain amount of free wildflower seed will be available. There will also be help with identifying meadow flowers and grasses. If you are interested in coming, please email Cheryl (cherylsedge@yahoo.com), indicating if you are interested in free wildflower seed so that we can gauge demand.
Plot that plastic app launched
The Forest Plastics Working Group have launched a free app: ‘Plot that Plastic’ allowing you to record the locations of plastic tree guards. The citizen science project is aimed at building a UK-wide map of where old and new plastic tree shelters are located in the environment. The data can then be shared and used to help facilitate the future removal of tree guards and the establishment of new tree shelter recycling hubs across the country.
You can download the Survey 123 app to your phone or access it via your desktop, where you can record the location of the tree shelters, their condition and other indicators that will help with the mapping process.
Source: YDMT
Reeth Arts Festival 31 August: Sustainable Swaledale stall
Sustainable Swaledale will have a stall at this free event on Saturday 31st August 10:30 to 5pm at the Reeth Show Field. Maggie Bridgeman will be joining us to offer some free twig and plant weaving sessions for children. The event is designed to showcase and give opportunities to local artists, and serve as a platform to shine a spotlight on local art. There will be stalls, music, dance, food and drink. Come and see our stall and join in with some of the art sessions on offer. We’re looking for additional volunteers to help cover the stall. Let us know if you could offer to cover for an hour or two at Info@sustainableswaledale.org.
Reeth Surgery Community Veg Plots: plans
Gail has had the brilliant idea of producing laminated guides to what is in each box, as she often gets asked what a plant is. Please remember that this is produce for anyone to take.
Reeth Surgery Tree Nursery update
Staff from the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust kindly helped us to finish the tree nursery boxes at the surgery. The pallet collars were all ready to go and Matt, Eva and Olivia helped put rodent proof net onto a pallet which formed the base, on top of which were placed the pallet collars and they used the same mesh to create a lid. Martin Wood Weatherill kindly donated lots of shade netting to stop the seedlings from getting burnt by the sun. Seedlings potted on at the June event are now in the enclosures joining seedlings from last year, some of which will be big enough to plant out this autumn. We now have about 1,000 seedlings across three enclosures with a fourth ready to fill.
Materials for the project have come from the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust and we also received funding when Richmondshire District Council was looking to distribute its remaining project funds before merging into the new North Yorkshire Council. As a result, we have put a nice sign onto the boxes acknowledging all the project sponsors.
Funds from Richmondshire District Council also helped cover the cost of getting our large water tank for watering the community garden and tree enclosures up and running. Thanks to Sam and Stuart for giving their time to plumb the tank into the drainpipe and sorting out an overflow so that we don’t flood the surgery when the tank fills up. Sam also picked the short straw and was on the watering rota for the only really hot week we have had so we thank her for her hard work keeping the saplings watered that week. The tank’s extra capacity proved its worth – the little water butt would have been empty by the end of the week. Many thanks also to Caroline for allowing us to partially fill the tank from her outside tap once it was ready to fill.
Save our Swale talk: thanks
Thank you to those who came to hear about the work Save our Swale (SOS) is doing to address water pollution, particularly around Richmond. A big thank you to the speakers: Deborah and Keith; those who organised the event and also to local businesses who kindly contributed prizes for the raffle and silent auction. Nearly £300 was raised, to be equally divided between SOS and Sustainable Swaledale.
Deborah Meara explained that one of the main objectives of the group is to achieve Designated Bathing Water Status (DBWS) for Richmond which would require the Environment Agency to test regularly for pollutants and hold polluters to account. DEFRA won’t be accepting new applications until 2025 but SOS will continue to monitor the pollution levels in the meanwhile. Microbiologist Dr Keith Thomas explained the main findings of the group’s monthly water quality sampling and analysis, at locations from Wainwath to Brompton. Keith highlighted levels of coliform bacteria (such as E. coli) exceeding recommended safe bathing levels in over half the samples tested, generally from Richmond downstream. A full summary has been prepared for the September Reeth Gazette.
Tree planting and rewilding project results in 700% increase in prolific pollinators
Surveys of Banks Wood, Summerbridge, near Harrogate following the planting of 5,000 trees and rewilding work have recorded 265 moths, including some rare moths for the county. This is a 679% increase in recordings on a 2018 survey prior to tree planting.
Source: York Press
Tree seed collection
Sustainable Swaledale members have already started to collect local seed with landowners’ permission as part of the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust Seed to Saplings Project. The aim is to grow trees from local stock in the two dales for future planting projects. We will be arranging a visit to Ivelet Woods in September to collect birch, hawthorn and hazel and then sowing the seed/nuts into seed boxes. Please contact info@sustainableswaledale.org if you are interested in getting involved in this project.
We are currently building our own seed boxes from scratch but are exploring ways to repurpose wooden boxes such as wine boxes. We managed to get hold of two wine boxes courtesy of the fine wines department at Campbells of Leyburn, added some feet (broken tree stakes), drilled holes and added a wire top.
If you have access to a supply of wooden boxes or suggestions of where we could cheaply source secondhand wooden boxes, we would love to hear from you.
YDMT Seed to Sapling newsletter launch
Eva Irving, who joined the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) in June as their Community Conservation Officer, has launched a newsletter about all the local tree nursery projects being supported by the YDMT. The newsletter can be found on the YDMT website, the Tree Nursery WhatsApp group or you can view it here. As well as updates on what the tree nursery groups are doing, (those at the seed potting on day at Hazel Brow will recognise themselves), Eva has added information about what seed to collect by month.
Group Meeting
The September Meeting will be the One Acre Meadow meeting on the Monday 2nd rather than the first Thursday. Please get in touch if you’d like to join us.