Field margins are full of life as weeds are a food source for insects, says Jamie Marsh in his weekly Jamie’s Little Allotment column…
The couch grass still popping up in my new asparagus bed – all because I had to disturb the soil to plant crowns earlier this year – is finally slowing down. Keeping on top of it little and often seems to be working.
Weeds in my veg beds don’t get much sympathy. If I leave them to grow, they’ll soon be competing with the carrots, beetroot and radishes for water, nutrients and light, so out they come.
Couch grass and other weeds provide food sources for caterpillars and insects
My veg plot sits in one corner of my wife’s horse field, which took years of negotiations by the way. Just the other side of the fence are nettles, thistles, ragwort and plenty of other plants that don’t get quite the same treatment.
Out there, things are a lot more natural. The field margins are largely left to their own devices and, as a result, they’re absolutely full of life.
The nettles provide food for several butterfly caterpillars and the thistles are always buzzing with insects.
Weeds have been trimmed back but there’s still strips of nettles, grasses and wildflowers
Although we remove the ragwort from in the horse field, the yellow flowers are left to thrive on the outside where the cinnabar moth can lay its eggs, allowing those striking yellow and black caterpillars to feed before eventually turning into beautiful moths.
Of course, not every wild area is left entirely alone. Along one side of the field runs a clear chalk stream and twice a year the drainage board comes through with massive tractors fitted with huge mower attachments and cuts everything back.
It happened again the other day. A strip roughly ten metres wide that had been full of nettles, grasses, wildflowers and insects was cut right back to the ground.
I completely understand why the work needs doing. They need access to inspect the stream, remove any blockages and keep the water flowing properly. Nobody wants flooding. What I’m less convinced about is why quite so much needs to be chopped down in the process.
Perhaps it’s another reminder that managing land is always a balancing act. My veg beds are managed to grow food. The horse field is managed for the horses. The drainage board manages the stream to help prevent flooding. All perfectly sensible reasons. At the same time, wildlife needs somewhere to live.
Over the years I’ve become much more accepting of what grows around the outside of my veg plot. Given half a chance, nature quickly gets on with the job. Nettles, thistles, grasses, ragwort and countless other plants all jostle for space, creating a strip that’s buzzing, fluttering and crawling with life for much of the year.
That doesn’t mean I’m about to stop weeding the carrots or let the couch grass take over the asparagus bed. It simply means I’ve come to appreciate that not every piece of land has to be managed in the same way.
Nature has never been particularly tidy. Left alone, it fills every available space with life. Sometimes that’s exactly what we want, and sometimes it isn’t.
My veg beds will continue to be weeded, the couch grass will continue to be pulled from the asparagus bed and the horses will continue to need a safe field. But just the other side of the fence, nature can get on with things in its own way.
And judging by the amount of life packed into those untidy field margins, I’d say it’s doing a pretty good job.
If you’ve got any questions, or just fancy letting me know what you’ve been getting up to in your garden, drop me an email at: jamieslittleallotment@gmail.com
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