Wednesday 14 August 2024 – Tregew Food Barn, Flushing
A complete treat of a day and what a contrast from the freezing day we had in January!
Today was a very different agenda to January. It’s too hot for planting trees in the summer, that is a job that really has to be done in the winter. So, when we arrived, we were bribed (😉) with pastries and told what our task would be for the day.
Rai and Carl explained that about 3 years ago, Plant One were tasked with extending the already existing woodland, bringing it up the steep hillside. They planted 450 trees extending the woodland by a quarter and fenced the area to stop grazing, allowing regeneration.
Carl then asked us “does anyone know what plants acorns?”. I think the first culprit that sprung to mind for most of us is the squirrel and as Carl said, they do get all the press, but it is actually the Jay. Carl went onto explain that the amazing thing about Jays is that they are not only managing their own environment, they are also creating their own habitat. They are actually extremely good at what they do, with their beaks being the exact length to bury an acorn at the depth they need to germinate, and the even plant them the right way up!
Carl explained that creating woodlands is a 3-tier approach, you plant trees to bring in diversity, fence the area off to prevent grazing and allow natural regeneration, which is what will create the really high-quality woodlands.
So, onto our job for the day, needle in a haystack sprung to all our minds! Today, we were finding as many of the tiny little saplings in the very long grass that the Jays have planted, put them in protective tubes and stake them to stop the rabbits and deer eating / damaging them.
This actually turned out to be much easier than we thought as the Jays had literally forgotten thousands of the acorns they had ‘planted’. Once you had your eye in, you were pretty much tripping over them.
Five hours later, just over a hundred little saplings protected, staked and safe and quite a few calories burned hiking up and down the hill (possibly destroyed by the pastries and pasty eating) and the team could be found in the Pandora with a well-earned cold drink 😊
