Increasing forage through foraging

[Finman]

Drawing a distinction between Farming and horticulture is just semantics, they are essentially the same thing.
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That is ridiculous claim...

Better to start to read British dictionary.



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[Motobiman]

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EU officiers order in Finland, what kind of mixture of plant it should be in fields. Farmers get money from those "meadows". Mixtures are such that those plants never grow together in nature.

After one year those "scenery meadows" are full of worst weeds, and there are no original plants any more, even if they should be 3 years.

That's just moving the goalposts to support your failing argument.

If he has free choice of the mix of plants he grows on this land and in GB various suitable wild seed mixes for many different soil types can be freely purchased and provided the land is prepared and managed they will flourish.

Fail to plan and you plan to fail.

PS
Bees love weeds too.

 

[Motobiman]

That is ridiculous claim...

Better to start to read British dictionary.



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Is it?

Farming in this context is growing crops and horticulture is the same, they are just different crops for different uses.

Get your OED out and read the definitions.

Arable is where farmers plough the land, sow seeds and grow plants to harvest. You know, stuff like corn, wheat, vegetables, soy beans and so on. Pastoral farming involves animals.

Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of growing plants. It includes the cultivation of medicinal plants, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and non-food crops such as grass and ornamental trees and plants.

 

[Finman]

PS
Bees love weeds too.

Difficult to love when weeds get herbicide onto their heads. When herbicides have been used 40 years, vain to speak about bees love meadows.

I have visited in England and I have accustomed to your "naturalization projects". , and I have seen how sheep eate everything.

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[Motobiman]

Difficult to love when weeds get herbicide onto their heads.
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Goalposts moved again.

 

[Motobiman]

Difficult to love when weeds get herbicide onto their heads. When herbicides have been used 40 years, vain to speak about bees love meafiws.

i have visited in England, and I have seen how sheep eate everything.

Goalposts moved.

 

[Motobiman]

I have visited in England, and I have seen how sheep eate everything.

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Actually, sheep eat almost anything, not everything.

That's semantics again.

 

[Zante]

Ok, let me give some context for my question:
The fields I am talking about used to be arable vineyard until about 2000. By arable vineyard I mean that the rows were wider apart and other crops were grown between them.
In 2000 my parents bought the property and the vineyard was then pulled up because wild boars had badly damaged the plants.
The land was then let grow, no reseeding of any kind, and the only management was having it cut every year for hay.

Now my parents are selling the property, but we're on good terms with the buyer, so I am confident he'll allow me to keep hives on the land. I'm also confident that the management will be the same, as that field already produces good hay and it is traditional for the area.

As far as I'm aware no foreign plant have been sown, ever, as the previous owner was a bit of an odd person and very VERY old school. The house had no heating other than a wood burning stove and no tv.
Obviously that doesn't account for foreign plants broadcasting themselves from other properties.

 

[MuswellMetro]

A hay meadow near my hives was just grassland and little flowers other than red clover & creeping butter cup, the national grid dug a wide trench for a cable across the meadow two years ago, then just backfield the trench

The back filled area is now full of wild flowers that just do no exist on the rest of the meadow

 

[Motobiman]

There are some good books on meadowland management..

I would read up and make your decisions on working, planting schemes, seed mixes, management etc etc.

 

[Finman]

You can change the mix of plants growing anywhere over any area by judicious management, not cheaply though and takes some knowledge.

Farmers and Gardeners do it all the time and the bees will just be part of the ecosystem.

Great. That is very new to me. I have visited in England 6 times, and I have seen your meadows.

 

[Motobiman]

Glad to welcome you to our lovely country, anytime.

Read up on meadowland management and conservation.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=446

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=436

http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uploads/documents/REVERSING_THE_TREND_Master_Document.pdf

 

[MuswellMetro]

Great. That is very new to me. I have visited in England 6 times, and I have seen your meadows.

yes, all hybrid Rye grass with a bit of creeping buttercup about as usefull as a left handed tea cup

 

[Finman]

Actually, what I learned im Englad was, that England has so few original nature, that you have studied quite much, how to mimic nature like scenery. In Snowdon I visited in a lovely forest park. It was something what we cannot see here, and we cannot even image that kind of management.

In Finland we have so much nature that we do not know, what to do with it.

In Leicester I met interesting methods, how to plant nature like woodland and so on.

I have accustomed with Japanese bonsai science. It researches, what makes nature beauty beautiful. What makes a pine a pine, and a birch a birch.

My favorit: Product design of beauty.

 

[Motobiman]

yes, all hybrid Rye grass with a bit of creeping buttercup about as usefull as a left handed tea cup

Rather that than acres of OSR . . . . .

 

[Millet]

Scatter a load of Thistle seeds they easily out grow the grass and the bees love them.

 

[Motobiman]

Lovely Millet.

 

[BeeJayBee]

yes, all hybrid Rye grass with a bit of creeping buttercup about as usefull as a left handed tea cup

Not always the case these days thankfully, not proper 'meadows' that are used for fodder.

Managed water meadows have a beautifully rich flora, and I've been to an 'organic' farm where they planted hundreds of cowslips a few years ago, these have now spread and look absolutely amazing when they're in flower.

Near where we live there are several farmers who have built (planted) very wide borders of mixed native trees which give a good, and deep (wide?), wildlife corridor around the edge of the working fields.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Scatter a load of Thistle seeds they easily out grow the grass and the bees love them.

Nice photo Millet but I've no honeybee activity on thistles around here. Now Dandelions are a different matter.

 

[Cussword]

a left handed tea cup

I've got one of those!

Oh no,,,, sorry, I was looking at it from the wrong side.



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