The Tuesday Field.

 So after a number of conversations, a little bit of online research and several cups of tea we decided that the best approach was to mow the redshank and hope for the best. Normallly when re-seeding a field with a grazing ley it is nessesary to mow any redshank that appears. It can also be grazed at a young stage or sprayed to kill it off or at least knock it back. The concern here was that it had been left go too long and therefore had already damaged the herbal ley trying to grow underneath it.  

Normally redshank would never be allowed to get to this stage. You can see it just starting to flower here.

 

We had to be careful not to cut it too low as this would leave too much lying on the herbal ley effectivly mulching it to death. Yet we also had to cut it enough so as it wont try to flower again.

The best outcome from this experience is that the redshank will now feed the soil micro-biology as it rots and will in turn boost the herbal ley as we look towards to end of the summer.

We wait paitently.