#9 Meadows

How agroecology can help you and your garden grow

A series exploring agroecological practises and how they can be utilised in our gardens and plots.

It has occurred to me whilst researching this series that cultivated land, farms, allotments and the home garden, have in the most part, served one group only.

People.

We have either shaped the land to make it ornamentally beautiful or used the land to produce a product.

We forgot that whilst the land might be ‘owned’ by us, unlike a brick and mortar house, we are not the only residents. Mammals, insects, reptiles et al just don’t see those boundaries like we do.

One the most biodiverse land covers, feeding and sheltering many species has traditionally been meadow.

Systematically since the 1930’s (almost a hundred years now), meadows have been in decline. And with it, a huge amount of biodiversity that relied on this land cover.

What actually is a meadow?

A meadow is often used to describe any largely unmanaged natural area with a proliferation of grasses and flowers.

Kew Gardens

Originally they were valued for haymaking and feeding cattle over the winter. Meadow land once made up an important part of productive land, valued for haymaking and feeding cattle. With it supporting a huge array of wildlife that in turn maintained a balanced ecosystem which supported crop pollination and growth, soil fertility and health.

From the 1930’s, several things happened to reduce meadowland; alternative winter feeds meant the meadows were worth far less than before, the Second World War encouraged ploughing up margins for productions and continued until 1987 when either farmed or built on, over 97% estimated semi- natural grassland had been lost.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), incentivises farmers to cultivate flower rich grass margins, blocks or in-field strips and grassy field areas or blocks. Including Meadows is an important agroecological land management practise.

Why are these types of habitat so important?

Meadows and species-rich grasslands can support a huge range of wildlife including wildflowers, fungi, bees, flies, beetles, spiders, moths, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, bats and birds.

The aim with different agriecology practises within the wider farm is to create different habits to increase the resilience of plants and wildlife reducing the reliance on chemicals, resulting in far better and nutrient dense produce.

The government suggests these borders ought to be around half an acre give or take, in areas to qualify for the financial support.

How can we help as gardeners, allotmenteers or micro farmers when our growing spaces might be barely more than this and often a lot less?

On these smaller scales, we are doing far more for wildlife than we might realise. Just as Fergus Garett realised in the biodiversity surveys carried out at Great Dixter, flower plots and home gardens, especially when a large variety of flowers are grown, carefully managed diverse spaces, are hugely beneficial spaces to wildlife.

Kew’s definition above is crucial to this different way of looking at meadows. Whilst most native meadows are grass dominant, but arguably have a short ‘useful’ period arriving in May and are mown in September.

For gardeners and flower farmers (and growing flowers productively on market gardens), another option could be a seeded perennial meadow (SPM), a dense area of planting that returns every year, comprised of herabcous perennials and grasses.

These SPMs are designed to stay standing for the whole growing season with flower colour starting in April running through to the autumn providing more beauty and cover for wildlife than any standard native meadow. They all have their benfits. What is important is to create spaces that are largely, once sown or planted, are lightly cultivated or ideally left right alone as meadow.

Regular meadows are typically grown to a single height, around 60-80cms or so as a final height. SPMs have around 80-120 plants per square metre, with layers and diversity in height, some flowers reaching about 2m.¹

Meadow land, or densely grown unmanaged space is beneficial in a garden or any growing space no matter what the area.

Benefits of flower dense, unmanaged space include

• support insects like bees, butterflies and hoverflies

• increase pollination of food crops

• provide food and shelter for birds and their chicks

• help protect neighbouring plants and crops by providing habitat for insects that feed on pests like aphids.

On my own plot, I’ve left areas of grass long around the margins. These are mown at different points in the year; some close in the spring for bulb emergent and then left to grow, flower and seed, others left over winter for hedgerow biennials and cut down during the summer. These all provide different habitats and food. I’ve also left patches of nettles for butterflies, harvesting these for composting.

Building upon #10 No Dig ground management, allowing meadow, unmanaged areas in any size of plot both benefits the biodiversity of both above and below the soil. I’m often reminded that my garden and growing spaces are homes to thousands of other residents.

I have been inspired by the seeded perennial meadows and can see how that would be a great way of managed some of the beds in the plots here whilst also providing cutting material thought out the year. I will come back to this as I design my own and share the planting list and developments over the next year.

Do you leave areas largely unmanaged? Has this agroecological practise inspired you to include meadow areas in your growing space to support wildlife?

Next up in the series is #8 Agroforestry.

1. James Hitchmough’s book Sowing Beauty is a great book for creating an SPM