The vineyard

There have been enormous changes to Devon since I arrived here in 1976, some good, some not so good. One of the good changes is the conversion to organic farming on most of the land around where we live. There’s organic and organic however. At its best, organic farming means doing more than avoiding artificial pesticides and fertilisers: it means actively encouraging wildlife. And that's just what the couple from Exeter who bought a nearby field are doing.

    They've turned a third of it to vines



The vines

 but wherever they can they leave rough patches

One of many rough patches around the field

which the insects love.

Bees enjoying the burdock

Damselflies in the long grass

They are conducting a biodiversity survey on the land in collaboration with Exeter University and have built a compost loo for the students. Nothing is wasted!



The compost loo

 What's more, they allow Ellie (Dog) and me to walk through the field whenever we like.
     I heard skylarks in the field this spring (which I don't remember doing before) and unusual plants are starting to appear, such as this chicory.

Chicory

They've had the field for about four years but this is the first year they will be harvesting grapes. With the recent spell of hot weather the fruit is doing really well.



Proto-grapes



but it needs more sun to ripen.

    Let's hope it gets it.

A hint of autumn

After a week of rain and with the wind changing from south-east to south-west there’s already a hint of autumn in the air. I love autumn but I don’t want to look forward to it yet. Winters are long and summers are short. I must make the most of what summer there is left.

    With the three weeks of scorching weather that preceded the rain, the hedgerows are looking sorry for themselves. The grass is dead and brown – and now, because of the rain, slimy as well. There are still some wildflowers left however.

Here is beautiful betony, a member of the nettle family. My beloved Oxford Book of Wildflowers, published in 1960, says that it’s a ‘common plant of hedgebanks’ but I don’t see it that often.

Betony

This is wood sage, another member of the nettle family. Vita Sackville-West considered it good enough for gardens. With its pale green flowers, it is rather classy.



Wood sage

This is yarrow, which I tried to grow in my garden. First it took over, then it was nothing but a sprawling mass of leaves, and now it’s gone.

Yarrow

And finally, St John’s wort. Any wildflower with ‘wort’ in its name tends to be one that was used in herbal medicine. Today the plant is used to treat depression – but whether the ingredients are extracted from the wild species or a cultivated one I don’t know.


St John's wort



Fluences

As I walk the dog yesterday I notice that the barley is ripening and turning pinky-yellow. (At least, I think it's barley. I'm not too hot on my cereals.) I try to work out how to describe the colour and decide that pale apricot is about the nearest. Frog has a great-niece who used to have hair that colour. With her bright blue eyes, it was incredibly striking.

Locals are up in arms about a wind turbine that a farmer wants to put up on a hill behind the village. I don’t mind the look of them myself but it’s the noise apparently that’s the problem. I must investigate.
    I find phone masts more intrusive. We have one that stares into our bedroom window, only just inside the supposed safe distance. Before it arrived I used to dawdle in the fields around it and rest in the shade of the hedgerow trees but now I hurry past as I can’t stop thinking about the fluences and the effect they might be having on my brain (a delicate creature at the best of times).