Greygarth Farm, Dallowgill: 27-06-2017

"John's singing in the rain.
He's singing in the rain.
What a glorious feeling - 
It's Tuesday again..."

The weather forecast was a bit off putting this morning. Rain all day. But there was an important job to be done at Greygarth and 15 NCVs & students were ready and waiting to turn out in their wet weather gear to do their duty. 

And what, exactly, was their duty? A little clue - it begins with HBP. Yep - you've got it in one. Himalayan balsam pulling again. It's sprouting up all over the place and we want to catch it before it sets seed, as its explosive dispersal mechanism ensures an exponential increase in the population. Where this is near water courses (as in the case of the ponds at the conservation orientated farm at Greygarth) this makes it a real problem, as seed can get washed further downstream.

So - as soon as we arrived in the sleepy little hamlet of Greygarth we got to work. The photos give a flavour of the day....

One of the ponds that have been especially dug 
out for the benefit of wild life at Greygarth.
(The smudge is not mist just rain on the camera lens!)

Some of the balsam was easy to see.

The rest less so. Many tiny seedlings were
hiding within all the other vegetation - far more difficult to extract.

Everyone made a start looking for the micro-salad shoots. 

 Then it was decided to move across to prioritise 
the taller plants that were already flowering.

An NCV's eye view of the situation.

The rain eased off a bit for coffee time 
so hoods could be taken down.

But then the rains came down and the floods came up, 
making work down near the pond itself rather challenging.

Piles of trampled balsam plants started to appear everywhere.

At lunch time hoods had to remain firmly in place.

 John's umbrella came in handy at this point.

Today was the students' last day out with us - and Harry's birthday.
Thanks for your help throughout the year lads - and Happy Birthday Harry!

Some of the less OCD members of the group departed after lunch. 
But a band of 7 stayed on an extra hour or so, determined to 
seek out the hard to find plants. 
By close of play the area was looking reasonably free of balsam.

Ros E.