Community Hay Rake

Knapp Farm is committed to helping improve biodiversity and reversing habitat loss. We are working with a variety of different organisations and individuals in order to help us to achieve that goal. These include Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, Cotswolds National Landscapes, Glorious Cotswold Grasslands and MinchCAN. We are also grateful for the support from Chloe Turner, District and County Councillor for Minchinhampton and Environmental Chair on Stroud District Council. She is an inspirational lady who always seems to find the time to support every local initiative.

Our land covers around 12 acres, not much in the grand scheme of things, but it encompasses some quite rare habitats including wet woodland, calcareous grassland and a traditional orchard.

One of the projects we have been working on is the restoration of our second field. We want to seed it with yellow rattle, which is semi parasitic on grass, in the hope of establishing a new wildflower meadow. This project forms part of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust’s Golden Valley project, which looks to create new wildlife corridors in Stroud, helping the large blue butterfly and other species.

Knapp Farm enjoys a really positive relationship with the team at Glorious Cotswold Grasslands, which is part of the Cotswold National Landscapes. After an initial site visit last year to assess the suitability of our fields for sowing, they returned to do a botanical survey this Spring, which revealed how rich and diverse the fields are. We were told to have the fields ready and prepped for sowing by the end of October. Little did we know just what this involved!

Gill purchased an old tractor back in January and had a romantic vision of using it to restore her grassland in the Autumn. In the end, it came down to the wire. The tractor was returned at the end of September, leaving her with a very small window, to top, rake and harrow before seeding.

The topping was relatively straight forward, if not a little terrifying. Having never driven a tractor before to then farm on the side of a slope felt like being thrown in at the deep end.

The raking was more of a challenge. With no budget to invest in any fancy machinery, it came to the old fashioned method of hand raking. The neighbour had an old wooden tool which didn’t hold up well against the dense thatch that tumbled across the 4 acre field. A few back breaking days out in the sunshine though and progress looked to be happening.

Ultimately, it came down to a bit of a shout out to the local community to help get the job done. Off the back of the MinchCAN Sustainability Trail, we were thankful to have asked visitors for their email addresses as a way of keeping in touch. As ‘Friend's of Knapp Farm’ Gill sent a plea out asking for help! Amazingly, many wonderful fold turned up!

Those that were too young to hold a rake simply watched on.

The truck and trailer proved a useful combination when it came to picking the thatch up and carting it away. We did start out taking it over to the compost, but gave up relatively quickly and simply left the cuttings on the edge of the field. Not ideal and we probably won’t repeat the process next year, but we were pushed for time.

The finished field looks almost professional! Of course, there then came the small matter of working out how to harrow it.

Investing in large scale harrows wasn’t really an option given the relatively small budget, so we tried using an old set of harrows that were lying around the yard. They didn’t cut it, even when we weighed them down with other objects such as an old foot pedalled sewing machine. Many late night eBay searches later and a rather odd trip to a plant hire company in Swindon and we eventually found the right tool for the job. A huge old cultivator that we had been assured was in full working order. Oh how naive we were. After a day spent just lubricating the PTO and other mechanisms to get the parts moving, we were disheartened to find that the PTO still wouldn’t turn the blades. With the help of a neighbour we managed to get the side plate off and discovered the whopping chain was broken. A day later and a new chain was found and a week later it was on and the cultivator was in full working order. What an achievement! So satisfying to see the first section of the field getting churned up!

Later that day and the tractor, Colin and the cultivator were still going strong!

Day turned into night and the tractor, Colin and the cultivator returned. All in one piece!