Berries and Ferns

The first bilberries picked this morning. Just a few because there are so many unripe ones amongst the ripe that you have to harvest individually rather than use the rake technique. The benefit of year on year bracken pulling is there to see, with some of the fruit beds largely free from fern.

Here we can see that someone has been along the path swinging a stick at the bracken leaving the stem showing. This will probably suffice for the season but there's a better chance of having a long term impact by pulling.

It's not hard and much more satisfying. You simply have to get over the top of the shoot and pull vertically upwards with two hands. No real force is necessary. it should slide out taking a decent chunk of brown root with it.

SWT claim to be conducting trials of bracken control. In some places they bring along a tractor and harrow once a year for several years. In others they use herbicide. In a third they bring volunteers and pull the bracken in a measured area, again for several years. Their problem is getting the volunteers to do the work which is not much fun. I think they have got this wrong in a number of ways. But as far as the volunteers are concerned people will not feel much involvement in a sterile exercise like this. Much better to do something which they see an obvious purpose in and which affects them directly. My plan would be related to the paths people actually walk along and to bilberry picking. If you pull bracken along the sides of paths where you sometimes walk, you benefit from it yourself - you don't get wet from the overhanging fronds. As you move back from the paths into the bilberries you carry on pulling bracken and expose the fruit for easy harvesting later. In fact I would encourage walkers to 'adopt a path' in this way, just pulling a few as they go along. The problem with this is that it relies on SWT being on good terms with the regular walkers on Blacka and they have shown very clearly that they would prefer to antagonise them!