Wildflower Focus - Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus Minor)

Yellow Rattle

One of the first questions I asked when we got our little field is what should I plant to try to increase diversity. At the time I didn't know what was in our field apart from grass and weeds. The answer from a few people working in the Wildlife Trust was try Yellow Rattle.

Looking a bit deeper into what Yellow Rattle was I soon saw why it had been recommended.

It is a native Wild Flower that gains some of it's nutrients from the roots of other plants. The common name comes from the fact it is yellow and the seeds rattle when ripe and dry. By robbing other plants of some nutrients it has the effect of reducing the size or the amount of it's neighbouring plants, especially grass. This allows other plants to grow. Since Yellow Rattle is an Annual it can die back leaving bare soil in it's place where other seeds can germinate.

Yellow Rattle seed needs to be sown in the Autumn using the same year's seed and it needs a cold spell to allow it to germinate around March. It will flower in June / July and seeds will ripen around the end of July. It will typically grow to a height of 20 to 50cm.

We have sown several packets directly over the grass although this has been an experiment since the soil should be scared or bare ideally. We also put a couple of packets in the freezer for about a month as was suggested in several places and when we sow these packets in November we will rake or scratch the grass / soil and sow into the bare soil. It'll be noted as to where the second sowing, which have been in the freezer, are sown so that it can be seen how successful both methods of sowing were.

Wild Flowers Sown

Today I have sown various Wild Flowers. Agrimony, Greater Knapweed, Bird's Foot Trefoil, Yellow Rattle and some Meadow Sweet in the areas I think are wettest. Also a packet of Carnations was scattered around - just because I found a packet.

I have held back some Yellow Rattle in the freezer for a month and will sow them when I remember in November sometime.

It'll be very interesting as to what and how much comes up in the spring because they were all scattered over the grass which is a bit tufty in places rather than scraping back some of the grass to reveal soil, how ever I note that nature doesn't bother too much with scraping back grass when sowing so I'm sure some will work. If it fails then there is always next year.

The drainage channel near the shed was deepened this morning and while I was digging deeper to make a soak away pit I came across a land drain - which was handy to say the least - and within the hour all water had drained away. Later this afternoon or perhaps on Tuesday I will lay a drainage pipe and cover with sand and gravel, but for now the flood prevention near the shed has achieved the main goal. The water butt overflowing problem is no longer a priority since it will overflow next to the drainage channel so I can put off this issue for another week or so.

This time last year we were house hunting and didn't get a chance to do anything garden wise until January or February so it feels like we are 5 months ahead of ourselves and well on track. The first 2 months last year were simply flood fighting and we didn't get a chance to dig beds until April were as this year we already have all the winter vegetable beds done, a huge manure pile composting, pond established and greenhouse built. Everything from now on is adding to last years efforts.

The one failure this year was the Willow that I planted, 50 little sticks, and only 8 or so took and grew leaves but no height. I must remember to water them more and mulch all around them as we think that they were out competed by the grass and weeds. Mulching around them and replanting some more should produce better results. 

The chickens have a far better home this year but already their hen house is too small and they will need somewhere dry for rainy days as yesterday they got soaked and looked a little water logged, so the next building project will be a new hen house with a covered area for them to shelter outside.

Mice have also taken shelter somewhere in the house with all the rain so they'll need addressing next week as well.