Bog Myrtle & Peat

My oat empire is expanding. Despite the fact that chaffinches have pecked away at the majority of the oats I sowed last week, the sky is the limit for the size of area that I can plant up with cereal crops. The major downside to the Chayne is the fact that nothing at all has been done to help drainage for the past forty years. As a result, the traditional pasture fields are now smothered in rushes and sopping spongey moss. Any attempt to sow a sacrificial crop in that muddy soup would surely end in disaster, so I recently decided to see how drainage would effect the soil.

Fencing off around two thirds of an acre of what was formerly a field for overwintering galloway cows, I started to dig out the rushes. Enlisting the help of a friend from university, we also dug two trenches just inside the fenceline, one cutting a diagonal across the steepest section and another running directly from top to bottom. Draining without seeing any water is truly disheartening work. We had dug more than twenty feet before the soil even began to look slightly damp. With snipe squeaking disapprovingly from the rushes nearby, midges descended and we were forced to race back to the car.

When we returned to the new patch this morning, a tremendous change had taken place. The ditches had been gradually filled with water overnight, and now it trickles downhill in controlled channels. The ground all around is still sopping wet, but in a few weeks this area should start to show real signs of improvement.

The water’s slow leaching action is slowed by the fact that acidic, peaty soils hold it in like a sponge. By the time the surface soil has dried out enough to till and sow with oats, it will be well into June, but since I don’t plan to harvest it at all, that’s not really a problem. The ditches have cut off about a quarter of the patch which won’t now see any improvement from the work at all, so perhaps it should be planted with willow or alder, which won’t mind the water.