Because of a hiccup with our schedule, this Wednesday morning found Team GG on Brading Downs rather than at Wroxall (Old) Station. Frequent visitors to this blog site will know that a visit to the Downs at this time of the year can only mean one thing…..Ragwort pulling…! We were met by Nick from G2N who was happy to issue everyone with a ragwort lifting fork and a black bin bag before letting us loose on the down. One of the hardest aspects of this job is trying to identify exactly which type of ragwort you are dealing with - the "bad" type has a purple coloured stem where the "good" type has a green one. Once you (eventually) get your eye in then it can be seen that the two variants have a different leaf profile but this is quite hard to identify initially. Because the car park here gives wonderful views across the southern aspects of the Island, it is frequently visited by coaches full of mainland visitors who appear quite amused by our antics. I often wonder if they go back to their friends and family reporting that the locals on the IoW are so keen on gardening that they weed the hillsides…! The recent rain showers we have been experiencing held off but there was a rather stiff SE wind blowing. By the end of the session Nick's trailer was quite full of our pickings which should (hopefully) help to reduce the number of plants we have to pull later in the year. One PPP (Pesky Plant Pulling) session down but many more to come in 2017.
Why do we put so much effort in trying to pull all this ragwort? Have a look at this link - Ragwort/RHS Gardening
A note from Mark.
A fine time on Brading Down LNR last week collecting up the Ragwort plants. We've been pulling Ragwort every June since 2004, sometimes twice in the month. Some of us will remember the huge trailer loads we used to collect, less these days. The reason of course is to support the conservation work, namely the grazing by cattle which takes place on the Downs over the winter months.
Many thanks to Mark this week for taking and submitting the photographs.
Photographs will be added as they arrive.
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