Sunday, May 16, 2021

The Potato Square.

 As I remarked earlier I have marked out for study a square metre in the bare earth of the potato patch tended last year by Tana.  It is about 10 metres south of the original Square Metre and is already starting to green over  I will run it as a sort of subsidiary to the Green Sanctuary/Square Metre proper and add updates in this section of the blog.

Things only started to happen towards the end of May 2021.  Dandelions, creeping buttercup, herb robert and red campions started to flower, fallow deer came and grazed buttercup, sow thistle and red campion plants.  I found a somewhat less than lively caterpillar which turned out to be a fragment of carpet. Bonfire moss is fruiting abundantly on patches of bare earth.

Plant list

American willow-herb (Epilobium ciliatum)

Annual meadow grass (Poa annua)

Bonfire moss (Funaria hygrometrica)

Bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg.)

Creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

Creeping comfrey (Symphytum grandiflorum)

Dandelion (Taraxacum agg.)

Druce's crane's-bill (G. x oxonianum)

Goosegrass or cleavers (Galium aparine)

Herb bennett (Geum urbanum)

Herb-robert (Geranium robertianum

? Hoary willowherb (Epilobium parviflorum)

Marsh thistle (Cirsium palustre)

Nipplewort (Lapsana communis)

Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea)

Red campion (Silene dioica)

Rough meadow grass (Poa trivialis)

Rough sow-thistle (Sonchus asper)

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica)

Sycamore (Acer pseudo-platanus)  Many seedlings

White clover (Trifolium repens)

Wood dock (Rumex sanguineus)

Yorkshire fog grass (Holcus lanatus)


Animal List

Fallow deer (Dama dama)

Rhingia rostrata (Diptera: Syrphidae)

Cantharis  ? cryptica/pallida

Comma (Polygonia c-album)

A shrew

Marmalade fly (Episyrphus balteatus)

Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta)

Meadow brown (Maniola jurtina)