Letters From the Garden - A Trip to The Pollinator Plot

Close up of a Goldenrod bloom feeding insects

We spent Labor Day in the meadow. It had been years since we had been to the farm in late summer. Usually we take care of weed spraying, fencing and other business in the late spring and early fall. This year it worked out and was one of the best trips in memory.

The pollinator plot lays on a hilltop, rolling down a steep east facing slope before merging with the waterway; a wide span of grass with thick soil holding rhizomes and broad dark green leaves surrounding the lower pool of cattails. Years ago the government official, new to the county stated there was not any wetlands in our township and labeled it a waterway which lasts today, but he left after a year. Normally you will find frogs and see the red-wing blackbirds, but today need to check on the pollinator. The path is gone, tangled with the un-mowed spring grass. The out edge is a curtain of Marestail, towering over six feet. At the edges of this forest set down the two four-gallon bucks and start to part a path through the weeds. This is the pollinator’s second year after the mid-term maintenance surgery. The conservation reserve acres original purpose was to protect topsoil from erosion and retire marginal crop acres helping stabilize crop prices. Later programs emphasis was wildlife and then the pollinator program was encouraged. Each requires a new level of management. The pollinator plot had special native grasses and wildflower drilled into a prepared seedbed. After five years to enhance the later starters the site needs to be disturbed with either a burn or disking. Non pollinator grass field could also be spayed to kill the sod, but ours had excellent clover cover and the baring the steep slopes is a concern. Burning is nature’s way, but man still has a liability, so everything had been disked.

It is very hard walking over the rough ground and though the tangle, but finally around a large clump you find the pollinator forbs. First there is Black eyed Susan, down the slope the hues of golden yellow is bright from False and Maximillan sunflowers, green Partridge peas are tucked under the dry shells of Purple prairie clover that had bloomed in July along with random clumps of Grayhead coneflower also past their times. The stark skeleton of a dead Bull thistle occupies an open space that it had dominated last June when we spared this noxious weed. Then under the canopy of green is what we came for, an emerging escape from last June, new growth of Spiny plumesless thistle. We will never eradicate it, but can hope to control and allow the less aggressive fobs and natives to enlarge their range. This is why I lugged the four-gallon back-pack sprayer into the maze. Spot spraying this thistle, but for fall blooms add more seed. Where the ground is bare, from the maintenance the thistle is worst, but we have worked on patches so thick used a hand scythe to cut a path. These areas are now mostly grass, examples of success. It is hot by mid morning and brought a water jug on the second trip. The well water is good; a benefit from the non-wetland waterway that captures the runoff and recharges the shallow aquifer each year. One wildlife practice would kill the dominate grass to make the ground bare for wildlife diversity, but there are other considerations, as saving water for the farm.

A parting cloud lets the sunshine fall on the green stalks of Milkweed’s pods still green and full of sap. This fall the pods will dry and bust releasing thousands of tuffs to float on the breeze new seeds to spread this important wildflower. It is obvious why Milkweed is so important. The white milky sap is drawing scores of insects feeding on the pods. Gangs of bright orange Blister beetles can be seen clinging to the pods. That is when I notice they have changed. In just the few hours the green blooms have turned a bright, glowing golden yellow. Our Goldenrod blooms, in just a few hours emerged. What a pleasure to witness this change, but the disappointment to realize how many of nature’s events we have missed due to busy lives. Regrettably I go back to the task at hand spot spraying more escape thistles. Later on a last transfer of the eight spot the purple heads of musk thistle. Only two plants are in the pollinator, but a string trails across a thin area of sod open up last year after the disking. I remember the one plant from last year, but did not go back to cut. It takes another hour to cut and bag the seed heads in the pollinator and cut and bundle the plants in the sod. It is too late to spray these thistles so carry everything back to a burn pile. On the way out notice a south wind has come up. The Goldenrod points north. On one bloom a Monarch butterfly is investigating. He is orientated south. It looks, with him on the bloom, almost like a compass. I wonder is he is the only Monarch left, or is he a scout for the great migration coming from the north, following the emerging Goldenrod blooms and sap filled Milkweeds? I wish could spend the rest of the day and week here, but have miles to travel and promises to keep. This was such a rewarding day. Tiring that only those who have farmed can enjoy and quiet that only those who had been taught to appreciate nature can understand. To paraphrase Chief Seattle’s “The Earth is Precious” “You must teach your children, - to respect the land.” This has been a good day.