Episode 24: Hedgerows And FWAG

Matthew Gudgin (00:30):

Sound of a Skylark. It’s a mild morning. It's dry as well, which is unusual at the moment. Welcome to this week's Countryside Podcast. Our farmer, Chris Skinner from High Ash Farm near Norwich is our host as always, and we're out on one of the fields next to a hedge row. And Chris, what's this?  You've got a diagram for it…

Chris Skinner (00:55):

Yes, well, it's a map, Matthew, and I'm really fortunate because somebody at the Norfolk Landscape Archaeology Department at Gressenhall by the name of Alice Cattermole has printed me out two historic maps of High Ash Farm and the one in front of us I've got on the car bonnet here is 1760. And let's just turn it row. It is facing the right way because that's north. And if we look behind us, there's a woodland there. And in 1760 we're at, I'll just get the right point, we are just here and there's no wood at all there across there. It's just absent. And so the strange thing is people get very excited about the countryside and tradition, but it has changed so much. If we had a map of the Bronze Age, this was probably all forest and we've done land clearance and then it's been forgotten about and farmed and then grown up as woodland and old hedgerows. And it's happened time and time again over the millennia. So you can go back 3000 years and a lot of this land was farmed and it just had so many changes of use. 

Matthew Gudgin (02:24):

So this is 265 odd years ago. And the field shapes, is it something you recognise? 

Chris Skinner (02:31):

Yes, a little bit. And many of these hedge boundaries that defined the actual fields themselves were long gone really. And some were reinstated just for convenience and often hedges when you think they've been planted, they're actually the limit of land reclamation before you come to some feature. So if there was a stream often you'd leave some of the scrubby wilderness growth if you like, beside the stream because it wasn't worth going any further. And then that grew up and formed one of our early hedges. Then things started to change. And the next map, which Alice very kindly has printed out for us is in 1920. And there's a woodland over there behind us, Matthew. And that would be at this point here, and it's not there. 

Matthew Gudgin:

It's a field. But no woodland.

Chris Skinner:

It's a field with a hedge, the whole field and amazingly on this and that,

Skylark… up right above us about a hundred feet above us, Matthew. 

Matthew Gudgin:

He resents us, I think. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, we're in his territory. And all the trees on High Ash Farm, apart from the woodland, which is all little dots of trees, all the individual trees are marked out in these hedgerows. And many of those have gone because agricultural practises right at the beginning of my farming career, it was sort of using boxes of matches to do all your baling. You remember the days of straw burning and a lot of agricultural chemicals we were using were pretty diabolical to say the least. Things like DDT, dieldrin, some of the seed dressings, mercuric oxide on the seed. And so things started to change because we were having such an effect on the environment that there was a big conference in 1969 at Silsoe, and environmentalists and farmers all agreed to meet there to see if there was some sort of marriage that could be made between caring for the environment and for home food production. 

(04:56)
 And I was very much part, I wasn't part of the conference, but from 1971, the government joined in as well and had a government white paper. 1971 food from our own resources and it started to acknowledge the importance of the environment as well. And in my early farming career, I'd been paid to take many hedges out, 20 miles, went at High Ash Farm alone, leaving about another 20, and you just hide a bulldozer at the end of the harvest season and drove down the hedges, then pushed them up into big sort of bonfires and set fire to it. 

Matthew Gudgin:

I can tell it's a painful memory. 

Chris Skinner:

It was embarrassing to think what I did because I was really keen to do it and you got paid to do it as well. So you start to amalgamate fields and farmers were being pushed the whole time with new varieties of cereals and sugar, beet and potatoes. 

(05:55)
 Many came from the Cambridge breeding units and everything had the prefix of Maris, which meant that it was bred in Cambridge, Maris Huntsman Wheat, Maris Piper potatoes, all the varieties were better than the previous varieties. It was an exciting time at the same time. And so that huge change happened. And as a result of that big conference in 1969 at Silsoe, an organisation was formed called FWAG. It's an abbreviation obviously it's called Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group. And it hadn't solely got the interest of farmers in mind, nor solely the interests of conservationists and environmentalists, but there was a conflict between the two bodies. And I think farmers began to realise that they'd gone a little bit too far, but still being pushed by all the modern agricultural machinery. In about episode three or four of this podcast series we're doing, we visited a local machinery distributor and even I was amazed at the size of the tractors and the harvesters, they are colossal and you can't use them in all these tiny little paddock fields. That little meadow over there was six paddocks over in the corner. And that's on the map here as well. And let's see if I can find it for you. 

Matthew Gudgin (07:27):

Just remind us when this map was from? 

Chris Skinner (07:29):

This one is 1920. 

Matthew Gudgin:

A hundred years ago. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. It's a hundred years almost. Exactly. 

Matthew Gudgin:

I can see Fox's Grove on there which is where we regularly go on this podcast.

Chris Skinner:

Yes. Fox's Grove is there. It's a tiny little portion of woodland and it goes right up to Caistor Lane at the moment. And there is, its only 10 acres. It's currently 33 acres. The woodland over there behind us is missing. This woodland has only just been planted in 1920 as for pheasant cover. And then it was felled in the second World War after about 50 odd years.

Matthew Gudgin (08:02):

So it was put in for the guns? 

Chris Skinner (08:03):

It was put in for, it was put in for the guns and for timber, and it was clear felled and then left completely alone. So it's rejuvenated itself. Little Pied wagtail, two of them in amongst the horses just beside us, just down here. Can you see them? 

Matthew Gudgin:

Oh yes. Yeah. 

Chris Skinner:

Flitting there and just over it and the other corner of this new new field , a flock of starlings coming down to feed

Matthew Gudgin (08:28):

All going up as one and down as one. Yes. 

Chris Skinner (08:30):

And then in a field just over there, almost out of sight, a lovely flock of crows, rooks and jackdoors all feeding together on the soil invertebrates.

Matthew Gudgin (08:41):

Look at all the starlings. There's more joining them. 

Chris Skinner (08:42):

Yes, there is. There's going to be quite a big sort of daytime murmuration. Absolutely lovely. So those big changes that I'm talking about happened. And then this marriage formed with FWAG between farmers and environmentalists. And FWAG was giving free advice to farmers about restoring some of these huge fields into smaller fields and giving advice on conservation. And High Ash Farm has very much been shaped by FWAG. In 2006, I went into a higher level stewardship scheme here at the farm and they gave advice as to where to put the right hedges. Again, Ooo two skylarks right behind us and one pair fighting with an odd one. There's three only 10 yards from us.

Matthew Gudgin (09:32):

They were almost… is this a territorial thing?

Chris Skinner (09:34):

Absolutely. Another man came into that pairs territory.

Matthew Gudgin (09:41):

They flew a bit like we'll see in a couple of months time when the swallows arrive.

Chris Skinner (09:43):

Yes, exactly that. They had dive bombing each other. And anyway, so we started to put back the features that many of which had been taken out in the 1960s and 1970s. And the current government target with Defra is 45,000 new miles of hedgerow by 2050. And I've brought you here to a particular spot because we're going to be looking at hedgerows this morning. And this is the beginning of a new hedge. It's stretching away. It's 

Matthew Gudgin (10:17):

Hundreds of little green tubes 

Chris Skinner (10:21):

Each with a cane in there. And the bottom of them,

Matthew Gudgin (10:24):

it's more plastic than wood at the moment

Chris Skinner (10:25):

Yes, we call it a tubey head, A tubey hedge. And it shows out from quite a distance. But we have rabbits here, we have hares, there are horses nearby, but all these are protected. And in the past I've put a plastic sheet all the way down and then planted the hedge whips, we call them little Hawthorne, Blackthorn, some dogwood in there, field maple, a hazel as a whole mix of lovely British native species to sort of replace all the damage that I did all those years ago. And so that's the beginning. You couldn't have a younger hedge than this one. It's only been in a week and we hope it will be here for two or 300 years. But as I said, it's outside my control beyond few more years and remainder of my farming career. And the countryside has always been changing and it's getting used to that. Right, behind us is the result of negotiating with FWAG. This was a hundred acre field and the 40 hectares in new money if you like. And we copied the hedge row plants that are all around a farm in the old mature hedges that were left. And this is now getting nicely established. You can still see some of the tubes at the bottom. 

Matthew Gudgin (11:51):

So this isn't an ancient hedge is one that you've replanted. And how old would this be? 

Chris Skinner (11:56):

This One? This now is, it was planted in 2006. So what's about 18 odd years old? Yes. 

Matthew Gudgin (12:04):

It's still got signs of newness about it, isn't it? And this grownup tall. 

Chris Skinner (12:08):

Yes. And we are standing here along this hedge boundary here and there were trees here. And I bulldozed this bank out and I know you've screwed your face up, which says it all looking at me as I'm a heathen. And I didn't feel like at the time, but there so much habitat was lost. All the small mammals in the hedges and of course hedges, which we haven't really talked about much yet are hugely important wildlife corridors. And that when I met FWAG and they started to explain to me the importance of having wildlife corridors, I could just begin to see the error of my ways back then. But as a young man and being paid to do it, every encouragement was there to get the bulldozer in and to take these old features out. And then to have the larger agricultural machine. And that's a reward, a farmer in a spanking new tractor or a large combine. That's quite something compared to just a few mice and voles running around and rabbits who got helped get rid of the rabbits. 

Matthew Gudgin (13:21):

But you've been on a road to Damascus since then.

Chris Skinner (13:22):

I certainly have, certainly for the last 30 odd years I've done the Norfolk motto, which is called Do different. And I've tried to say sorry to the environment by trying to behave. So here we have a 18-year-old hedge. It's now about what, eight feet tall? It's blackthorn there, a hazel just in front of us, 

Matthew Gudgin:

Can just see the catkins

Chris Skinner:

…with the catkins on. And it's throwing out all sorts of new growth on the bottom. And then the main one, the main constituent is this prickly fellow, which is Hawthorne. And bearing in mind this is arable land, so we don't actually need livestock fences, which was the original purpose of putting hedges in. The Saxons probably planted a lot of hedges because we have a Saxon Anglo-Saxon cemetery only about half a mile from us. And they certainly farm this land as a sort of way that I'm farming it today. 

(14:25)
 Another way they produce food from it. So you can still see the plastic tree guards at the bottom. They're meant to be biodegradable. And if I look down here, there is 33,000 hedging plants went in on this, which is plastic. There it is. It's covered up with leaf mould and all the hedge trimmings that have landed on top and leaves blown in. And some of the tree guards are still here with the original canes, although they've been in 18 years. Look at that. It's just amazing. So we're going to visit a different part of the farm in a few minutes and see some of the ancient hedges that escaped Skinner’s bulldozer all those years ago. 

Matthew Gudgin:

So this is only under 20 years old, the one behind this is about a week old. 

Chris Skinner:

A week old. And we're now going to see one that's perhaps 300, 350 years old and see what they look like and what they can provide. 

(15:23)
 So we've got hop back in the truck and then we'll drive to the other side of the farm. And you can see all over the farm, newly planted hedges that went in in 2006, 2007. As I said, there's just on 30,000 tree whips went in and every sort of 30, 40 yards, we copied the original planting of the oak trees, which you can see an original hedge over there where oak trees were put in every chain. 

Matthew Gudgin:

22 yards. 

Chris Skinner:

Exactly. And there's eight chains to a furlong I think. Well sorry, eight furlongs to a mile. So 200 furlongs, 220 yards long. And that's exactly the width of this new newly planted hedges. That's a furlong. 

Matthew Gudgin:

This is a furlong. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, exactly. All these old fields were measured out in furlongs. So they're all sort of 220 yards long. 

Matthew Gudgin:

I always fail in the final furlong. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes they do. Yes. Certainly the ones I've ever betted on. That's why I'm not a gambling man anymore. Right. 

Matthew Gudgin:

No, but you are a hedge fund manager. 

Chris Skinner:

Oh yes. Well done. 

(16:46)

Matthew Gudgin:
 It really is a mild morning, not much evidence of sun, but lots of people walking on the farm tracks and it feels almost springlike.

Chris Skinner:

It does. I think we are close to 15 degrees centigrade today, so it's positively barmy, especially after any cold weather when you have that transition from cold to warmth and then back. Because February never seems to make up its mind. It's as I said in a previous podcast, February, fill dyke black or white, which just mean you can get a lot of rain or snow and if the wind comes from the north, you certainly get the cold with it. But oh, the sun's actually trying to come through the cloud behind us. And so it does feel really lovely and all of a sudden the birds start singing and it suddenly changes really, really quickly. And I noticed that daffodils are out, snowdrops will soon be over. 

(17:42)
 We're seeing daisies in flower this morning and yeah, it's all unfolding just it should do.

Matthew Gudgin:

Just as your script would demand. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes, exactly that. 

Matthew Gudgin:

But we're talking about hedges this morning. 

Chris Skinner:

Yes. And so I thought I'd bring you to the most ancient one on the farm that's on that 1760 map from Gressenhall. And it's absolutely amazing. The hedge has almost become a row of trees. It's probably up 20, 25 feet. There's a ditch the other side of it. And then there's a ditch the other side of this track with water streaming through and also a hedge there. And that hedge probably originally was the extent of land clearance. Trees on the hillside there would've all been cleared to make arable fields. And it’s been this constant change from forestry to arable land. And then as there's more and more people out in this world, we're realising the importance of food production. 

(18:52)
 But it's so aggressive now with the modern machinery. Fewer and fewer people working on farms dictates that you have to have huge machinery. You have to work very quickly, very precisely. So it's put a pressure on the environment and that's where that organisation FWAG farming and wildlife advisory group comes in to marry the two interests if you like, the interest of conservation and the interests of farmers, which is basically food production because it's dead easy just to hop in a tractor and keep ploughing and not take regard of the world that we live in. And so these old environmental features and this lovely bird song just then, it didn't catch you that was singing at us to say thank you. But this old hedge row, it really needs some attention now because hedges are only hedgers because they're kept trimmed. And years ago this would've been a layered hedge all done by hand and folded over and braided in. 

(19:56)

Matthew Gudgin:
 Really they've become trees.

Chris Skinner:

They certainly have. And it doesn't suit the species that grow in hedges. There's hazel there, which is what, 25 feet tall? Probably crab apple a bit further down that can get to 30 feet and be okay. But this is field maple above our heads. And then Hawthorn here and the Hawthorne, well once it gets to this size, they can just blow over. You can see the prickles low down here, dictating it was a former livestock hedge. Well before my tenure on the farm, there'd probably been a fence. Barbed wire came in the mid 1800s and meant that you didn't have to have growing hedges in such the same extent. But the hedges all form field boundaries and often small farms. We have small fields and this field behind this tall hedge that we're standing under is only about seven acres and the next one is six acres. But I've kept all the old field boundaries and these old hedges in. This side of the farm with the heavy clay didn't suffer the same fate with the bulldozers coming through. Otherwise this lovely old hedge would've long been gone in the 1970s. 

Matthew Gudgin (21:15):

And this wonderful ride. You must be so proud of this. It’s so beautiful here, isn't it?

Chris Skinner (21:17):

It's about 20 yards wide and it goes right through to the Roman town. So in fact, it's an old Roman road and I kept it because it was the beginning of me saying sorry for my bulldozer years. And there were some birds nesting in there. Sadly they haven't been back for the last two years. And they require these really tall hedges and it's a really special bird. It's a very beautiful bird. It makes the most gorgeous sound on hot summer's days, sometimes on telephone wires, but often from the tops of these trees. And it's the turtle dove. And it's so sad that it's gone missing from, it's the fastest declining bird in the UK. Declined well over 90% and they were here in masses through my childhood. So it is my ambition to give them everything that they need to come back. 

(22:12)
 Fingers crossed one day they will do. And the fields opposite here on the other side of this hedge are planted with over winter wild bird seed mix. And there's a special plant growing out there. It's put itself there naturally and it's top notch food for turtle doves and it's called fumitary. And it literally means smoking ground because the leaves are kind of a bluey greeny colour and it looks as though the ground's on fire hence fumitary. And the adult birds collect the seeds, mash them up and feed the baby turtle doves on that. And I went to cross to Sicily and there was a turtle dove reserve there and I saw perhaps 75, 80 turtle doves in the space of an hour. And all around was that lovely purring sound of the turtle doves in the heat of the day. And that brought back memories, which is why this hedge is still here. It needs a bit of attention so it doesn't all fall over and any gaps in between. You can see there's almost 15, 20 feet between one hall form and the field maple there. And that could be planted up. It's called gapping where you actually add bits into old hedges.  

Matthew Gudgin (23:30):

Is that something you plan to do?

Chris Skinner (23:31):

Yes, that's something I've done and I've already started to do it back here. If we walk back a little bit, you can see there's a 20 yard gap and I'll fill that in with new planting already. And that's getting nicely established. So you see the countryside does change hugely. You can't kind of put your elbows on the table and say, no, I'm not moving. And this organisation FWAG is sort of lubricating the way between the requirements and environmentalists who realise how important looking after the countryside is and the needs of food production. So it's a really difficult marriage and everybody has to be flexible, but it can be done. 

Matthew Gudgin (24:14):

Well thank you for telling us about FWAG. 

Chris Skinner (24:16):

Yes, there we are. It seems a bit unusual name to bring in, but they'll be very pleased. And there's local FWAG. There was a total after that Silsoe conference of nearly 70 individual FWAG groups set up all over the UK including Scotland and Ireland and Wales. And it's sort of stabilised a bit now and some of them have become regional, but the Norfolk FWAG is still very much in existence and open for business. And the advice you get would be free as well. And there's usually a farmer chairman in each group so that the interests of farming are not lost completely. But you can see this hedge and the rewards from looking after the environment are equal at least to food production because it's really worth doing.  

Matthew Gudgin (25:09):

So birds, we can see the birds moving about inside this very mature hedge. Yes. And they flourish. And down at the base we have mice and voles. 

Chris Skinner (25:16):

Yes, the whole habitat here. And of course you've got all the daytime birds. And then again we did a nocturnal visit here just a couple of weeks ago and we were seeing sort of barn owls flying and all the hares and small mammals and we're being serenaded. Well, it's the middle of February. Birdsong all around us. Absolutely. Lovely. 

Matthew Gudgin (25:38):

I think we've got some emails to look at

Chris Skinner (25:39):

We we need to get back to the truck and go through a few of questions. 

Matthew Gudgin (25:55):

Well thanks as always for all your messages and emails, letters, everything coming into High Ash Farm and we read every single one of them and we've selected a few questions that have come in for Chris to be quizzed on, are you ready to be quizzed? 

Chris Skinner (26:09):

Just about! Yes. 

Matthew Gudgin (26:11):

Julian in Halesworth says, amazing to hear about the spring flowers and fungi, which is always an interesting subject as was the Tawny owl warbling. I've got a few recordings of birds I take when out, but always find it amazing how some calls or bird song throw a curve ball at you just as you think you've mastered them. I love the various sounds of nature and find it can be as important as the visual, perhaps a podcast on the sounds of High Ash would be great one day. Well you've got quite a library, haven't you? 

Chris Skinner (26:43):

Certainly have, and as we are speaking, I'm doing a podcast for children and it is going to contain many of the bird sounds. We are going on a special hunt looking for a creature that lives here at the farm. And I'm going to be interviewing many of the birds and animals as they go around the farm and include some of that library of sounds that I've accumulated over the decades. 

Matthew Gudgin (27:10):

Let's head to Harpenden where Paul Baldwin is a listener to the podcast and Paul says, I wonder if Chris could provide an ID on these lovely little birds that I've photographed. They wandered into our close yesterday. They seemed very confident and did a circuit of all eight houses inspecting everything ending up on our front doorstep. We are very used to seeing pheasants and partridges along with all the other birds we feed, but we've never seen these before. And looking at the photographs there, they're very pretty patterned birds, aren't they? 

Chris Skinner (27:46):

Yes, they certainly are. And I knew the answer straight away. In fact, they are partridges. There are two main species of partridge in the United Kingdom, one of which is resident, one of which was introduced and the resident ones called the English partridge or the grey partridge perdix predix  lovely scientific name. And that's one of those red list species is declined hugely since the 1930s, forties, fifties and sixties. So there's just a remnant population compared to what there was. And way back because early sportsmen didn't think grey partridge was enough sort of sport for them. So another species was introduced, they're called French partridge, red leg partridge. And it was way back in 1790 that the introductions happened. And they come from southern Europe and over in southeastern Europe and they love really, really dry drought conditions and that's why you find French partridge, red leg partridge, whatever you like to call them, much more on the eastern side of the UK. So where we are is their home and we have them here at the farm. They're spectacularly beautiful. 

Matthew Gudgin (29:07):

And these are French, are they? Because they see a pinkish tinge to the legs?

Chris Skinner (29:10):

Yes, they've got red legs and a red beak to go with it, sort of blood red. There's some really sort of pretty patterning on the sides of the breast, sort of lines on the feathers. And they have a white chin and a little black sort of bib under the chin, which comes up through the eye. So they have a kind of black stripe through the eye and a little bit of beige on top of the head, but they don't have the lovely sort of speckled plumage that the English grey partridge would have with that liver shaped heart. We just past Valentine's Day and Grey Partridge kind of have a liver shaped heart on their breast. They're beautiful birds. So that's what they are. And I it's quite amused because one of the little photographs shows the grey partridge inspecting a little shrub at the entrance of your garden. And I think that shrub is lavender and lavender, they love the seeds left in the seed pods from last year's flowering and several of them are looking at that bush quite intently and look as they're going to find that. They know what it is, it's instinctive in them and that's what you've got. They're very much game birds, french partridge and they're easy to breed so you can release large numbers of them and have almost exclusive partridge shoots. So there we are. That's what those are. 

Matthew Gudgin (30:35):

Thank you for the photographs there. Brilliant. A gang of French partridge wandering the streets of Harpenden. 

Chris Skinner (30:40):

Absolutely. When they're a gang, we don't call them a gang in farming terms, we call them a covey. There we are. Just to be correct. 

Matthew Gudgin (30:48):

Now here's a note that's come in from, and let's just see oh from Zoe, Zoe Shunden who says, I've got a patio area at the back of the garden created using sleepers by the previous owner. As I rarely use it, I've decided to convert it into a wild flower area. There's going to be a small pond at one side at the front and a rockery and log pile at the back where it is shaded by a beech tree. Could I have some advice? I think is really the question here, isn't it? Yes. And also she wants to create the pond by using an old water tank from a loft. 

Chris Skinner (31:21):

Yes, she does. There's a picture of the area, it's 12 feet by eight feet, so it's quite a small area and I've had a look at it and there's the beech tree just creeping in over the area, so it is partly shaded. And also she's found an old water tank that she sent us a picture of here and wants to install that. So a little bit of advice. First of all, you've got a tall wooden garden fence and the sleepers have been up against that and I can see where the marks are down on the ground. So check your upright posts by giving a good wobble before you start to do any sort of major works because the posts might they’re wooden posts and they're six feet, seven feet tall, so make sure they're sound before you start anything. And then make the most of that fence, either put some ivy in because the fence is actually bare. 

(32:12)
 You could put some mesh across there first and train the ivy up there and or some berry bearing plants, things like a pyrocanther. If it's a north facing one, we'll do well there. There's one particular variety I grow here at the farm which has bright orange berries on and that's called orange glow. That's quite an interesting variety and it will grow against that wooden wall and it also produces lots of blossom in April and May, so that's a good one. And then for the ground area down on the deck as it's semi shaded, a good woodland plants to plant in, which will give some early pollen and nectar. It's unfortunately it's a biennial, so you've got to wait until what, 2026 for it to come out into flower. That will be fox gloves. Digitalis Purpurea is a good one, doesn't mind the shade. Perhaps some bulbs, early spring bulbs and some native snow drops perhaps in there and some grasses. 

(33:14)
 And then a few surprises as well if you have nettles growing in the area to put nettles in there. And that's the food plant for many of our species of butterflies. People will be scratching the head. Why do you want to be growing nettles in your garden? Well that's a good place to grow it. It's growing side a fence. Then the soil looks very, very fertile there and nettles like high fertility. And then you'll be helping the next generation of butterflies. You already provided some pollen and nectar perhaps with the ivy on the back wall there. And native ivy please called headerohelix. So it's the British native ivy is really good. And so you've got lots of possibilities there and it's lovely. And as for the water tank then I wouldn't use that because it's about two foot deep and it's sort of had its day, it's getting quite old and the zinc is beginning to flake. 

(34:10)
 And so you will have zinc contaminating the water because it’s a galvanised tank and the sides of the tank would be far too brutal for wildlife. Things like frogs and toads and news to be able to climb out, even if it was buried in, you'd need to kind of fill it with rocks if you did line it. So it is all different layers. A good pond will have some deeper water in, but the main points of habitation, rain, any pond that's created is all the shallow margins where you get the sort of muddy habitat ideal for dragon flies and all sorts. So lots and lots of advice. So get rid of the sleepers and start off fresh like that. And it's exciting just to watch things develop when you do put these wild areas in. And you can go there on hot summer days and see different species of butterflies so you can get some other pollen and nectar plants, which are semi shade tolerant, but fox gloves is a winner there. So there we are. And thank you everybody for sending all these wonderful questions in. I love being challenged with all sorts of ideas.

Matthew Gudgin (35:21):

Well good luck Zoe. And send us a photo and it's all up and running in a year or so's time. 

Chris Skinner (35:24):

Yeah, so thank you. And that's it. I've selected all the main questions. We do have a huge post bag these days, so we can just answer a selection of them each week and I'll try and catch up with the backlog as we go through future podcasts. 

Matthew Gudgin (35:40):

The address is chris@countrysidepodcast.co.uk. Chris Skinner farms a square mile of countryside in the east of England near Norwich. It's called High Ash Farm. And we'll be back again for another podcast next week.  

Chris Skinner (35:56):

Yes see you then.