‘Rough & Loose’ at Boothby Wildland - Life after the last harvest

Shaun and his trusty steed.

by Lorienne Whittle

Levelling the land

Now in the third year of Nattergal ownership, we have completed our transition out of arable farming, enjoying our last harvest supper in Autumn 2024.  With last winter being so wet, it proved an especially hard farming year for Boothby land. In the heavy clay, grade-3 soils we lost over 50% of the wheat we’d sown – it didn’t even make it out the ground. With yet more rain, the flowering legume mix we added to areas of failed wheat also largely struggled to establish. This was done to help improve soil health and prevent it from being bare (which increases the runoff of soil into the river).

Decades of heavy machinery planing the ground to ease the intensive arable farming have created the flat fields we’re all so very familiar with. Afterall, who would try to grow crops in a quarry-like environment – it would make for some impossibly bumpy combine harvesting! So, for the last three years, as we’ve been busy monitoring, consulting and planning everything to do with wilding this land, the fields have remained smooth, and the soil very compact.

Reshaping our ideas – and the landscape  

The animals we plan to bring into the Wildland will have a huge impact - between the pigs, cows, ponies, deer and beavers there’ll be plenty of different grazing, browsing, rootling and manure of many shapes and sizes (finger’s crossed for dung beetles!)

However, whilst the pigs will be especially good at creating mud hollows, none of these animals are large enough, or have the behaviour, to really change the shape of the land in terms of being able to make ponds or mound earth to create hills.

While for the most part we’re keen to use Nature itself to bring back natural processes to this landscape, where we can’t find Nature based solutions, we’ll be pragmatic. Cue ‘Rough & Loose’.

Rough and Loose

On carefully selected area across the Wildland, considering everything from drainage to geology, previous cropping and public rights of way, we’ve unleashed some diggers! With the help of Shaun, his bulldozer and excavator, there are now ‘hills and hollows’ instead of flat land. The technique is called ‘rough and loose’ – it is intentional that these areas are all different shapes and sizes rather than uniform and by creating these piles Shaun has made scrapes and ponds and lots of lovely loose earth.

Rough and Loose is affectionately known between us as ‘Drunken digger driving’ – but fear not, Shaun didn’t need any alcohol - just permission to use his knowledge of soils, excavating and understanding the landscape – and to ‘make a mess’!

Water will gather and wildlife will thrive in this messy kaleidoscope. Before long, Nature will cover the muddy earth with an abundance of growth. We can’t wait to see the results.

Image credit: Shaun Hancox