Maple Field

TO DESCRIBE WHAT’S GOING ON AND WHY.

This small field in Hampshire has definitely been ‘ organic’ since we took over in 2006.  It is  where we experiment with ‘deep mulch’…… and not much else. Following in the footprints of Ruth Stout from West Virginia, USA , who for 50 years has covered her patch with hay and nothing else as deep as 500 millimetres ,nut down to a depth of 300mm after the first smothering ,  into which she has planted and drilled every mortal vegetable you can muster.

In October and November 2023 we smothered 125 square metres of pasture with hay to a depth of 300 millimetres,  spread from our haycocks which we put up from the July and September mowings of the field. The hay was cut before it set seed to prevent the carry- forward of weeds when the pasture turned to arable by magic  –  while we slept . The following April of 2024 the mulch hay had settled into a 100 millimetre crusty blanket having softened the brunt of the heavy jet- rods of winter rain,  by splitting it into mist- drops,  easily soaked. The Mob of underground night- shift workers took over the job of cultivation,  munching down the light- starved sward and feasting on the slow- cook detritus presented to them  –   taking down the hay fibre and moving it left and right along the Elizabeth Line tunnels opened up to them by Maple Field Crossrail PLC  –   our  subterranean workforce ,  well paid in nutrients and delicious exudates with pensions provided by the deep and mysterious long lasting collaboration. No digging, no ploughing or rotavating  –   no pressing of the tractor wheel was needed,   no spray passes of glyphosate chemical concoctions and no diesel ,  to turn this plot into an arable garden/ field ,ready for sowing in the spring season  –   all nutrients for the crops of vegetables provided by the Crossrail dismantling of what was there all along  –   at least since the last ruffle of last Ice Age.

 So what have we learned from the season of 2024 ?  That wild grassland,  unploughed since 1940 , may be cut down tight and smothered with ‘deep hay mulch’ , seedless as a grape,  to adapt for 300 mm in November and for the land to be ready to receive a vegetable crop by April (5months)  –  and this without cultivation of any sort and totally without the resort to chemical tankers of a farmer’s favourite glyphosate .  All this work carried out by Maple Field Crossrail  while we sleep  –   while the rains rattle down . In 2024 off came a crop of presentable garlic, spring onions, French beans ,beetroot ,coriander and Charlotte potatoes, which was simply and quickly tucked in under the mulch carpet, with fresh mulch applied either side of the hulm after sprouting, as a form of earthing- up  –   no weeding,  no human handwork apart from planting and harvesting. We have another patch which has been treated in this same way for Four Seasons now entering its fifth in 2025 and the soil gives way under your feet,  as if undermined .