We want to increase biodiversity on our grass meadow. Johnny regularly sows grass and herb seeds with our Faunamaster seeder. Since the grass carpet is already quite dense, the young sprouts often can't survive the competition with the established plants. However, white clover and red clover have gradually established themselves well on our large grass meadow. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find most of the herbs from our seeds in the meadow.

This year you have therefore sown flower seeds in our tree circles in the field. Our goal is for the flowers there to eventually spread to the surrounding meadow.

First, I turned the grass sods.

I've dug one section of the beds two spadefuls deep, while I've only dug the other section one spadeful deep. Underneath, I've loosened the soil with a wide pitchfork. That way I can see how well the seeds take root and how quickly the new plants are crowded out by the surrounding grasses.

Before sowing, I soaked the seeds in a mixture of molasses (or honey/sugar) and water (1:9) along with some store-bought mycorrhiza fungi. Then I mixed the mixture with some dry soil so the seeds could be more easily distributed. In some spots, I lightly harrowed the seeds in. In other spots, I scattered the seeds and covered them with a little soil. In some circles, I simply scattered them without covering them. In the last circles, I also harrowed in some of our Johnson-Su compost, which we opened for the first time before sowing.

Now I can see which method has worked best.

In the three circular beds, Johnny broke up the turf with the rototiller, and I then cleared away the loose grass with a rake. There I simply scattered the rest of the flower seeds and hope that some of them will sprout and grow.