Finishing up sweet clover at Black Earth Prairie

Today Kathie and I participated in a work party at Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie. The goal was to find the last sweet clover plants, those that had come up late or were too small to find at earlier work days. We also pulled Queen Anne's lace (wild carrot; Daucus carota).

In addition to the Prairie Enthusiasts volunteers, we were joined by a troop of Boy Scouts from Lake Mills, Wisconsin that had camped overnight nearby and who wanted to help in our restoration efforts. With our regular volunteers and the Scouts, we had 25 people, a great group. We got a lot of work done, and sweet clover is now essentially finished at Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie.



We plan to return for one more time the first Saturday of September, to get any stragglers. However, the main work at the September work party will be seed collecting.

Sweet clover has kept us busy this summer, but we think we are seeing a possible end of this work in a few more years. Our goal, of course, is to exhaust the seed bank, and to remove any flowering plants that might set seed and reverse our work.

We have already finished our sweet clover work at Pleasant Valley Conservancy, and are getting near the end of our Queen Anne's lace work. Just in time, because fall seed collecting is already upon us.