Ock Valley Walk, Town End, 1st April 2017

By Andrew -
Eleven of us gathered for our second week at the town end of the Ock Path on a lovely mild and sunny day, to continue the work of renewing the woodchip path. Other tasks were clearing the nettles, which were now growing fast, from around the young trees, clearing some patches to sow more wild flower seeds, and of course, litter picking.

The wood chip was nearly all at one end of the path and quite scattered so it was harder to collect and there was further to push the wheelbarrows.  Clearing the nettles revealed more patches of wild flowers which we had planted in previous years, fritillaries  and quite a lot of wild garlic. We hope eventually to have fewer nettles and more wild woodland flowers in this area.

After a very welcome break for the woodchip haulers and spreaders, we carried on with the tasks. We cleared a couple of patches as far as possible of nettle roots and goose grass and sowed wild flower seeds suitable for urban woodlands.

Sadly, we didn’t manage to finish the path. Time and woodchip were running out and we had to leave a stretch of a few metres.
-Eleanor
Lydia wheeling a barrow load of woodchip.

Shovelling woodchip.

Margaret raking woodchip.

Tea break by the Ock.

Fritillaries.

Jessica and Janet preparing a patch for sowing.

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