Abingdon Green Gym Blog

This was a change form our usual outdoor session. 26th October was the day of the Abingdon Eco Fair in the Guildhall, organised by Abingdon Carbon Cutters and Green Gym had a publicity stall alongside Abingdon Naturalists and Friends of Radley Lakes. There was a rota of helpers to man the stall so everybody had a chance to look around the many stalls at the fair, which included allotments, gardening, composting, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, RSPB, eco build and renovation, the Abingdon Hydro project to get electricity from the weir, not forgetting a bric a brac and white elephant stall where you could take anything away for free. There was also tea, coffee and cakes and homemade soup with bread to enjoy as well as apple juicing with free samples. Mayor Samantha Bowring, who is also a Green Gymmer when her busy schedule allows, made a speech to launch Abingdon as a Transition Town. There was also entertainment from two folk groups and the Abingdon Community Choir. ...

We met by the bridge over the weir to start our tidy up of the town end of the Ock Walk. The tasks were to clear around the young trees, cut vegetation back from the wood chip path, which had become very overgrown, pick up litter and plant bulbs for the Spring. We were joined a bit later by Mayor Samantha, who helps us when mayoral duties allow, with baby Charlotte. As October had been very mild with no frost, the nettles had not died back and we even found some Himalayan Balsam still in flower. It was hard work clearing patches to plant the bulbs but at least the ground was soft because of the recent rain. Fortunately the rain held off during the morning. After the coffee break some of us turned our attention to planting the bulbs, though some further raking and pulling up of nettles needed to be done first. We planted crocuses around the memorial tree and wild flower bulbs in three patches we had cleared. These comprised wood anemones, wild garlic, English bluebells...

Abingdon Green Gym's new Autumn 2013 programme has just been published. This has information on all sessions to be held between this coming Saturday 26th October and Saturday 11th January 2014. See below for full details or view/download a pdf version on our website - http://www.abingdongreengym.org.uk/programme/

Saturday's session was once again at Frilford Heath Golf Course, working on Boundary Fen. The morning got off to a bad start as we found the gate leading to the place we usually park was locked. Alison, from Natural England, which manages the site, tried in vain to find somebody with a key, and in the end we had to park in another car park across the main road. By this time we had lost about 45 minutes of work and there was a lot to do. The weather, however, after a night and early morning of rain, was amazingly mild and sunny. We saw a comma butterfly sunning itself and several varieties of ladybird. We worked hard raking reeds and piling them up on the edge of the fen along with sticks and branches. This would give the fen flora a chance to grow through, and with the conifer debris removed, would preserve its alkaline nature. Judy Webb was also there and as usual she found some interesting fungi. We stopped for a later and foreshortened coffee break before battli...

Ten Green Gymmers met in the car park opposite the Merry Miller pub for our session at Cothill Fen. We always look forward to coming here as this alkaline fen is an interesting place in terms of its biodiversity and different from many of the places where we work. We made our way along the footpath to the fen, where Bob from Natural England was waiting to give us instructions to start us off and then we were left in charge of Judy, who is a wildlife expert in the area. We noticed some changes since our last visit, New fencing had been erected and the plan is to link the fen with Parsonage Moor next door. Ponies already graze Parsonage Moor for part of the year and more ponies from Anglesey will be brought in next year. These ponies are used to boggy places and should have the sense to avoid the deep water. We set to work raking up the cut grass and reeds and piling them on to the existing piles. Natural England have found a contractor who will be abl...