Abingdon Green Gym Blog

This session saw our annual visit to Barton Fields following the cutting of the wildflower meadow. It’s important to rake the cut vegetation off as quickly as possible so the nutrients don’t leach into the soil and make it too rich. Wild flowers thrive on poor soil.  There was a big turnout, including a new recruit. A group of Scouts and their leaders from 2 nd Abingdon also came along to help David Guyoncourt and the Abingdon Naturalists Green Team, who look after this site. The weather was fine and sunny but fortunately, fairly cool. The cut vegetation had been raked into piles by the Green Team earlier in the week and our task was to transport it to the heaps at either end of the meadow, either with pitchforks, drag bags or on large sheets of plastic.  The task looked really daunting at the start, especially as we knew there was a smaller meadow beyond, but we set to work and by break time we had achieved a lot. We found a few small toads, which had had a luck...

Our new programme for Autumn 2018 has been published.  View below or click  HERE  to view/download a pdf version (opens in a new window).

We had our Green Gym summer picnic on Saturday with not a pair of loppers, saws or rakes in sight, although we were tempted to have a go at pulling the odd shoot of himalayan balsam! As per the last few years we chose Jarn Mound as the venue. It is an Oxford Preservation Trust site at Boars Hill, one of our   favourite work locations. There were eighteen members attending, bringing with them a delicious selection of their mouth-watering home-cooked food. Definitely an excuse to have second or third helpings! It seems to have become a tradition for us to build up an appetite by going for a short walk, to a well known spot looking out over the "Dreaming Spires of Oxford" made famous from a poem by Matthew Arnold. On this clear, fresh, sunny morning the view didn't disappoint. We were well into our meal when we had the added enjoyment of the arrival of Kate with her daughter and her 6 month old twins Frankie and Eddie. They became the centre of attention, be...

This week we were at Caldecott Forest School to rake the cut grass and add it to the compost bins, under the direction of Marion Owen from Carbon Cutters, who looks after the site. We have been here in August for several years now. There were sixteen of us, more than expected. Marion told us the tasks – raking up the cut grass and transporting it to the compost bins, pulling up the grass from around the young trees and shrubs and raking it from under the hedge. We had to be careful as there was clearly a wasps’ nest in one of the bins. With sixteen of us working, the grass was raked up and stacked and the areas under the trees and bushes cleared by tea break time. Marion had brought a delicious home baked courgette and walnut cake, which we all enjoyed. The work was finished, so we packed up early. This was probably a good thing as the temperature was creeping up above 30°C. -Eleanor Trying to prop up a young tree. Pulling up grass from around the trees. ...

We were a team of 11 for this sunny morning at Cothill Fen. We made our way from the meet point to site which is about a 10 minute walk in woodland.  After making base and having our intro talk from Judy Webb on what we were to be doing, most of the crew began by raking up and relocating cut material from the edge of the fen bordering parsonage moor, some started the task of moving logs from the south end of the fen up to the north east end to prepare for damming the ditch.   While we raked and moved logs, local pond expert Rod D’Ayala arrived and started on the task of damming up the ditch that runs along the from north east to south east of the fen. This is to aid in filtering the water of contaminants from local farmland and redistributing cleaner water to dryer places in the fen that need to be made wetter. All this activity lasted until tea break – a welcome break where we were treated to cake! After tea the next activity was to cut down growth on stumps fro...