Barton Fields, 25th August 2018

By Andrew -
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 2nd 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 lucky escape and you can see a photo of one of them. The children enjoyed climbing on the heaps and jumping to squash them down. They worked very hard and willingly.

We stopped for our tea break and David had provided buns and apples to keep us going. We were surprised at how much we had cleared and we were very soon able to move on to the smaller meadow. By the end of the morning we had cleared all the piles in the meadows and met some young, potential volunteers so it was a very worthwhile morning.
-Eleanor



Photos by Eleanor unless otherwise stated:

Young helpers from 2nd Abingdon Scouts.

Joan and Rosemary add to the heap.

New member Charles.

James at work.

Kevin and Carolyn fill a drag bag.

A loaded pitchfork.

Toadlet. Photo by Sally.

Margaret. Photo by Petra.

Photo by Michael Bloom.

Photo by David Guyoncourt.

Photo by David Guyoncourt.


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