Abingdon Green Gym Blog

We gathered under the summer sun in the car park of Barclays Bank for our session at the Tesco end of the Ock river path. Sixteen of us turned up for some litter picking and Himalayan Balsam pulling, including Sophie who has returned for the summer. The balsam was a little hard to come by, but we eventually found plenty in the damp ditch that runs along the path towards the mill. We had to slash through tall nettles to get to it, but once down there, found it a cool respite from the heat of the morning. The balsam has grown quite tall by now but has yet to come into flower, so no exploding seed pods yet! After working our way up and down the stream in the first half of the session, we found further patches on the river bank and pulled plenty more before making our way back for tea break, some of us nursing some nettle stings. Carolyn turned up to tea break with the tallest plant which must have been at least eight feet tall. Petra had made some delicious banana bread which...

Eleanor has provided a few recent photos of our wild flower patch that we created and look after at Southern Town Park. It is looking rather impressive with many daisies, red campion and foxgloves in particular as shown below (note the bee on the red campion on the final photo!):

We were back at Woodhaven for the second time this summer to tackle the Himalayan Balsam. We knew that there would be a lot to do as we had missed two years due to difficulties in contacting the new owner of the property. There was light rain as we assembled, which soon cleared. We counted ourselves lucky after a week of torrential rain with very little respite. We were also pleased to welcome a new member, Ross. We made our way to the SSSI site, which is overseen by Natural England. There were a number of orchids growing along the edge of the meadow. Orchids are one of the features which make the preservation of this site so important. We crossed the bridge and set up our base in the wood, then set off in different directions to pull up the balsam. Where it has been cleared, many native wild flowers are returning. We were glad to stop for our break, then it was back to work. Another meadow revealed many more orchids, which you can see in the photos. We realised that th...

Fourteen of us turned out for today’s session at Manor Farm, Marcham. We parked up, gathered our tools and made our way along the edge of the barley field to set up base in the usual spot. It was extremely windy, with the water rippling across the lake and trees creaking overhead. Initially we thought it might start raining too until we were reassured that the weather was actually forecast to improve throughout the morning. We’d been here a couple of weeks previously, so knew where the Himalayan Balsam was hiding – or not! It had sprung to great heights, and was widespread around the edges of the lake, all of which made for a very satisfying first half of the session pulling up this invasive plant. To get to these patches we had to cross the stream, and Dan managed to slip up and give himself a soaking! After the tea break, we split up with Adrian and a few others going back along the field to pull balsam he’d found there, and the rest of us spreading out along the other side ...

It was probably the hottest day of the year for our session at Abbey Fish Ponds today, led by James, with the Earth Trust’s Lucy Duerdoth. We made our way to our spot overlooking the Abbey Fish Ponds reserve and set up camp. Lucy gave us our tasks which were predominantly – you guessed it – Himalayan Balsam pulling, which has been being eradicated from the site for many years now. Yet there are still some patches where shoots have been missed and seeds are brought in from brooks that run through the reserve. The other main task was to dig ‘scrapes’ coming off the streams to hold water in a mosaic of pools across the site for dragon and damsel flies – all good for the ecology. There was also the job of scything reeds and raking them back from the footpath if anyone fancied that. Lucy explained that in time the fen, which has an alkali base, will become a bog as the pH increases as mosses and other plants rot down to form layers of peat. This happens over many years, but for no...