Abingdon Green Gym Blog

This week's blog post was written by our esteemed chair, Eleanor D: Arriving at our usual meeting place for Southern Town Park, we found the car park ram packed with vehicles of parents bringing footballing kids. There was clearly some kind of tournament on. The earlier arrivals managed to squeeze into the remaining spaces but the others had to find spaces out in the road. We set off round the perimeter of the pitches to reach our encampment at the southern end and split into groups to pick litter, saw up fallen trees and work on the wild flower patch.  First, we needed to dig up nettles, cleavers and grass and clear ten patches to sow the new seeds. It was three years ago that we last worked on the patch. In 2020 we were prevented by Covid, in 2021 by bureaucracy but this year nothing could stop us. After the break we were ready to sow the seeds. We had meadow cranesbill, greater knapweed, small scabious, betony, foxglove, dark mullein, dropwort, white musk mallow and viper’s bugl...

This week's blog was written by noble and esteemed session leader, Kevin: We were met by Tristan from Earth trust who manage the site with the help of various volunteer groups. Parking can be an issue near this lake as it is popular with dog walkers, joggers, bird watchers and families (but they are in the process of expanding the area for parking bays soon). Lucky enough for us, Tristan had access to the compound where we had ample space to our cars, although it was good to see about half of the team had either biked there or even walked. Once camp established, were greeted by a cacophony of the wild bird calls from the lake, spring being prime time for mating etc. The tasks for the morning work-out were to open up the bank side views of the lake, clear away brambles, reeds, and young shrubs that have grown up over the passed year, plus a bit of litter picking. Tristan had already been around and sprayed marked areas where he wanted us to clear. It was a lovely sunny morning makin...

This week's blog post was written by Abingdon Green Gym chair, Eleanor D., and the accompanying photos were kindly provided by Michele, Kevin, and Nicky!  This Saturday’s session was at Pinkhill Meadow Nature Reserve on the far side of Farmoor Reservoir, working under the direction of Kate Thatcher of Thames Water.  We met in the reservoir car park and drove in convoy across the central causeway with the wind whipping up waves on the water to either side. After parking, we made our way to the area where we were going to work. Pinkhill Meadow is a wetland site with boardwalks and hides, and is very popular with bird watchers. Kate led us to an area not normally open to the public, where our tasks were  to cut and stack reeds and to cut down sprouting willow. The scythers set to work while the willow cutters had to negotiate an area of thick gloopy mud to get to the willows. We set to work and found the sawing knives (there is probably a proper word for them), very useful f...

 This Saturday was rather special as it marked the first big work party in which we (Abingdon Green Gym) and Sustrans joined forces! Sustrans are a national charity which work to improve the provision for walking, cycling, and wheeling; so whatever people's abilities they can safely use travel routes in order to get healthier, feel better, and protect the planet.  Adrian and some of the Sustrans team had already been out earlier in the week for a preparatory litter pick and to drop letters to the residents of Abingdon in the area we were working. We hope that in hearing about our work and seeing the improvement of the path, residents will feel more empowered to take ownership of the maintenance of their local travel routes. As we are all well aware, it can be a difficult job to try and get local authorities to maintain these routes themselves, so community action is our best bet (and who knows how to show off the value of team work than Abingdon Green Gym!) It was a ...

This Saturday, Abingdon Green Gym were at Kennington Memorial Field, an area of pasture dedicated to the six men from the village who lost their lives in WWII. The KMF is owned by the Oxford Preservation Society, and cattle come to graze the field every summer to promote the species-rich grass it is famous for. The field was starting to look more spring-like at its borders, with lots of mustard-coloured hazel catkins and a sea of pristine snowdrops in some of the woods. We were here in our usual scrub-cutting capacity, which meant either scything or lopping the blackthorn and bramble which had sprung up at the edges of the field. The cattle can keep this down themselves when they are in residence but only whilst the shoots are young, so we were there to ensure they wouldn’t chomp down on any woody or spiky outgrowths. Sally and Adrian, our resident scythers, did an excellent job of razing this down (with frequent blade sharpening), while many of us alternated between kneeling and sta...

This week's blog post was written by Eleanor D, the AGG chair:  We met by the Greenkeepers’ buildings for our session at Boundary House Fen. The temperature had begun to rise after an overnight frost and the sky was bright and sunny. Adrian had parked at the side of the road near the fen and unloaded the tools so for once we didn’t have anything to carry as we made our way along the hedge at the edge of the course. Once there, we carried the tools across the fen, to where Rod d’Ayala was waiting to tell us  our tasks. There was a little raking to do but most of the vegetation had been raked into heaps so most people set to work piling it into drag bags and on to drag sheets and pitchforks and transporting to the bays which we had cut into the boundary hedge last time. Rod obligingly jumped on the heaps to compress them so we could pile more on top After the break we moved to the far edge of the fen where the scythers set to work cutting down more reeds, which we raked up and t...

We had a lovely large group of volunteers for our session at the Ock River Path in Abingdon this Saturday! The weather was a little chilly and windy, but along the sheltered path it was rather pleasant in the winter sun. Our main tasks for the day, as explained by session leader Eleanor D., were litter picking and felled-branch sawing.  Our litter picking team were particularly successful and we managed to collect a whole trolley full of rubbish and recycling! Other volunteers valiantly sawed up larger branches to distribute in nature piles, and yet more managed to clear one of the bridges of moss.  We also took part in the RSPB's #BigGardenBirdWatch for an hour at the end of the session, and managed to spot:  x1 woodpecker  x7 wood pigeons  x6 gold-finches (not counting the sadly deceased one we found) x2 mallard ducks x1 magpie x1 robin (who checked up on me every now and then) x3 great tits x10 blue tits