Abingdon Green Gym Blog

 Blog by Eleanor. Photos by Kevin, Olivia and Sally                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              ...

Blog by Kevin The Abingdon Green Gym session this Saturday was on the Boundary House Fen, part of the Frilford Golf Course. The tasks were scything and raking across the fen. This is usually the main job when we are there. With temperatures down to minus 2, we were keen to start the work in the sun and move with it as it crept across the fen.  Rod, who manages the site, has made great improvements to the place over the years by damming the water, which used to drain into a ditch running through the centre of the site, with cut reeds.  He has also dug irrigation channels around the edge of the fen for the water to spread out, keeping the ground wet and encouraging natural fenland plants to thrive. It was a small group of six, plus Rod, who concentrated on clearing the reeds and bolstering the water channels with them, then topping up the filled ditch and a small pond. Once we had moved the ready cut reeds, we moved to where our two scythers had accumulated rows of more cut...

Blog and photos by Eleanor                                                                                                                                                                          The weather was dull and damp, but fortunately, without the heavy rain forecast the previous day. Our prospective tasks at the Town end of the Ock Path were to clear three areas and plant Spring wildflower bulbs, to put woodchip on the path in areas which had not been covered in an earlier session, to pick up litter and -, if time, to test some river water for phosphates and ni...

Blog by Eleanor. Photos by Helen and Kevin. After a frosty start, the day turned bright and sunny as the Green Gymmers met in the sports field car park for our session at Kennington Memorial Field. We were also joined by two Kennington residents. Kennington Memorial Field is managed by Oxford Preservation Trust and was established as a memorial to six Kennington villagers who died serving in the Second World War. It is popular with dog walkers and cattle are grazed here at certain times of year, though they were not on the field at present. The area is chalk grassland with small areas of woodland and it is important that brambles and scrub do not take over the grassland Our task was to cut back scrub and overhanging branches from the side of the site farthest from the main road, which slopes down towards the stream. We set to work with two scythers and the rest of us with slashers, loppers, rakes and pitchforks. We loaded the cut materials on to drag sheets and transported them to pile...

 Blog by Eleanor   -   Photos by Sally, Kevin and Eleanor                                                                                                                                                                                                        Despite the blog's title, the work this session was not to be on the fen itself but in the woods behind it. It was raining as we set off on the footpath to the fen and the path was the wetter and muddier the we have eve...