Task Reports

Despite the rain today we made good progress on clearing vegetation from both of the ponds, particularly bogbean and flag iris, both of which have a tendency to take over in a pond if not managed. We left the vegetation next to the pond to give a chance for any pond creatures to crawl back in. 

On a rare dry day in October, we scythed meadow areas and cleared overgrown vegetation from the ponds in the wildlife area, including some of the invasive New Zealand pygmy weed.

A busy day preparing for Apple Day on Sunday 13th October.  We laid gravel in front of the new apple shed, cleared litter from the area, mowed and harvested apples ready for juicing.

We dredged the silt trap at the entrance to the pond and cleared silt to free up a channel in the pond itself.

The weather was fairly challenging today, for what is an important day of end of summer management. 

However, as ever, we achieved a great deal with our dedicated volunteers and the invaluable contribution from workers from IGS Construction, who had a day out of the office to help us. 

We cut the meadow area in the event space using the scythes and mowed area around the stone bench. Almost all the hedges have been cut, with the arisings piled ready to be taken to the Household Waste site for composting. The ongoing task of harvesting was a key element of the day. 

There is still more end of season vegetation cutting to be completed, plus more work around the shed. We will tackle these tasks on Friday 11th October. 

Tuesday 17th September to Friday 20th September. 

This was the first time we had held a mid-week residential, dictated by the availability of the accommodation. It's shame it didn't suit everyone who was interested as we had a glorious few days in Buckden. 

Each wall has it's particular challenges, but this one seemed fairly daunting when we decided the best course of action was to re-lay the line slightly in order to cope with the adjacent tree. We had to unearth the foundation stones and relocate them. It's a while since we have needed to do this when we have been gapping up. At lunch time on Wednesday when we still hadn't started building upwards it was slightly worrying, but in the end the hard graft but definitely worth the effort and it turned out to be just the right amount of work for us for a leisurely finish on Friday lunchtime. 

Making a start today on a project of renewal at the Nature Reserve.

We kicked off our Postcode Local Fund year by clearing felled timber from around the ponds, manually re-cutting the grass paths and removing litter accumulated around one seating area.  This was a good opportunity to take a look at the site and consider what the priorities for management will be over the next 12 months.

Our final visit for this year.

This year’s third and final visit to control bracken.  Volunteers, scythed, slashed and sickled their way through areas that had regenerated since last year.  The heather and bilberry are establishing well where the bracken has been consistently cut back.

Getting the inside of the shed ready for action, as the harvest gets into full swing.

A visit to the orchard to carry out a wide variety of seasonal tasks including mowing paths, scything under hedgerows, weeding around trees and spreading excess straw from the new straw bale apple shed under trees about to shed their apples.  The cordon trees were pruned.  Work on the apple shed continued, with shelving being constructed ready for this year’s harvest.

More bracken cutting - please wear long trousers and sleeves.

On this second of three annual visits to the moor we cleared a substantial quantity of bracken.  The moor is looking more diverse each year in the areas in which we've been working.