Saturday 23rd February 2019
Report written by Peter Van Tongeren
The first of the Tree Musketeers sessions of the year brought some of the usual suspects round to the Nursery on the marshes, with some different faces coming along as well. Lots of catching up to do, but as we know there is always something to do in the Tree Musketeers' nursery, today was no exception, so it was a matter of 'talk & walk' to hear about Eva's holiday Down Under while getting some nice tall straight branches from across the road. They were left there after some coppicing sessions this month, with an eye on using them to build a wall around the beehives in the nursery - cue Goodgym power to get them back to base!
Job done & with reinforcements arriving, the team split up tackling brambles & repotting apple trees, with Damian happily volunteering to take a mattock to attack a stubborn stump in the ground, together with one of the other volunteers. After a little tutorial from Russel on how to go about sorting the little apple trees and explaining the codes on the labels (M25 / M26 / M106), for the team to get stuck in repotting, relabeling, watering & adding woodchip, while others went up & down with a trolley to bring more to be done, dropping the finished ones back to their bed, freshly cleaned up by the bramble bashing team.
After a foggy start, the sun had come out, so layers of clothing were shed under the combined heat of the sun and all the hard work. Luckily it was soon time for a well deserved cup of tea and some home-made vegan apple pie!
From there, some stayed behind to finish off, others made their way home, while a couple went on to another task nearby with the [E5 Postcode Gardener(https://www.goodgym.org/reports/et-2-brutalism)
For those new to the Nursery, this is usually a recurring task on the last Saturday of every month, so keep an eye out for the next one if you fancy joining in looking after the future trees of Hackney!
Hackney
Come and help this local charity with the upkeep of its playground!