We're becoming quite the young-tree-care experts in the last few weeks! We've had a run of tasks trying to nurse saplings through the drought conditions, and this Wednesday was another one for our tree tally.

We were at orchard triangle this time - a patch of land near St Nicholas' Primary School which was mostly brambles only a couple of years ago. We helped clear it and create a footpath through in Autumn and Winter 2020, and the community has planted fruit trees and a hedge and installed a bench. It's now a very popular spot - along with the daffodil bulb planting it's one of the community's favourite things that we've helped make a reality.

Tonight we weeded around the fruit trees and hedgerow saplings, laid cardboard as a weed-surpressing layer and topped it all with mulch and a glug of water. Bethan and Joe dug out a very determined bramble, Sophie mowed the long grass to give the wildflowers a fighting chance next year, and Sophie, Laurie and Matt made sure the hedgerow plants had stakes and guards to give them a better shot at getting established. Mark is no longer the only GoodGymer to break tools on a task - yours truly managed to snap a fork clean in half trying to lever out a bramble root! It won't go in the bin though, as the handle part will make an excellent bulb planter. All the same...Oops!

MUCH better running conditions than we've had for a few weeks, so we very much enjoyed taking the scenic route back to Cowley with chitchat about Couch 2 5k (Henry's smashing it) and parkrun plans.