Fiddle Me This

A couple of months after their last session with HANGOT, GoodGym Ealing were back to help them at their Saturday work day. These can take place anywhere along their canal-side orchard network, from Osterley Lock to Norwood Green. This morning's was at The Piggeries, so named because it used to be a pig farm, which was less than 100m from HANGOT's base on the Grand Union Canal 🐷.

Task owner Mirjam introduced Kash, Steph, Sevan and the other volunteers to the list of tasks for the morning by saying that there were lots of fiddly things to do:

1. Cutting the hedge along the canal
2. Freeing small fruit trees from bindweed
3. Cutting low lying brambles in the grass
4. Picking litter
5. Moving cut grass to the compost pile
6. ⚠️ Not disturbing the ground nesting bumblebees' nest
7. 🚨 Absolutely not going near the bee nest

Mirjam shared her cautionary tale of having discovered a wasps' nest and then running around trying to shake off the angry wasps, escaping with "only" 6 stings. The nest location and exclusion zone was pointed out to all of the volunteers before work started 🐝.

Kash and Steph decided to give the boundary hedge a haircut. It was important to keep sight lines into the orchard clear to discourage any anti-social behaviour and make visitors feel safe. They worked with another volunteer, Alex, on this throughout the session, hanging out on the canal towpath. Together, they created a clear view in from both entrances.

Meanwhile, Sevan took on the fiddly tasks. First he went behind the pond to pull up bindweed roots that had wrapped themselves around the young fruit trees. He also found some litter hiding there as well as some juicy, sweet blackberries. Some of the bindweed leaves were enormous, as big as his hand 😮.

Once the trees were freed of bindweed, Sevan went to clear up the tall grass that the regular volunteers had scythed down, taking it to huge compost pile in the corner of the orchard. Here, he learned a new skill. How to catapult a farmer's fork loaded with grass 4 metres up to the top of the compost pile. It was a lot of fun 😃

The time with HANGOT was over too soon. Together with their own volunteers, the team had had a nice, chilled out morning helping out a passionate, community oriented group to make a big impact!