Bish bash bosh the Himalayan Balsam

Another week at Berryland's Nature Reserve helping Andrew and his volunteers get rid of Himalayan Balsam. It's an invasive plant that can decimate local wildlife areas with its shallow roots and prolific ability to reseed. Each plant can produce about 100 new plants every year so it has enormous destructive potential. We love Berryland's Nature Reserve - it's such a hidden gem for wildlife and plant species so we really want to support their initiative to help keep on top of it.

Rachel, Emma, Tom and Julie met at the Quaker Centre and ran 3km to the meeting point where we met with Tara - we haven't seen her for ages so it was great to have a catch up. We got straight into it and carried on with the area we worked on last week. We found a massive area that contained lots of Balsam. It was a bit tricky to get to as there were brambles and nettles - thankfully we wore leggings and long sleeves to help protect ourselves but even still Rachel did get a bramble in her face. Thankfully Tara's medical training came to the rescue and she declared her fit to carry on working - no sick note here!

After an hour we had cleared a good area and it was time to leave. We had quite the journey to get back to the road as the pathways were quite overgrown and a willow tree branch had fallen over the path. We took out turns limbo-ing under to get out. On the run back we bumped into a group of Morris Dancers practising their moves outside the Albion pub! Unexpected but fun to watch nevertheless.

Well done to Julie on her 10th mission! Great achievement.