Ealing's Wee Forest

Today was GoodGym Ealing's first visit to their local Tiny Forest, the only one in Ealing borough. Located in the grounds of Hobbayne Primary School, access is normally available only during the school's operating hours. Today however, GoodGym had special access! Martin, the task owner who is a teacher at the school, had agreed to a Saturday session.

This Tiny Forest was planted in February 2022 and is normally looked after by the school's children. They'd planted all of the trees and carry out the ongoing scientific monitoring of the site. Occasionally though, there are tasks that they're a bit less keen on.

In the wee forest there was a bigger problem... wee-ds! There was a path running through the middle of the Tiny Forest and Martin explained that the right side had been weeded earlier in the year. The trees in the right hand area were noticeably taller than those on the left. Kash and Sevan's task was the help the trees on the left grow big and strong like their weedless neighbours by allowing them to get more water and nutrients.

Kash and Sevan got going. The floor of the bed was woodchipped and over that, a weed had crept all through the bed, putting down roots between the bits of wood. Martin had said not to worry too much about their roots. At the start, they carefully tried to pull the roots of the web of weeds out, then gave up and started pulling hard to make progress. Sevan found some hidden brambles taking root and did his best to dig those out too. They were long, but hadn't out down roots in too many places yet, luckily.

At the end of the session, 2 big containers were overflowing with weeds and there was a separate pile of brambles for Martin to dispose of. He was really happy with the result and said that he'd keep in touch with GoodGym with any future tasks that they need help with.