Gone with the Weed

Bixley Field was low on volunteers this windy Sunday, so Mani was happy to see Steph, Penny, and Kash showing up at the allotment today.

Thanks to initial GoodGym's work and the effort of regular volunteers, the place has been transformed! When we saw Bixley for the first time, it was a jungle. Then, after lots of digging, it was barren. Now, we could see flourishing vegetable patches. Veggies were not the only plants thriving - so were weeds!

Today's task was a war against the weeds. First battlefield: the beetroot bed. Penny and Steph cleared the weeds, grass and flowers (sorry, flowers, you don't belong to vegetable patches!) with trowels and little forks, leaving the beetroot plants in charge of their plot. Second battlefield: the raspberry patch. Mani and Kash took hoes and hacked the grass, bindweed and nettles growing between the berry bushes. Penny and Steph, who proved themselves to be super efficient, joined Mani and Kash later to finish off that plot. It was very helpful as Kash has broken her tool again!

As usual, Mani had some fresh harvest to share with the volunteers. There were no takers for rogue little potatoes that we found in the raspberry patch. According to Steph, the Bixley snails were not quite meeting the standards of French cuisine, so they stayed at the allotment. They might have later landed in the canal though... Mani collected some pigweed for us. No one had the faintest idea, even Mani, about how to prepare and eat the leafy plant, but apparently, its leaves are very nutritious. Kash took with her a whole bag of pigweed and promised to do some research and share the recipes next time GoodGym visits Bixley.

When is the next visit to Bixley? Well, check out here!