On a brisk Wednesday morning, Islington Area Activator Simon caught up with many many familiar faces from the Goodgym HQ team (often from community missions, group runs or our annual Shindig visits) in Chancery Lane, ready for a special trip out of the office. Our plan for the day (as effortlessly scheduled by Chalomi) was to make our way over to Thornhill Square Gardens, a beautiful resident maintained green space between Caledonian Road and Islington. We set off in two separate groups- a walking crew directed by Chalomi and Kim, and a running team hosted by Simon. Our running squad enjoyed a slightly extended route (just under 5km), passing through Fetter Lane, Bell Yard (Dickensian pubs and churches), Jockey's Fields (and the surrounding lawyer's chambers), Lincoln's Inn Fields, The Post Office Museum and Barnard's Park, before arriving at our final location. We even passed a fellow Goodgymmer on route- Thank you to Martin from GG Luton for saying Hi!

We re-grouped by the communal gardening shed in the centre of Thornhill Square Gardens, and gathered up all of the tools required for a variety of tasks - wheelbarrows, rakes, spades, shovels, brushes, saws and loads of green waste bags. Our first objective was to shovel piles of wood chip into wheelbarrows, and then to transport and spread the load evenly across the many flower beds within the park. Group 2 helped out by picking up rakes, brushes and leaf collecting devices to gather up as much foliage as possible from the pathways surrounding the park. We were looking for the leaves of horse chestnut trees in particular, as leaf mining moth larvae tend to use these fallen leaves as a habitat throughout the Winter. These particular bugs are known damage trees, so we want to avoid this situation as best as possible, while keeping the park tidy! Finally, group 3 had great fun searching and picking up sticks, fallen branches and logs from around the gardens (especially after the strong winds last week). Together, they sawed down the wood to smaller bundles, ready to be used for dead hedging (lining flower beds and spots where bulbs are to be planted in the new year) or for protecting saplings around the green space.

Between all of the groups, we achieved a huge amount of progress within an hour of lifting, shifting, raking and sawing. We actually ran out of green waste bags at exactly the right time! Before dropping off all of our tools back in the shed, Chalomi, Ivo, Ed and Ged wheelbarrowed three large bags of collected leaves outside the house of one of our regular task coordinators at Thornhill Square Gardens, ready for a council pick up tomorrow morning.

Congratulations on an excellent morning of green space maintenence, everyone! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

This was my second visit to a Tiny Forest on my Tiny tour with Gus. It will be memorable for all the different generations, that visited the site on a beautiful summers day. We had warm temperatures and white billowing clouds as lots of families, visited the site over two sessions in the morning and the afternoon. One of the most popular citizen, science sessions was the ground, dwellers survey. Especially amongst the children . This consisted of finding one of the numbered concrete slabs within the forest, lifting it to reveal what Creepy Crawlies could be seen. The kids found it fun just trying to find the slabs within the dense shrub before identifying and uploading the organism seen. All this data will be used by Earthwatch to compile information that can be used for future planning. We also did a soil survey, looking at filtration and compaction of the soil. How does the tiny forest affect the soil over time? We will have to wait and see, but we need more data over time, so whenever you get an opportunity please visit. You can become a tree keeper and get regular updates on what’s happening at your local Tiny Forest.

Find out more on this link

https://earthwatch.org.uk/tiny-tour

Thanks to everyone who came along today and please come again, and bring the next generation to help look after the Tiny Forest Oxford.( and, 200 other locations!)

Thanks to the leaders & helpers from GoodGym and Earthwatch!