Pulling weeds that is! This week's group run was a trip out to finish weeding the young trees that we made a start on last week. unfortunately we found a couple more that hadn't survived the long hot summer but the rest all got their weeds pulled and mulch spread out to help them recover and prepare for winter.

We also welcomed Patrick to his first run session and once the trees were sorted out we had a little running game that involved running around to steal cones from the other players to be the first to collect three cones! It was a fun little warm-up to prepare for the return journey back into town.

We had a couple of tree related tasks this week for our group run. Part one was a run out to the hillside meadow on Stockingstone Road where there are some Hop Hornbeam trees, a more unusual variety of tree. We collected a bagful of seed from four trees and then deposited them in a secure location at Wardown Park for the council's tree officer Bob to use to increase the number and diversity of trees around town.

Moving on, we went a little further out to the Riddy Lane park where there are about 25 young trees recently planted. Our task here was to remove the weeds, check on the tree's health and report back to the council if any had not survived the exceptionally long hot summer. Fortunately most of the ones we inspected had survived but we only got half way through them before time was up and we had to head back into town. We'll be back to finish off next time!

All together we clocked up 8.5km!

It had been a while since we visited the Welcome to Luton gravel sign, it had got a bit patchy with weeds and looking sad so we spent our evening running up the hill to get to it. Pulled out the weeds, tidied the stones back into their right places and then enjoyed a quick run back down the hill.

Another successful litter pick in People's Park, teaming up with the Friends group to make a total of 11 people helping to pick 10 general bags of rubbish, 8 bags of recycling, discarded scooters 🛴🛴, fencing and pillows out of the park.

It was also the first session for Patrick so well done and welcome to the team!

5 Luton Goodgymers joined the Friends of Leagrave Park for their monthly litterpick. Fighting through the soggy weather the volunterrs collected 12 bags of rubbish in total. Fantastic to job done by one and all. Great to welcome Pelumi to his first task. Well done everyone, great job

It was the final task of a series trying to clear all the invasive Himalayan Balsam plants from the Lewsey Brook, one of the tributaries of the River Lea. Teaming up with Jen from TCV and some of Luton's regular conservation volunteers.

It was also the first task for Niamh joining us after seeing the session on Facebook and Petros returning for his second session.

With the continued drought conditions the brook was bone dry so we were able to climb in without getting wet and hunt for the balsam plants. They got pulled up, roots snapped off and left to dry out on the brook side. This section of the brook was thankfully quite light on the balsam so we got it all done in a couple of hours and was able to collect lots of litter as well and take a walk back upstream to double-check the areas we'd done in previous weeks.

This session completed the length of the brook, a whole kilometer! We'll see what pops up next year but we've prevented loads of new seeds from being laid so hopefully there will substantially less to do next year!