Strawberry Field Forever

At The Three Pigeons Plot, beside the Thames in Richmond, our poppies may be fading but other plants are coming into season and this week’s botanical bounty including a single, luscious, alpine strawberry.

A huge welcome to Sarah who is new to The Three Pigeons and who gets a medal for her epic walk to get to The Three Pigeons.

Here's what did this week:

Saturday 30 & Sunday 31 May. Harry & Anita. “Pottering”.

We’ve been cultivating various plants from seeds for The Three Pigeons so we spent time over the weekend ‘potting up’ Dill, Alyssum, Lobelia, Dwarf Sunflowers, Gaillardia and Asclepia. They should be ready for transplanting out into The Three Pigeons in the next couple of weeks. Spring bulbs donated by a passer by were also prepared for planting on the next trip to The Three Pigeons.

Wednesday 3 June. JP & Salwa. “Pigeon (W)hole(some):

"With the new rules on gathering in place, Salwa and JP teamed up for a session at the 3 Pigeons site on Wednesday afternoon. The weather had been a little less dry and hot but not a lot of rain had fallen, so JP worked on watering the whole plot with a bucket from the river steps (encountering Mr & Mrs Duck and their 3 kids) while Salwa set to work on dead-heading, weeding and a general spruce up. It was great to work with another GGer for a change, looking forward to being able to do much more in the coming weeks!"

Wednesday 3 June. Nat.

First cloudy day for a little while with the promise of some much needed rain…as I left with my rucksack filled with necessary gardening tools it started to spit…fingers crossed! With it being overcast it was a lot quieter along the riverside path than usual. A few people stopped to admire the plot and chat - everyone is so grateful for having something so pretty to look at. With my dustpan and brush I collected up all the loose grass, twigs and debris from around the plot making sure to set aside any bits of litter, cigarette butts etc. (for which there was more than usual). With my ’save the planet' hat on I took the opportunity to do a mini litter pick from around the area (straws, cigarette butts and wet wipes being the main culprit) and disposed of everything in a nearby bin. I then finished the task by dead-heading some of the plants which had gone past their best.

*Thursday 4 June. Sarah. *

I just wanted to share some photos of the beautiful garden patch and to say it was great to do a some weeding and watering of the plants. I had a really good day off by walking along the Thames path (took a little longer than I thought) but was a nice walk and picnic along the river and then when at the flower patch saw bees, lady birds and had a brief chat with a few locals walking past who were admiring the poppies! I would like to get involved again probably around once a month as for me it takes a full day all in all as about a 2.5 hour walk each way but hopefully some time in July will work well!

Friday 5 June. Kate

I didn't think it would be worth watering with the rain forecast, so I went down at lunch to weed & tidy. I did a round of the plot collecting stones whilst it drizzled and had a look about for litter after rescuing the poppies from a big coke bottle that had been thrown in among them (so rude!) I picked my way into the middle of the plot to get some really tall dandelion type weeds out. They're really well rooted into the ground so they gave me a good work out getting them out!

Friday 5 June. Oliver.

This is a ‘Get Well Soon’ shout out for Oliver who had signed up for a Friday session but couldn’t make it due to injury.

There will be plenty more to do in the coming weeks. And with lockdown restrictions easing we can, at last, start work on the construction of the insect hotel. Small group sessions (max 6) will run in parallel with ongoing drop-in solo sessions for watering, weeding and dead-heading. I have changed the solo sessions to the week ending Sunday as that seems more logical

Here are the links for next weeks Three Pigeons Plot Group Mission and Solo Missions:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/three-pigeons-plot-anytime-sessions-week-ending-sunday-14th-june

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/three-pigeons-plot-group-mission