HANGOT and GoodGym were at the most easterly orchard today that HANGOT maintain at Osterley Lock, where they did a brilliant job.

"Once you clear around the fruit trees, it looks like an orchard again. Not only trees in a field." - Mirjam, task owner

Clearing around the fruit trees was top of the priority list for the GoodGymers, removing weeds and brambles, plus some pesky burdock. They were also keeping an eye out for any stones or branches that would damage blades as HANGOT's trained scythe operators would follow, slicing everything to the ground.

Steph, Kash and Sevan got clearing with shears and loppers around pear, apple and quince trees. They even learned how to tell if a quince was ripe. It's when it loses it's fuzz and pulls easily off the branch. All the orchard's quinces were still fuzzy, so still a few more weeks to wait.

Soon, they came across what looked like a fruit tree, but they didn't recognise what the strange looking fruit was. Mirjam came along to explain that it was medlar, which has a few names in French including "cul-de-chien" or "dog's bum hole". The resemblance was... well, a resemblance and the preparation of the fruit was as strange as it's appearance. HANGOT love the trees as they don't need much care, but the GoodGymers decided to stick to the more common fruits that could be eaten straight off the branch and didn't resemble body parts.

Steph moved on to raking and wheelbarrowing duty to finish off the session in another part of the orchard, collecting the scythed cuttings. He took immense pride in making a giant bramble burrito that he rolled to the compost pile.

We'll be back helping HANGOT next month in another orchard along the Grand Union Canal. More details to follow.