Making Great Progress

On Wednesday 1st November, we had a super productive day!

When arriving at the site, Mr Wileman had begun digging the holes to put the fence poles in, and eventually after a good few hours, the fence was up and looking great! Once the fence was all in place, he came back later in the day to fill the holes with cement to make sure it was fully secure. Thanks again Mr Wileman, your help is invaluable!

As Lizzie was the first to arrive, she saw how many leaves had fallen from the trees over the past week so the first job of the day was to clear the leaves from the soil and pathway area, in order for us to be able to dig out the pathways and lay the black weed membrane sheeting. Once these were cleared the digging commenced. The first two pathways were completely dug out and the black sheeting was cut to size and placed down. It felt like we were finally getting somewhere! Georgia bought some nails so we nailed down the sheeting so the wind didn't blow it around before we put the bark chippings on top.

Now that the pathways were done, it was time to start digging out the reflection area. The soil that we dug up we placed back on the edges of the meadow ready to plant grass seeds later in the day. This way, no more soil was going to waste. Just like with the pathways, we then cut the black sheeting to size and nailed this down.

Once we had finished this, it was time for the gardening club to come outside and help us some more. We had some very hands on jobs to do, and everyone did fantastically! One job was to rake all the soil we had placed back on the meadow in order for the grass seeds to lay and grow evenly. This job required a lot of energy and the guys that helped Georgia and Natasha do this were amazing! Another job was to help Lizzie to start putting the bark chippings we already had onto one of the pathways...hopefully the rest will all be put down next week. Natasha also started getting some others to start breaking little twigs off the cut down branches to help us in the making of our bug hotel.

There were also a few helpers clearing up the millions of leaves that were under all the trees towards the back of the meadow, and after all the other jobs had been done, everyone begun collecting leaves as there was so many! The children really enjoyed using the wheelbarrow to collect and get rid of them and they were taking it in turns to do this which seemed to be a great idea! Thanks to everyone's help the area was almost completely cleared from the fallen leaves (ready for this week's leaves to fall again!!)

Finally, Lizzie measured each area of the meadow that we wanted to plant our grass seeds so that we had an approximation of how many square meters it covered. Once this was done, Natasha weighed out the correct amount of grass seeds and flower seeds for each section and mixed it with sand to help us see where we had scattered the seeds. Then Georgia and Natasha sprinkled the seeds all over the areas in vertical and horizontal directions (with the hope that it will grow nicely) and Lizzie helped to tread them into the ground to avoid birds eating them! At this stage we have only planted the grass seeds as Lizzie has made a start on planting bulbs in plant pots at home ready to put in the meadow at a later date...Hooray!