Weaving willow hurdles for the wild play area

The hurdles at the end of the wild play area in the Earth Trust Centre garden had reached the ends of their working lives, and have been recycled into firewood for our Big Bale Boiler, which heats the office and Centre buildings.

Our Countryside Skills groups have all been working together to weave a new hurdle fence, and it looks brilliant!

We cut our own stakes from ash trees growing in the wrong place in the Broad Arboretum (they’re rather too good at self-seeding for our liking!), and harvested the willow from the sculptures at Neptune Wood in the autumn.

Many hands make light work! In just one session, students from Brookfields School went from ground level (shown in the picture above) to the sunny half fence below.

We had help from Wallingford School too.

The finished fence:

Hopefully you think the new fence looks as smart as we do. It should at least help to prevent excited Earth School visitors from running onto the farm track during the lunchtime play!

Planting season is upon us!

It’s that time of year – the days are getting longer, the sun is starting to shine, and the air is feeling warmer – it’s time to start planting!

We have a small vegetable patch in the Earth Trust Centre garden which is tended by the Countryside Skills students. We grow a variety of produce to eat at the end of year party!

This year, Brookfields School have started us off with some broad beans, peas, and tomatoes. The beans are in our mini greenhouse, and the tomatoes are on Engagement Co-ordinator Mariel’s south-facing windowsill in the office!

We have also started weeding the vegetable beds to prepare them for planting later in the spring.  Here are Aaron, Kalan and Samuel doing a great job of pulling up the weeds!

Wallingford School lent a hand in the afternoon, bringing over wheelbarrows of mulch to stop the weeds from growing back through. By the end of the day, we had a beautiful looking veg patch ready for spring!

Keep your eyes peeled for progress blog posts as we plant out the vegetables and watch them grow!

A new wood store

We often light fires at Countryside Skills, to stay warm in the winter while we work, to make elderflower cordial over in the summer, or to make blackberry juice in the autumn. We therefore need a good supply of dry firewood. Our Year 11 students from Langtree School have been chopping firewood for us, but ran out of space to store it – they have become very efficient with axes!

A couple of the students offered to build us a new firewood store – and they have!

Oscar and Jack started by clearing and levelling the ground next to the wall, and pruning the overhanging tree to maximise the space available.

They used a pallet for the base, and timber we had leftover from previous projects.  They did all of the planning and measuring out themselves, and demonstrated their proficiency with saws, drills, spirit levels and team work!

In two sessions, they had it finished, complete with a beautiful felt roof! Maybe we’ll make some popcorn on the fire next week to celebrate... Great work boys!