Lots of trees have been planted in and around Marston over the last couple of years, with Goodgym Oxford providing a helping hand for a large chunk of these: Much ado about nothing, Breath Tree-ly and Fruitful Sunday. In addition to planting lots of trees, the hard part is making sure they survive the first few years of changing seasons and hungry local wildlife, notably deer. This requires repeated mulching sessions, some protection using tree guards, and the use of wooden stakes to make sure the trees grow upright.

Today's task was starting to see the very fruit of these labours, with the majority of the trees planted in New Marston Rec having survived this initial period and now looking healthy and strong. Many of the guards could be removed and recycled, stakes could be re-used for some of the smaller looking saplings, and fresh mulch could be applied on the surrounding area/grass that has worked so well to prevent other weed growth. Alongside other MCG volunteers including Alistair, Kate, Kay and Isabelle, we covered a lot of ground and suitably replenished the mulch around about two-fifths of the trees there. A date will be set in January to continue this work to cover the remaining trees there so keep an eye out for more opportunities in the new year!

Julia and I hotfooted it from Harcourt Hill Junior parkrun over to Marston for a tree care session.

Masters of the system now, we weeded, watered, laid cardboard and mulched the fruit trees. We got almost all of the espaliered fruit trees done before the time was up.

Today, we split into 2 groups to tackle a few tasks for Marston Community Gardens.

Anwen and Jo helped out in the Forest Garden to lay down cardboard, hay and wood chip in the Medicine Herb Circle, which is now looking much more homely and polished ever since we first helped out. Seems like all those hours digging out the trenches are paying off now!

Katie, Sophie and Ben were put to task at a wildflower stretch on Boults Lane Recreation Ground. A nearby house with a new fence backing onto the recreation ground had used weedkiller to prevent weed growth which, unfortunately, also put waste to the wildflowers sown nearby. As a compromise, Alistair from the community gardens had agreed to lay down matting, hay and wood chip as a more nature-friendly way to prevent weed growth. We removed any large weeds, successfully laid down the matting and spread out the hay and wood chip before the more arduous task of removing loose weeds, dead wildflowers and long grasses from the bank. This area will hopefully be replenished with donated turf from the Broad Street Meadows but the area is already looking much better now!

Jo and I dodged the showers at Marston Community Garden's 'orchard triangle' this morning, clearing overgrown grass from around the fruit bushes.

We dug and pulled out long grass to de-choke apple trees, a couple of raspberry canes, and in an unusual turn of events (for us) weeded around a bramble to give it more space to grow. All in pursuit of autumn blackberries. The raspberry canes have produced their first ever fruit - exciting!

We had a happy, muddy, not too soggy couple of hours.

2 GoodGymmers cycled to Marston Community Garden to help de-weed the site of a new garden. Once established, visitors will be able to cut their own bunches of flowers in exchange for a donation via an honesty box. It was tiring, muddy work but thanks to Jo's gardening knowledge we were able to safely identify flower from foe, and leave having made good headway - whilst also laden down with eggs, broad beans and runner beans care of organiser, Kate.

MCG are aiming to encourage hedges and nature corridors to grow in areas around Marston so Goodgym were called in to help maintain trees that were planted in the autumn. The area today was very overgrown with grass and weeds meaning the trees were having to compete for light and nutrients in the soil. Ben , Amy and Jo pulled up their sleeves and donned their gloves to get to work pulling out the stubborn grasses and weeds that were entangled in the undergrowth.

Despite the lurking clouds, the hardy GG Oxford gardeners persisted and managed to clear the long grasses from the area we were assigned, even with the welcome doggy distraction. Alistair from MCG was very happy with the progress and provided plenty of information about the need for nature corridors and to not just plant trees but to maintain them while in their early stages. It's likely we'll be invited back to help out in other areas of Marston in the near future.