Octopus gardens with the whales

5 Goodgymers helped their local community in Bristol
Emily Skyrme
Sara
Roz Glover
Paul Becker
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Bristol

Sunday 21st November 2021

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Bristol runner

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I like to be

Woodchippin a tree

With an Octopus gardening

And the Whales

(apologies to the Beatles)

Paths to clear of leaves, woodchip to collect and spread over the paths, but first THE BARRELS OF DEATH!

On a glorious sunny autumn day five goodgymers met at the Royate Hill Community Orchard to get stuck in to a task. The ‘barrels of death’ (as shown by our fabulous model Paul) contained material rotting away into scrumptious compost which would bring life to other areas. We started by shifting this to a compost heap before moving to the main task of spreading woodchip.

The next task was to spread woodchip on the paths and around trees. We split into two teams. The movers and the shakers. The movers, Roz and Emily expertly filled containers with woodchip for the rest of us shakers to spread over the ground. There was an extra task of clearing the leaves from the steps, beautifully demonstrated by Sara.

In case you thought I was just mad with the title (this might not change your opinion) ... at the end we had to choose our spirit animal mug to refresh ourselves with some apple juice. The choices were an octopus or whales of unusual colours.

A lovely way to spend a Sunday morning and we’ll be back again soon.

Until next time :)


This task supported
Royate Hill Community Orchard
A volunteer-run growing project applying permaculure principles

The orchard has a long history starting with winning a champain to keep the allotment site from turning it into a housing site. We are all volunteers who enjoy spending time outside and learning about gardening techniques based on permacuture principles. The coordinator of the project is Mike Feingold who oversees the two areas rented by the community project. We grow annual and perennial vegetables which we share with volunteers and community food groups. We also propagate plants, graft trees, make apple juice and other land-based educational activities. We run 2 monthly workdays where everyone is welcome to drop in with no prior experience expecting fom them.

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