Monday 23 May 2016

First group session 2016

For the past couple of weeks, we've been seeing signs of fresh Himalayan Balsam growth and we've been pulling out small quantities when we saw it. A look around the field behind St Peter's Church discovered a few dense patches of balsam so we scheduled a session and invited some of our local volunteers along.

The river levels are still quite high after the winter and some recent rain so we had to be careful along the river bank but we pulled out a large quantity of balsam both near to the river and also along the wall separating the field from St Peter's churchyard. Most of it was rather small so involved a lot of bending to pull it out and we missed the satisfaction of pulling out large plants!



At the weekend, I walked along the Frome Valley Walkway from Nightingale Bridge to the metal footbridge at Cogmill and the worst spot was undoubtedly between Nightingale Bridge and Bridge House. We're planning a visit to tackle that next week.