Task Reports

Please contact the office if you are interested in volunteering and we will discuss details.

Conservation Work - Past

Bowling Park Community Orchard

in the allotments on Bowling Park Drive, BD4

We got wet today, but we preserved to make sure the Orchard was ready for Apple Day on Sunday. We continued with the autumn task of cutting the long grass and weeding under the trees. We did a little bit of harvesting, but left some to do with visitors on Sunday. The path had a bit more weeding and bark spread on it. Paulina did a great job of marking the two young trees with a decorative willow structure.

Brackenhill Park

Westcroft Road, BD7

Not quite the weather you would hope for for hay making! Drizzle and rain all day, and warm – the second week running the midges have been irritating (very irritating), so hooray for Sue has bought us some Skin So Soft which is a great repellent. 

We really just wanted to concentrate on cutting and raking the wildflower grassland today. But inevitably we had to clear some litter first – including mattresses, baskets and the inevitable shopping trolley. We had to leave another trolley in the pond as we had not gone equipped, and there was a burnt out scooter that was just too heavy for us to get it up the hill to where the Clean Team collected our hoard. 

We used the auto-scythe and hand scythes to cut the grass and then raked the cuttings to mulch the trees. There is plenty of knapweed, meadow sweet and meadow cranesbill and meadow vetchling in the grassland, and this management work will help preserve suitable conditions for these wildflowers to continue to thrive. 

 

Northcliffe Woods, Shipley

Entrance on Cliffe Wood Avenue

Today lived up to its billing - a muddy day! But glorious autumn sunshine in the morning even if it was followed by some heavy showers in the afternoon.

The job today was to dig out as much shale and leaf litter as possible to increase the chance of retaining some open water in the summer months. We have undertaken this task for Friends of Northcliffe for the last few years. In order to limit ecological disturbance, and work within our resources, we have limited this to a channel from the silt traps through to a pool near the dam wall.

Ideally we would like to remove more than can be done in one day, but with the stupendous effort of the group we made good progress, despite the constant irritation of a million and one hungry midges. 

At lunchtime we were visited by a dragonfly, a Migrant Hawker I think, that seemed to be laying eggs at the edge of the pond. 

 

 

Bowling Park Community Orchard

in the allotments on Bowling Park Drive

We arrived at the orchard today having been told our tenancy had been ended. It wasn't just the belief that this was the result of a clerical error (we had returned letters on time to accept a notice of bad cultivation and signed to say our intention was to improve), but because we know the orchard is a highly productive allotment, growing loads of organic apples, many varieties that you cannot buy in the shops. Whilst we know that we hadn't done enough work this summer, and we need to address that next year if we wish to keep the orchard going, we will continue to cultivate following guidelines from Garden Organic, the national research organisation that provides advice to professional and amateur gardeners. 

Today we were busy with the scythes and sickles to start the late summer grass cut. A new bench was installed, using reclaimed timber, and others were fixed with timberlocks. The collection of the gravel for the path was thwarted by padlock technicalities, however this was resolved on Tuesday 27th when Forest of Bradford volunteers dropped it off and helped with further tasks. 

Although the ripening of apples is relatively late (blossom was late this year) we are now in full flow. Make sure you are contacting us for all your apple shopping. 

Sydenham Place

Undercliffe

We made good progress today. We extended the path through the trees; constructing a step and levelling the ground before securing weed suppressant membrane and covering it with bark chippings. 

We cleared vegetation from the path edges and around the bench and cut up and staked the branches that had been removed to create a clearing for the path. There is another apple tree to be planted, and as the allocated spot was on a slope, a terrace wall was constructed to reduce the gradient. It will double up as a bench. 

There are a few pictures in the gallery

 

Bolton St James Church

Bolton Road

We have been supporting both the church and the BEES Shaping Spaces group of young people to continue with the work to create a growing area in the church grounds. Today’s focus was construction of two high raised beds that could be worked by people with mobility restrictions; either from a wheelchair, or to avoid bending. 

First we had to finish digging out the banking and level the area. The timber was collected from the timber yard (sounds easy –but choose a busy time with a trailer and it becomes fun and games) and by the end of the afternoon both beds were assembled ready to be filled.  The next task will be to construct the path around the beds and leading to the front of the church. 

Pictures from today can be seen in the gallery

Baildon Moor – Bracken Cutting

This was our final visit to Baildon Moor for this year. We cleared a great deal of bracken; cutting, raking and piling it up to expose the ground for the bedstraw and grasses which are the first to colonise. Most of the areas we worked in had been cut previously so there was already a covering of vegetation. We were creating conditions for the heather, bilberry and crowberry to grow. 

It would be nice to spend more time there as progress is good but we are aware there are areas that we cut last year that didn’t get attention this year. This is still a task we very much enjoy and aim to be back in 2017. We are still pondering the role of the trees in the areas we have cleared. 

Pictures from toady can be seen in the gallery.