It’s been a busy 2 months for us, but we had a lot of help from our volunteers from Askham Bryan College, especially Adam, Ellie, Tom and Dale, working alongside the field work co-ordinator and our regulars, Margaret, Lesley Paul, Louise and Pam.  Ruben Fernandez joined us too at the end of April.  You can get a detailed overview on our Facebook page.  We are having volunteer sessions on Thursday and most Sundays (from 14.00).

We always look out for frogs etc. when mowing/strimming

The snowdrops planted in-the-green ,by Ian Tomlinson, with a little help from Malcolm, flowered  well.  We were also pleased with the flowers this spring on the Wild Daffodils MCT planted alongside Nelsons Lane a  couple of years ago.

We managed to plant several Yew Trees, Hollies and Beech Trees (donated by Bettys) around the site.  We kept them watered and they are doing quite well.  Evergreens are helpful in retaining water from winter rain (helps reduce mud on the path!).

Ellie, Adam and Mike planting hollies from Bettys.

MCT Secretary Louise watering newly planted young trees

We’ve spent a lot of time looking after the mature trees on the site, making sure they have enough space, light and water to grow, but are a bit concerned about possible occurrence of Ash dieback on a couple of trees.

MCT Chair, Margaret Silcock, was back mowing verges just a few weeks after breaking her risk in a fall.

Easter Sunday was our biggest disappointment as most of the primroses, cowslips, English bluebells and Foxgloves we had planted over the past 2 years at the N.W. corner of the site were severely damaged by trampling during an over-enthusiastic but unsupervised Easter egg hunt someone arranged on the site without consulting us.

Pam & Louise often extend their litter-picking to the children’s playground.