Cart carted off and Balsam bashed

  

This week we waved good bye to our trusty cart that John H had made in 2010 to help in the hauling of the cut reeds, which we used to do by pulling loaded tarpaulins:

Then we used the cart, a great innovation which allowed us to transport more cut material at a time, with much less effort, across the wet ground. At the dumping site we could then simply push the material through the cart as it was tipped up - a massive improvement on the very strenuous previous method of turning the drag sheet over by hand. See the cheerful faces!

That cart served us well until John came up with his next innovation; hauling the tarpaulins with a winch, reducing the amount of effort required even further. Now the cart has gone to NWT’s Woods team. 

This morning eight happy folk disappeared into the growing recently cut reed and sedge to hunt out the Himalayan Balsam. We tried this early approach for the first time last year with success. This year, due to the cold weather, the plants were not as big and were difficult to spot amongst the nettles, sedges and reeds. We still managed to find enough to keep us busy for an hour. The little blighters were good at hiding and an area that had been covered by two of us when walked through by a third, still produced seedlings. Unfortunately this correspondent is not as good at remembering to take photos of the work, too busy doing it as if... So here is the team having a well deserved cup of coffee at the end. It looks like it had been very hard work! We will return in about a month to see what else we can find. Unfortunately this technique doesn’t work in the full height reed bed, where we have to wait for the Balsam to show above the 6 foot reeds, so that will have to wait until July or even August.