Our penultimate volunteer day of the year was, thankfully, a lot drier than the October afternoon’s Open Day! Before we even entered the woodland we were confronted with the entrance car park of Seren Park Gardens several leaves thick. This presented an opportunity for taking the leaves and adding these to our composting bin. From the below photo what looked like a 20 minute job for 1 person ended up taking almost all of the volunteer event and with 4 or 5 people. The photos below show the leaves in the car park, bags of leaves ready to be taken to the compost bin and the compost bin which at the end of the day was overflowing.

Seren Car Park’s display of leaves, perfect for our compost bin.

In addition to harvesting leaves for valuable mulch products, volunteers and committee members also continued to work on our project to provide additional rain-run off from The Glade area which will feed, via a channel at the back of the beehives, the pond with extra rainwater. As well as supplying extra rainwater, the soil will be damper than the surrounding area as a result of a trench being currently dug and lined with a waterproof liner. The photo below shows the liner being positioned, ready for nutrient-poor soil to be dropped in place.

The below photo shows the pond being full of water as well as a covering of pondweed. In the next few weeks, the excess vegetation will need to be removed.

Finally, the results of the bees’ work have again produced several dozen pounds of locally produced honey. Jars were placed on sale and were already selling well. Profits go back into the general funds to help keep and maintain the woodland.