Saturday was the first day of our new project to sort out the hedgerow that encloses the allotments.

Thirteen volunteers turned up on a cold Saturday morning. Most were plotholders but a few were guys from the waiting list. We also started out with 4 wheelbarrows, 100 rubbish bags and 4 litter pickers.

The original idea was to sort the rubbish as we went along. Bottles, cans, rusty metal, plastic. But it proved to be a bit slow.

We don't know when the hedge was last cleared - but it must have been a long time ago - or maybe never. So much litter has accumulated over the years. People have been lobbing bottles and can over the fence rather than putting it in a bin.

We have a special tool to release the panels and get at the rubbish.

Paul (above) and Dominic (below) behind bars.

In the end the best way to get things done was to just fill a wheelbarrow and sort it out at a central collection area. Mardien did a great job sorting things into recycleables, compostables and rubbish

Where did all this metal come from?

Sadly no buried treasures. But the soil under the trees is beautiful. It must be a hundred years of leaf mould.

Me with double decker wheel barrows ;-)

Of course we always have tea and cake - but this time we had a BBQ to thank everyone who came in the freezing cold to help.

This is our metal recycling area FULL!  It was empty when we started.

Above is all the plastic we found and below all the bags are filled with glass bottles

Once again - a huge thank you to everyone who turned up to help. You made it a fantastic day.

Hope you enjoyed the sausages ;-)