The residents of East Bridgford are celebrating 10 years of hard work creating a flourishing native woodland from scratch as part of the Woodland Trust's "Woods on your Doorstep" project.

The project was undertaken to celebrate the millennium, with 250 woods being created across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including Springdale Wood in East Bridgford. Where previously the site was bare land with no trees, in just 10 years the young saplings planted by the community have grown to be above head height, creating four acres of new native woodland for local people and wildlife.

The celebration event took place on Saturday September 25th, with around 50 attendees marking the anniversary with a community picnic on site. Kay Cutts leader of Notts County Council, Martin Suthers County Councillor for Bingham and former Chairman of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, Nigel Lawrence local councillor on Rushcliffe Borough Council and Garth Powell Chairman of East Bridgford Parish Council were also in attendance.

Jill Barlow clerk to the parish council said: "The last 10 years have proved to be a challenge, but an extremely rewarding one. To see a fully-fledged woodland where previously there was none is a moving experience, when I think that it has come from the hard work of people in our community. It was great to hold a celebration of all we have achieved since the turn of the millennium and I hope that the local community carry this tradition on to the next!"

Victoria Hodson from the Woodland Trust added: "The UK is one of the least wooded countries in Europe, so to see communities like the one here in East Bridgford actively taking on the challenge of planting more native trees and celebrating what they have created 10 years later is inspirational. Trees bring so many different benefits to communities, we'd love to hear from other groups who want to achieve the same. We are now looking for the next generation of tree planters with our "More Trees, More Good" campaign."

Communities and schools that are interested in planting trees can contact the Woodland Trust to apply for free or reduced cost tree planting packs.

Find out more at ttp://www.MoreTreesMoreGood.org.uk/celebrate

The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. It has 300,000 members and supporters.

The Trust has three key aims: i) to enable the creation of more native woods and places rich in trees ii) to protect native woods, trees and their wildlife for the future iii) to inspire everyone to enjoy and value woods and trees

Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,000 sites in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). Access to its sites is free.

Have you carefully nurtured fruit and vegetables in your garden only to find that your holiday coincides with the time when you most need to harvest the crop? We were away when all our strawberries ripened. Sugar snap peas and mangetout peas need constant picking to encourage longer cropping but we were away during this period also. We were lucky to have the young son of a neighbour who picked them for us and took them to the Post Office.

Have you had a glut of produce, more than you can consume yourselves so you either give it away or let it rot? We had to throw away parsnips and leeks last year and this year’s Victoria plum harvest promises to be a bumper crop which will defeat our efforts at freezing and jam making.

Tom and Will at our Post Office are willing to sell your produce on a sale or return basis. They will make a reasonable return on sale but the rest is yours either to offset against your costs or to donate to charity if you prefer.

If the scheme catches on then everyone benefits since residents will be able to buy a larger variety of fresh home grown fruit and vegetables. The environment will benefit since food miles will be reduced – lower emissions because food is not being transported so much. So as a gardener, you will be able to do your bit to make East Bridgford greener and help combat global warming.

If you would like to take part in this novel scheme , ‘phone me on 01949 20882 for more details or contact the Post Office directly if I am away.  

John Chater.  

St Peter's Out of School club now has space on our website - click here to find out more.

Don't miss the opportunity to visit Mr Dodsworth's award winning iris garden on 12/13th June.

The last time the garden was Open was over 20 years ago. All proceeds are going to the charity Help the Heroes.