On Saturday, 11 February 2023, we held our third Field Day in Forbes Field. Once again we were blessed by good weather and greeted another large volunteer turnout from the Friends of Forbes Field and from our local disaster relief charity, RE:ACT, despite its concurrent mobilization for the Turkey-Syria earthquake. Altogether, 31 volunteers took part and we had two visitors.

 

Our main effort was to complete the planting of the community orchard. Under the skilled direction of Johan Denekamp another 19 fruit trees were planted by villagers bringing up the total to 41. Only three Mulberries have yet to be sourced. In parallel, we made a start in the ‘Half-Moon’ plot of trees on the western boundary of the field, planting four trees kindly gifted by local arboriculturist John Rooke and a Walnut presented by Carl Jacobs from the Cricket Club. Carl and his son Joe had done good work the previous day in erecting a number of bat and bird boxes, together with a couple of wildlife cameras. We look forward to seeing the results soon. In parallel, the RE:ACT team repaired and renewed the fence on the northern boundary of the field and stripped barbed wire away from the fence adjoining Hops Close. As a result of all this great work, the field now looks much smarter and is beginning to take its final shape.

 

In addition, we conducted some site investigations with a view to holding more water back in the field when the water table rises rapidly as it did some weeks ago. Together with the future planting of Willows and Alders along the northern edge of the field, it is hoped that this scheme should make a contribution to flood control in Chilmark. We are preparing an associated proposal for the Parish Council and the Cranborne Chase AONB.

 

Do take a look at our website forbes.field.org which contains a great deal of information about our past activities and future plans, and visit the field! Please note that our next Field Day is on Saturday, 11 March, when, weather permitting, we intend to undertake some further tree planting and site preparation. Please arrive for a 10am start. Looking further ahead, we are honoured to provide a fitting venue for the village’s coronation event on Sunday, 7 May.

 

Finally, a very big thank you to all our volunteers and sponsors who are bringing this project steadily towards fruition.

Briefly introduce yourself and share something interesting with website visitors. 

19 February 2023