Current Projects
Sarah’s Field Water Meadow - Volunteers needed! 
At our new project in Berkeley, we now have a picnic table.
On Tuesdays, we are creating a community orchard, pond, wetland, pathways and wildlife habitats.
As there are Great Crested Newts in the town, we are planning how and when to do the digging, and vegetation cutting, so as not to disturb these amphibians.
We now hope they will come and live there using the habitat corridors, the logs to hide under, and the pond to breed in.
The first task was planting 20 fruit trees, with a focus on rare and local Gloucestershire apple varieties, such as ‘Berkeley Pippin’, ‘Arlingham Schoolboys’ and ‘Jackets and Waistcoats’.
Planning the Planting at Sherbourne House 
In early February we began working with a group of students from Stroud College at Sherbourne House. We are creating a new fruit, flower and vegetable garden for the residents of this sheltered housing scheme in Stonehouse.
To begin with, students met the residents to ask them what kinds of things they would like to see growing in their new raised beds.
As a result of those conversations we have designed a planting plan - raised planters will sit on the patio where residents will be able to harvest strawberries and lettuces growing at waist height; sunflowers and runner beans will shoot up from the ground level beds; gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes will rub shoulders with existing ornamental plantings in the lawn area.
In short, we hope it will be a feast for all the senses!
Do you want to be out in nature in spring, looking for wildlife?
Every Thursday in May and June 2018 we will be surveying the wildlife along the Nailsworth Cycle Path. We will be looking for signs of mammals, old trees and potential tree roosts for bats. We will also put up a bat detector for one week and identify the bat calls we record.
The survey techniques we will be using are:
- Tree identification
- Bat roost identification
- Mammal signs
- Phase 1 Land Use Survey
You don’t need any previous survey skills, as we will train you in the survey techniques.
From May, Stroud District Council, who own the land at Capel’s Mill, provided funding for us to do eight days of maintenance, which we have run as sixteen half days.
We are having monthly workdays through the winter, where a core of volunteers lead the maintenance, cutting back to improve access and visibility, litter picking, scything and raking up the meadow, while Richard’s team have been maintaining the young trees: removing tubes, tying up fallen trees, mulching with woodchip.
The GEM Project is jointly funded by the Big Lottery Fund and the European Social Fund. 
Growing Making Selling
Have you been unemployed for 6 months or more?
Would you like to:-
- Grow plants, fruits and vegetables and make them into saleable products?
- Learn the skills needed to set up and run a market stall?
- Develop marketing skills for products you create?
Enjoy a bit of support as you supplement your income.
Woodworking for health and wellbeing
The Green Health Team has been working on a new project in partnership with The Beeches Day Care Centre, Beeches Green, Stroud. The centre, run by Gloucestershire County Council supports adults with physical and and mental disabilities.
Our contract work continues well with monthly visits to Rowcroft Medical Centre, Omnitrack at Rodborough Court, Tesco balancing pond (a site adjacent to Rackleaze Wetland) and our quarterly visits to The Apperley Centre, Stonehouse.
Wild Classrooms 
Wild Classrooms aims to support children’s outdoor learning and builds on the foundations laid by our earlier educational projects, Get Growing and Growing Wild. The project is funded by the Ernest Cook Trust and the Summerfield Charitable Trust and was launched in January 2017. Tamsin, the Wild Classrooms’ project officer, has developed free resources which link what is going on outside with the 
science curriculum. Every participating school gets up to three free visits from Tamsin, a seasonal poster and a class set of children’s notebooks . We are currently also developing six themed calendars which aim to help children learn about one plant or animal a month that they will hopefully be able to see in Gloucestershire.
Rackleaze Wetland, Cam
Our work at the Rackleaze Wetland nature reserve continues with volunteers involved on-site in both habitat management work and hedgerow restoration.
The hedgerow restoration project has been focussed on the clearing and coppicing of isolated old hedgerow shrubs along a boundary ditch adjacent to the public footpath that runs across the reserve. This work has taken a number of sessions to complete and clear. It has been double row planted with native hedgerow species that include hazel, guelderose, hawthorn and wayfaring tree.
Sensory Garden, Stratford Park, Stroud 
After being away for a number of weeks recovering from my hip operation I was really pleased to see the progress of the work whilst I’d been off. In my absence I must congratulate my colleague, Nadine Symkatz-kloss who led the volunteer group. Great work by all!
