Island 2000 Trust Blog

The Education and Community team have been busy installing raised beds in gardens on Pan Estate.  A joint project with Medina Housing Association is encouraging residents to “grow their own” by providing a raised bed, soil, vegetable seeds and a tool kit for up to 50 households in the ward.  Most of the beds are now installed and ready to be planted up for the growing season, and Island 2000 will be holding a series of drop-in sessions throughout the summer offering advice on gardening using raised beds and suggesting recipes that will use produce from the garden.

Ray and his raised bed

A raised bed frame takes shape

I had the great privilege of joining in with Professor Boffin’s walking festival walk around Cowes and East Cowes “The Queen’s Bloomers” on Sunday. What a great walk! If he manages the trip across the Solent to present it again next year I would heartily recommend it. The YouTube video below gives a small taste of the days fun.

Newport’s first Riverfest held last Saturday was a great success! The weather was kind and the days activities were well received by the crowd of well over 2,000 who came along. Alan Titchmarsh arrived on the world’s smallest paddle steamer, which appeared to have the world’s loudest horn! The video below (also available on the YouTube site) gives a bit of a flavour of the day.

Saturday sees the launch of the Isle of Wight Walking festival at Riverfest, an event celebrating Newport’s rivers. There is a packed programme of activities throughout the day, and you’ll even have a chance to see Alan Titchmarsh if you missed him at the re-opening of Yarmouth Pier.

Take a look at the programme below for full details - click either image for a bigger version.

As part of Sandown Primary’s grounds development project Dan was commissioned to make a lovely wooden xylophone fence. The children love it and it’s a special musical addition to the rest of the creative outdoor classroom at the school.

Hmmm… but how would one transport a 3m wooden xylophone from our offices in East Cowes to Sandown I hear you ask…..?

At night, by bicycle of course.

Hello everyone - just a reminder that you can so loads more of our stuff (well quite a lot more - we’re gradually bumping it up) by visiting our Flickr sites for arts, Gift to Nature and conservation:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/island2000conservation/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/island2000arts/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gifttonature

Minibeasts quaked in their leafy arbors last Sunday as a safari swept across the West bank of the Medina, sweep netting and shaking the bugs out of their hiding places*.

Participants were fascinated to see red weevils, a large harvestman, a very fat spider, crane flies, various beetles and bugs, springtails and an impressive looking shield bug turn up in their nets.

*No minibeasts were harmed during the afternoon’s activities.

Last Friday 21 intrepid explorers set out along the Newport-Cowes cycle track at dusk with bat detecting equipment to try and track down some bats before they hunker down for hibernation.

Whilst we still had some light we swept the nettle verges for insects and bugs to discover what would be coming out for the bats to feast on.

The bat detectors were surprisingly easy to use, and as the sun set and darkness fell we began to hear the bats echo-locating via the equipment. Once they had been heard they were easier to spot, and we soon saw a lot of bat activity up and down the cycle corridor. You can see the excitement in a young detective whose detector has just shown a bat in flight.

Ian, leading the walk, was fairly sure that we saw at least 2 species of bat, the Pipistrelle flying around the trees on the cycle track and the Daubenton’s flying low over the water on Dodnor Creek.

The Guardian recently reported in an article on hedgerow foraging that blackberry leaves “taste just like blackberries and can be added to fruit salad”. Ian and Suzie recently tested this theory out by sampling leaves straight from the bush, and can report that blackberry leaves taste absolutely nothing like blackberries, but actually taste like chewy bitter leaves, and will not be gracing our dinner tables in an unusual fruit salad.

The latest phase of the Newport Rivers Group’s work restoring and enhancing the rivers in and around Newport is now complete, and these photos really do show the visual improvements that have been made. These works were carried out by the Environment Agency, and as well as improving the visual aspect of the site, they have also installed a bespoke fish pass, to allow fish passage up and down the river at this point.