A grand Himalayan balsam pull

If anyone can spare a couple of hours on Sunday 17th to come and pull up some balsam on desbough island we will meet at chinos at 8:30 am or on the island just after.
It pulls up very easy nd needs to be done before it flowers to much. Makes a change from picking litter!!!!!!

nice one richard, I'm up for that
long trousers, long sleeves and doc leaves are the order of the day

Cheers Jim I wiil try and round up a few more on Thursday.

there's no reason why we cant do a litter pick as well

so any preferences on area

see you there chaps all in for the cause bringing the boys so many hands make light work watch out the invaders!!!!!!!!

After speaking to Jim tonight we are going to change venue and do a couple of areas near teddington lock that were done last year and it would be good to clear it again this year. So it a 8:30 am meet at the lock.

looks like waterproofs will be the order of the day folks

another successful morning on the riverbank, and we dodged the rain as well

we started on teddington lock island, the idea being to follow up on last seasons work, when we eliminated the himalayan balsam
there was certainly far less on the public part of the island than last year, only 20%, so getting in there before it produces seeds, does produce results
the other area, where boats wait before entering the lock, certainly needed our attention again, last year we eliminated it here as well, but this year its back as normal
a couple of weeks back, willie pulled loads up, and yesterday we did the area again, but as willie and others have found, it aint easy when its amongst 4 ft stinging nettles and blackberry bushes

so with the island picked clean of balsam and litter, we had a cuppa before heading downstream
the idea being to work our way as far as the thames stone, some 100 metres, but we got nowhere near it

a mere 50 metres later we had to call it a day, it was 12.30, we had filled 2 bin bags with litter and pulled up some huge balsam plants, one of the youngsters called one at 8ft 7 inches [ strange how metric aint used when talking fishing]

so a mahoosive thanks to those that assisted, I didn't realise how much the youngsters would enjoy it, or how a distinct lack of doc leaves, wouldn't bother them either, TAC members breed'em'ard it seems

Its time to look out for Himalayan Balsam, before it to big in your area, get it while its still young, the son (Jack) and me will be looking after me local Rivers Bourne, X2, chertsey & Addlestone, found this page on Angling Trust for people to down load and print off

http://www.anglingtrust.net/page.asp?section=649&sectionTitle=Invasive+Non-Native+Species


on an other note, I found some wild garlic, just put a few leafs in with maggots, looking for any other type of harps, mint,any over, so if and about see what you can find,

went out to me Addlestone River Addle, (borne), and done 20mins of pulling, they ranged from 6" to 9",

GOT THIS web site to report all sighting of plants that should not be here, got this as all I got is a normal phone that does not do apps

http://planttracker.naturelocator.org/add

Just added both Bournes onto it , ref the HB