As a result of the bad weather and the appearance of the red rain a while back there wasn’t much to report last month. Unfortunately, the damp weather hung around ensuring that April wasn’t a particularly productive month with much of the planned work being delayed. Not surprisingly, the weeds were very happy with all the rain and they`ve been springing up with a vengeance. Normally, April brings our forces out to tackle the unwanted greenery but the rain scuppered those plans.
April is the month when the weed spraying equipment comes out of its Winter hibernation but this became rather problematical this year as it is not practical to spray the weeds if the rain is going to wash the herbicide away. Like everything else, this costs money and B Clean, as a registered charity, is totally dependent on donations for its income, so that money has to be spent carefully and responsibly.
A number of work days had to be cancelled due to the rain so the weeds have been able to grow and grow. At least the strimming has been resumed and the long grass alongside the dual carriageway has been the target. This was necessary as the long grass was growing up between the oleander plants so spraying was not an option as it would have gone onto the oleanders as well.
B Clean has undertaken weed spraying for many years and, along with the other gardening groups, the volunteers doing the work know what they are doing so it was a little surprising when social media provided a platform for somebody questioning how the spraying was being conducted. To put anyone else’s mind at rest we confirm that the herbicide used by B Clean is a systemic herbicide absorbed by the leaves, it does not sterilise or contaminate the soil in any way and is harmless to animals. We have a spare spray tank available should anybody wish to get “hands on” experience of weed control and the volunteers would welcome the assistance.
It has been obvious to anybody visiting Camposol recently, that the garden waste skips hadn’t been emptied for some considerable time. Despite repeated requests to use the skips responsibly and not dump waste in bags this is exactly what has happened but, having over-filled the containers, people have just piled their rubbish up around them. In the past, B Clean volunteers have cleared up this sort of mess but enough is enough. The council workers won’t take the sacks and we are not asking our work team to do this work if people are too lazy to do it themselves. The simple solution of course, if the skips are full, is to take rubbish to the ecoparque. It isn’t that difficult and will avoid the situation we have at the time of writing which will only attract vermin to the site.
Finally, many of our members have not paid their subscriptions yet, despite us being well into 2022. If your payment hasn’t been made yet, please deal with this as a matter of urgency. All donations will also be welcome of course.