Weednesday nights are GoodGym Hounslow nights, and the gang were joined by friends from Hammersmith and Richmond (& Watson the dog) to carry on the work we had started at the weekend at Chiswick House & Gardens.

After a bit of celeb spotting (we’ll invite Clare to the next community mission), we met gardener Chris, who opened the gates to the Kitchen Garden. This part of the grounds is normally off limits to the public, and grows produce sold at the House and in local markets, however, we were at hand to get the Garden spruced up for the impending open days in a few weeks.

We were weeded, sorry, needed to help with weeding all over the garden. The task was started on Saturday, but with 2 acres of ground in the Kitchen Garden alone, man (and woman) power was needed. Gloves donned and green bags ready we could pear-ly wait to get started and apple-y got to work pulling up unwanted plants next to the fruit trees and alongside the rhubarb. We rosemary-ed to the challenge of doing a thorough job, with Matt crawling underneath a rosemary bush and Bethan being at one with the rhubarb.

We moved onto the flower beds lining the sides, and played the GoodGym classic - What is a weed and what is a plant?! Luckily Chris was on hand to advise - the poppies had to stoppy and the evening primrose was out that evening, but the marigolds could stay. Alanna and Alan got stuck in pulling up plants & even the pretty ones had to go - ‘if it’s not meant to be there it’s a weed’.

On the other side of the garden, Chris had given Matt, Will and Tish the challenge of uprooting some trees, which were evidently not wanted anymore. There was struggle with the ‘pull and hope for the best’ method, but where there’s a willow, there’s a way, and Chris educated us in how to use a spade properly to dig up an unwanted willow. Treemendous work! By this point, it had gone 8, and we needed to sap up the task. Bags and bags of dirty weeds and several unwanted trees were taken around the corner to the compost heap to be disposed of, and despite a lack of rain (thanks Tish, our very own weather lady) we had sunflowers and a rainbow to wave us off.

Shout out to Laura on her first GoodGym task, and a massive congratulations to Remy on her 200th GoodGym good deed. The only thing weeded now was to get to the Packhorse to celebrate with noodles and cake!