9 runners ran 6km to plant some seedlings for a community garden in Croydon.

A nice change this week as it finally felt like Spring had sprung – our 9 runners were ready to make the most of the warmer weather and headed off on one of our longer runs to help Pamela from Unique Roots with the community garden by the Peppermint Children’s Centre. After a quick warm up, we headed off in one group making sure we keep an eye out for passers-by in the busy streets outside the station before heading off towards the distant towers of IKEA! Pamela wanted to use this area to bring the local residents together as a community, as well as encouraging them to use the green space that they have available. She has a selection of raised beds where the community can learn to grow their own vegetables and flowers.

Our task for the evening was to plant a selection of vegetable seedlings in the community garden. When we arrived, Pamela and her volunteer had spent that day building two new raised beds ready for us to get to work! One was already filled with new soil, so some of the group began separating the seedlings and getting them planted. Meanwhile, some of the other runners helped to fill the second bed with fresh compost and manure before planting the rest of the seedlings. We planted a delicious sounding selection of curly kale, brussel sprouts, radishes, and much more! We still had some time left over, so we got to work on a third bed, speedily turning it over and removing some stray weeds (being very careful of the delicious rhubarb plants that were snuggled in there!). We then planted some pansies to brighten up the bed.

As this was one of our long runs, our fitness session was looping on our run there and back, so that our speedier runners were able to stretch their legs while keeping the group all together.

Welcome to new runner Imogen – we hope to see you back very soon - and thanks to Andy and Vicki for leading and back-marking this week!

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading to East Croydon Community Organisation to help them clear some overenthusiastic Ivy. It’s also the last Tuesday of the month, so time for the monthly GoodGym Croydon social at BoxPark – hope to see lots of you there!