What's that you say? Gardening in the heatwave? No problem!

We have a regular monthly task in the garden of the Highfield Unit at Warneford Hospital, and 30+ degree heat was not going to stop us keeping our appointment.

The Highfield is the young person's in-patient unit of the Warneford - the hospital providing mental health services in Oxford. The hospital has wonderful extensive grounds and a tiny team to manage them, so a little under a year ago the Highfield requested regular help from GoodGym to keep their gardens under control. It's hard enough to be an in patient (or for your child to be an in patient) so the Matron of the Unit is keen to make the environment as pleasant as possible for the young people and their care-givers. Winter lockdown meant that we weren't able to do much for them until the spring this year, but since then we've gone every month to weed, prune and wage war against brambles, and it's really starting to make a visible difference. On this visit the gardens were looking far less bramble-infested, many of the perennials were blooming, and the weeds were not nearly as abundant as last month. That said, there's still always plenty to do in any garden at this time of year, so trowels, secateurs, and wheelbarrows at the ready, we wasted no time getting dug in.

This month we were working in garden section 2 and 3 and also along the fence line to the carpark - both because we've done the least work in those areas and because they were in the shade (it's almost as if we planned our work-order knowing a heatwave was coming...). Meysam and Anne did a wonderful job lopping buddleia, brambles and rosemary away from the path through the middle garden, being careful not to be too brutal given that the rosemary and buddleia are excellent for bees and butterflies. Meanwhile the majority of the group headed to the furthest garden section to fight brambles, water the raised beds, and in a new development this month Mark brought his own hedge trimmer to prune the hedge. Finally a small breakaway party snuck round the side of the building to tidy up the area by the fence to the car park. The rooms looking out in that direction just look at the fence, and we hope to plant bulbs there in the autumn so that there's some early Spring colour in the area to improve the view. The weeds had got quite established over the last few months, so thorough weeding was needed to get a head start for our September/October planting plans.

Slightly fewer wheelbarrow loads of weeds and thorny things were transported to the compost pile this month - a testament to the work that's happened in previous months - but we still to'd and fro'd several times. As always, time seemed to speed up, and in no time at all we were needing to pack up, lock up and return the tools to the shed.

One VERY important piece of info we learnt this Wednesday - a truly scientific poll showed that Carrot Cake is the favourite cake for GoodGym Oxford. Duly noted for our next celebration!

3 GoodGymmers forewent the Sunday sunshine to pack food parcels for OMA. Thanks again Anwen for stepping in to help at short notice, and a (very) warm welcome to Anne!

Sheep! Chickens! Scythes! Sunshine!

Seriously, what more could we ask for from a Wednesday evening GoodGym task?! (Maybe slightly fewer nettle stings I suppose, if we're being picky.)

Phil welcomed us into Oxford City Farm with a brief introduction to the Farm and a run through the white board of proposed tasks. There are always plenty of jobs to be tackled at Oxford City Farm, so a GoodGym flash mob of volunteers is great for getting through lots of the 'to do' list in 1 evening.

Although we were very distracted by the curious trio of sheep we did manage to focus enough to grasp the tasks and divide into teams.

Operation fox-proof chicken coup headed to one corner of the farm. Despite security of Alcatraz proportions the fox had broken in and run amok. Chicken coup mark II will up the ante to out-fox the fox, but first all the undergrowth needed clearing from in and around the run and the aviary net. There was a bit of competition for the two mini-scythes, but loppers and secateurs were decent consolation prizes.

Meanwhile, in the mint patch, Sarah, Jocasta and Lorenzo had the most fragrant job of the evening, creating a woodchip path through the mixture of black pepper mint and Moroccan mint. (Not dwelling on the close proximity of the lambs to the mint...)

Everyone else split between chopping burdock and normal dock - largely decided by hair length (burdock burrs do LOVE to tangle in long hair). The burdock was grown deliberately but now needs some controlling and cutting back, to make space to plant pumpkins. The normal dock grows all around the farm site, and the plan was to cut as much of it back as possible before it has a chance to spread seed around. Burdock went to the compost pile, while dock went into the sheep enclosure for burning at a later date (presumably once the sheep have moved over to a different patch).

Oh the sheep enclosure!

Never before have we met sheep so willing to be in selfies, with such strong catalogue poses, nor ones with such a love of back rubs. While they seemed to find the dock tasty, their real love was all the attention. Shaun the Sheep holds a special place in all our hearts now.

Welcome Anne and Kajuli - good to meet you!