Today at Thorlands gardens we were busy digging up roots in the forest garden. Afterwards we joined Simon and some residents of the estate for a Christmas celebration including mulled wine, mince pies, wreath-making and a tombola with prizes such as prosecco, chutney and a book featuring community gardens around the world, including Thorlands!

On Saturday, six GoodGymers met inside the Walled Garden of Thorlands for our penultimate 2021 session with Simon. There was a festive surprise for Sam and Simon as Hayley made an appearance after many months away. It was great to see a friendly and familiar face. It was also great to see she was doing well.

We had the usual suspects: Nathan, Rebecca, Laura and Lindy come to lend a hand as we continued with clearing and sorting out the boundary between the Kitchen Garden and the Forest Garden. There were plenty of tasks to do:

• Hayley stayed behind in the Walled Garden to help out Bridget turn the compost heap over.
• Rebecca started off with raking leaves before Simon requested her help to put up promotional posters of the event on Saturday 18th (after 13:30) for a celebration of Thorlands Garden in 2021 with mulled wine, mince pies and wreath making!
• Nathan loves a bit of mattock and fork action as he continued (as he has done for the past month or so) to dig out the roots from the Forest Garden.
• Laura (being the tall one) took the loppers and secateurs to trim back the buddleia tree. Short back and sides - to make it look fresh!
• Lindy after knowing she wasn't suited in wellies (so she can't be a farmer), took on the role of being a lumberjack this time. There were a pile of tree logs that needed to be cut into smaller and more manageable sizes to make a makeshift bug/insect hotel.
• Sam helped out where he could and cleared the concrete area for where the market stalls will eventually be.

Overall, it was a very productive session and the Thorlands winter period is all about maintaining, cutting back and preparing the space for Spring. This coming Saturday is the final session of 2021, so sign up if you are free to see out 2021 at Thorlands!

It was all happening today at Thorlands!

Firstly, we had all the new GoodGymers turn up early! Welcome to Lucy and Claire who showed up after a community mission that they were looking forward to got cancelled only 24 hours prior. Yet, they were keen to get involved with GoodGym and try an alternative way of getting active on the weekends. They made the right choice and decided to join in on the fun at Thorlands! Laura was back for more after her first Good Deed was last week....yet, she does live down the road and this is technically her local community garden/food club. 😜 Tilly and Benjamin are also considered new as this was their first time at Thorlands, however, they already had a good deed under their belts. So, they knew what we're all about; we "get fit whilst doing good". Our GoodGymers regulars, Jessie, Nathan and Rebecca arrived with their bikes just as Simon was giving his welcome speech.

Where's the hoe? The hoe hoe...

After Simon explained to the newbies about the history of Thorlands and the overarching vision of an urban biodiversity circular economy (now, I'm just throwing words all over the place), we gathered the tools we needed and headed into the "Kitchen" and "Forest" Gardens. We split the team into two.

Buddleia bashing and bind weed banishing!

"A" Team: Continued in the Forest Garden. Nathan with his team of Lucy and Laura took on clearing the Forest garden, which Nathan is commited to with his trusty hoe (I'm talking about the tool...). The team were bashing at the roots and clearing all the greenery into three massive piles by the end of the session.

"B" Team: Various tasks in the Kitchen Garden. Sam delegated various tasks at different points in time. To start with Claire gave the old secateurs and loppers a good clean with some vanishing oil. Tilly started off with the gentle task of raking the autumn leaves that surrounded the Kitchen garden to the leaf pile where slowly it is making the leaves into a mulch. Benjamin, Jessie and Rebecca started clearing the backend of the Kitchen garden in preparation of straw and woodchip to get placed on top in order to grow more vegetables. As the hour and a half went by, Jessie and Claire started to harvest the Jerusalem Artichokes and Tilly switched to help clear and chop down the buddleia.

Noticing we had less than 5 minutes left on the clock, there was a frantic end where we were putting all the cleared greens into a compost pile, but it had to be layered with leaves in a technique to help produce more fertile compost. After gathering the tools, we had the pleasure from Simon to take some Jerusalem Artichokes home in a doggy bag. The benefits of volunteering in a garden food club.....you occasionally get to take the produce home! We were given some warning about eating too many Jerusalem Artichokes...you might have guessed it. 😉

Next weekend, we'll be finishing off what we started in the Kitchen garden and putting down the straw, cardboard and woodchip. The Forest garden clearance will also carry on. If you are available and keen for more, sign up here

It was all happening in Thorlands on Saturday!

Probably our biggest turnout since we started to collaborate with Simon and the Thorland gang in the summer. Was it because everyone knows we're all working towards a meaningful project or was it because everyone wanted to get shrooming? Probably both.

Firstly, thanks and shout out to Jessie, Katie and Nathan for convincing Chris at Brockwell Parkrun to come along. We had a couple of newbies too - Laura and Lucie, welcome again to GoodGym and I hope you'd enjoyed the session. Still, technically, a newbie too - Ema came along for her 3rd ever Good Deed and 2nd Thorlands community mission in a row! Yet, I know and understand why we all want to come back and help Simon. We can see the vision and the work that needs to be done to get to the point where there will be a stage for small and intimate performances, an outdoor yoga tent, an arts & craft market stall(s), an actively growing kitchen garden and much more for all to enjoy!

Thorlands Garden Club need our help continuing with the buddleia bashing and crushing the corinthian (I think that's what it was) tree in the forest garden. In 8, we split into two teams, for the sake of this report, let's say "A" team and "B" team....

In the "A" team, we had the "no nonsense" Chris slashing at the buddleia with the loppers and then its stump with the saw, Laura and Ema who were systematic at trimming back and categorizing what Chris had cut - leafy greens in one pile, small woody bits in another, larger woody bits in a third pile and the bind weed in the plastic bag. It's all very scientific.

In the "B" team, we had the determined Nathan with the mattock digging into the soil to take out the roots with Jessie whilst Katie and Lucie sorted out the branches into their categorized sizes and occasionally, taking a good 10-15 minutes to saw any branches that were too big 🙃😜

I went in between each group to help out (at times), chat and take photos....what am I slacking? Nope, that's my job 😜

The hour and a half sped by as we could tell the massive difference in the "before" and "after" shots (although, I forgot to take a "before") in both the area "A" team and "B" team were working on. It was that impressive that Simon kindly invited all of us to stay for the mushroom workshop as Elliot from Urban Farm-It had much room for us 😂

The knowledgeable Elliot woo'd and wowed us with his impressive knowledge of all things mushroom (from the origins of mushrooms to how mushrooms will save/take over the world...they will literally get us out of truffle) 😂 The session really grew on me.... There will be another Shrooming session with Elliot in the Spring, so look out for that.

Thank you all for coming out and I will be adding Simon's photos to this report once I receive them.