Tonight we were back for our last monthly visit to the Canbury Community Garden 🍅 and the GoodGym flowerbed 🌸for the summer season. We were joined on our Group Run by Olly Whering, one of our local Councillors, and showed him first hand the wonders of GoodGym.

After running 🏃‍♀ 🏃‍♂, cycling 🚴‍♀ and walking🚶 over to Canbury Gardens we split into two teams one moving a shed and the other weeding 🌱the GoodGym flowerbed.

Luke, Ben, Dave and Marie-Noelle donned their gloves and removed the shed from its existing (rotting) foundations. The pallets it was resting on were starting to disintegrate so they were all removed and the ground levelled. Some old paving slabs were then broken up and used as a more solid base. Once the intricate levelling process was completed (involving a plank of wood (and spirit level, to be fair)), the shed was placed back and contents returned.

Emma, Jana and Ben got to work on the weeds 🌱 and leaf clearing 🍂and Sabir tackled the ever-growing laurel 🍃 whilst Claire went on a run 🏃‍♀ up the park for the rubbish sack. Rachel and Olly joined in on the weeding 🌱and the task was completed in record time.

No watering 💦 was required as no sooner had we finished the heavens opened 🌧 which swiftly put and end to any further activity so we headed off 🏃‍♂🏃‍♀🚴‍♀🚶to the pub 🍻for our social and a good natter.

Great to have you along, Olly. Hope to see you at another soon!

Tonight we met at the GoodGym flowerbed after running, walking and cycling our ways there. Sabir got straight into a big work out collecting bucket after bucket of water from the river to water the thirsty plants whilst Charlotte, Julie, Emily and Claire got on with the weeding. Emily then cut back some laurel and Julie and Sabir topped up the woodchip.

The flowerbed was then tidy until next time.

Welcome to Charlotte on her first task.

A month has flown by and it was time to give the GoodGym flowerbed its monthly check up and help out at the Canbury Community Gardens.

We had 9 enthusiastic GoodGymers this evening so we split into two groups and got cracking.

The GoodGym garden crew noticed that signs were good with some late alliums making an appearance and the salvias still providing lots of colour. Weeds had returned but were not too invasive so Claire and Sabir got tackling those and the dry leaves whilst Luke and Tom gave the laurel a hair cut and got rid of some larger weeds and brambles. A few trips to top up the woodchip and a quick drink for the hydrangea and the GG flowerbed was looking wonderful again.

Meanwhile, back at the community garden... Ben and Hazel got stuck into their first GG task by shoveling a load of mature compost into holding bins ready for when needed. Marie Noelle, Dave & Rachel spent their time trimming pathways and pruning bushes and plants that were over their best.

All in all a very productive and fun task! Welcome to GoodGym, Hazel and Benjamin. Hope to see you again :)

Tonight was a night of two halves. After our group run to Canbury Gardens we split into two teams. One team stayed in the Community Garden and the other headed to the GoodGym flowerbed.

The GoodGym flowerbed is looking lovely but the pesky weeds keep popping up so Sabir, Claire and Rachel tackled the weeds and brambles from big to small in between the plants and round the edges. Then Rachel started filling buckets of woodchip to keep the moisture in and weeds out which we spread around and Ed came and helped Sabir and Claire out with the watering. It was a great workout and the bed is looking beautiful again!

The ever-friendly Marilyn welcomed the second group to the community garden and set us to work with a variety of tasks. Marie-Noelle exercised her scrubbing power by wire-brushing an old bench while Emma started hacking back an extremely over-grown path next to the vegetable plots. We were only here a few weeks ago and amazing how heavily the grass and weeds have grown since then! Meanwhile, Ed and Dave turned the compost and helped Marilyn fill a couple of old tyres full of soil ready to plant some tomato plants - hopefully they're high enough off the ground so the Canbury chickens aren't able to peck the tomatoes! All hands on deck for the final few minutes with the overgrown path and then we were done. Many hands certainly made short work and amazing how much we achieved in the time. Marilyn sent us all home with some home-grown garlic for our troubles :).

Welcome to Edward and congrats on completing your first task! Hope to see you again soon.

The GoodGym flowerbed had become a little full of weeds over the Spring so it was time for a tidy up and the sun was shining so we got stuck in.

We tackled some well known weeds with very long roots that went on for ever, the dreaded bind weed and brambles.

Having cleared the weeds it was time to plant some new plants to bring some extra colour.

Sabir and Claire then headed off to collect some woodchip and Melissa and Julie headed to the river accompanied by our 4 legged helpers for water to water in our new plants.

Having laid the woodchip and watered the plants it was time to leave and hope that the plants will continue to flourish.

Great to support Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean today with a litter pick in Canbury Gardens. The sun unexpectedly shone down on six GoodGymers, as we met at the bandstand and armed ourselves with gloves, bin bags (held open in nifty hoops!) and pickers! We were pleased to see the park and tow path along the Thames, remarkably clear of litter - well done park visitors - but were still able to make a difference filling three bin bags with plastic bottles, polystyrene, paint pots and wrappers. Emily, Melissa, Sabir, Gemma, Rachel and Emma can now reward themselves with an Easter egg or two for a job well done!