Last night a large group of GoodGymers made their way to Canbury Gardens for some autumnal chores. At the Canbury Community Garden, Susan and Marie-Noëlle split the team in three groups. Dave, Lordi, Anna, Kento moved the tyre towers around & re-filled them with fresh compost. A second group - Luke, Saber, Marcos - dug and turned the compost in the two large compost heap areas whilst a third group - MN & Tom - collected water from the river to refill the garden's water containers. We finished our mission with some light pruning and praking of the vegetable beds.

Meanwhile over at the GoodGym flowerbed Louise, Claire and Levita filled a massive sack with all the leaves that were covering the flowerbed and hiding some plants. Saber and Anna then joined us and helped Levita collect water from the river to water the plants and keep them going until it rains. We ended the session planting a few spring bulbs. Join us in our next session at the flowerbed to plant the rest and create a colourful Spring display.

Six GoodGymers - Sekar, Marie-Noelle, Marcus, Luke, Zoe and Sophie teamed up to help out at Canburry Community Garden to help Marylin one last time with some much needed vegetable beds watering, water fetching from the river, pruning of the tall bushes around the fencing area, clearing the fallen leaves from the outbuilding gutter and some weeding and clearing of the path for easy wheel-chair access. As we said goodbye to Marylin who is retiring, we got to know Susan who takes over as Lead Gardener.

Meanwhile over at the GoodGym flowerbed it was a watery work out for Tom, Louise and Saber who filled the large buckets with river water and transported them to the flowerbed by wheel barrow.

The flowers were given an extra good water followed by some super mulching to keep all the moisture in.

In between the watering and mulching Claire removed the litter and a few small weeds. Hopefully the rain will make an appearance soon to give the muscles a rest from watering.

Welcome to Sekar, Sophie and Zoe on their first task with Kingston GoodGym we hope to see you again soon.

Packed sunday today at Canbury Community Garden with Marylin & 4 GoodGymers. We rebuilt the 2 tables in the toddlers area, cleared away the rotten wood, made additional seating with hay bales & cleared away fallen leaves. We cut back over grown branches, thorns & nettles to improve access to the composing area & chopped up the cuttings. We topped planters with compost, harvested the prunes & refilled the barrel with river water

At Canbury Community Gardens...

A warm welcome to Levita and Caro who joined us at Canbury Community Garden for their first mission. Our tasks included stocking up the water containers with river water ahead of what will be another hot weekend, clearing the overgrown garden paths ready to welcome a local group and harvesting 1.6 kg of baby new potatoes.

Whilst some cutting tools are in need of sharpening to ease clipping long grass and nettles, one of the pruning tools turned out to be quite the opposite! To close the mission head gardener Marilyn offered the team a few 2025 garlic heads and baby potatoes, what a treat 🥔🥔

At the GoodGym plot...

Back at the GoodGym flowerbed a team of Dave, Levita, Sabir and Claire got to work.

Levita and Dave did 3 runs to the river for water to feed the plants whilst Claire cleared the rubbish and leaves and tried to revive some heather’s that had caught the sun.

Then Sabir joined to help fill about 7 wheelbarrows with woodchip to keep the flowerbeds well mulched. With the woodchip spread and the plants fed and watered it was time to leave them to grow. 🌱

Welcome to Levita and Caro and congratulations on completing your on first good deed.

Two GoodGymers Marina and Marie-Noëlle spent the morning weeding and tidying the vegetable beds at Canbury Community Garden. Marilyn and John joined in and shared with us some of their travlling adventures across Europe. Resident Robin and the chickens trotted about the garden enjoying fresh wriggly pickings.
We tidied the hops bed, topped up the compost bins with a couple of wheelbarrows of weeds before heading off for lunch with a handful of freshly harvested radishes.

At Canbury Community Garden...

We met up with Marilyn for our evening's good deed before separating into two teams. Armed with buckets and a good sense of humour, Marie-Noelle, and Jana formed the ultimate human river-link, ferrying water from the river to quench the garden’s thirst. Meanwhile, Jacqui and Petra rolled up their sleeves (and their rollers) to fill buckets and cans with liquid gold. Jana, Petra, and Jacqui then went full 'splash squad,' expertly soaking the veggies under Marilyn’s green-thumbed guidance. With Purdey the pooch tailing us like a furry forewoman, we had one hour to turn dry soil into a hydrated haven and we absolutely nailed it. Mission: plant-possible complete!

Tom and Luke helped a former community garden volunteer by cutting up and removing two small trees from her houseboat-garden. They also resisting the tempting offer of a beer each while they worked - showing great restraint on the job!

And on the GoodGym Kingston plot...

The sun had been shining on the GG flowerbed so there were plenty of weeds and laurel to tackle. Ken and Dave set to work on the laurel, brambles and weeds at the back of the flowerbed making sure it looked all neat and tidy.

Marcus dug up the dead plant and the small weeds then headed off to the river to fill lots of buckets with water as the plants were in desperate need of a drink. Meanwhile Claire planted a couple of new plants and tackled the weeds.

The bed was looking very tidy and colourful by the time we left.