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.

Sunny Saturday we joined Marilyn at Canbury Community Garden to help with a few chores. Taking on the dreaded bindweeds, doing general weeding around the vegetable beds, topping up the compost heap with the weeds we shredded. and giving the garden a good soak with water fetched from the river. The team filled all the garden containers with more river water ready for the coming weeks whilst keeping an eye on the chicken trying to make a run for it.

Canbury community garden opened in 2016 and very soon after they introduced the first flock of hens.

This week’s task saw us making the most of the lighter evenings with a lovely outdoor gardening session. Some of us ran, others walked or cycled, but we all met for a productive evening in two local green spaces: Canbury Community Garden and our nearby GoodGym garden.

With a big group on hand, we got loads done. One of the main jobs was reinforcing the sides of some well-worn raised beds that were bursting with growing vegetables - Marie-Noelle and Emily took on this key task.

With water levels in the Community Garden’s rain butts already dropping, Luke, Dave, Yana, Sabir and Emma wheeled barrels over to the Thames, collecting water in buckets to fill the barrels which were then wheeled back and stored in the flower beds for future use.

Meanwhile, Ana, Emily and Jana tackled the massive compost heap, giving it a good turning over. Sabir, Yana and Dave got stuck into weeding duties.

Over at the GoodGym garden, Claire, Luke and Emma checked on this flourishing space—full of tulips, daffodils, and established shrubs—taking care of deadheading, weeding, and with Claire making plans for future planting.

This was a Workout for Nature, a physical volunteering task supporting local green spaces in celebration of Earth Day, as part of a collaboration with WWF.

Great work, team!

On Saturday Emily and Alexis joined Marylin and Peter at Canbury Community Garden to lend a hand with a few jobs and for some birthday treats. They mixed in top soil with compost, dug up nettles to prepare a the soon to be tomato bed, transferred topsoil to another new vegetable bed and levelled the ground, the hens swiftly moved in to scratch away. Helped Peter move heavy furniture out of the shed and into the visitor’s corner. Marie-Noelle joined them later on and helped finish the weeding We shared some Pain d'Epices treats Marylin had brought back from France to celebrate her birthday 🎂 🥳 and distributed a bouquet of nettles to the hens.

Saturday morning 6 GoodGymers were back at Canbury Community Garden to help Marilyn transfer the old compost into the new bins at the shady end of the garden. Team 1 prepared the new compost bin area under the watchful eye of resident Robin. Team 2 dug up the old compost pile, giving it a good stir and wheelbarrowed it over to the new bins. The four hens helper soon dived in, scratching for food and wriggly treats. The old bins will soon be torn down to make way for some new planters!