The plants at the community garden at Broom Farm are continuing to grow, and everything we transplanted last week seems to have taken. The peas and beans have grown so much that they need support, so one of the children helped install some bamboo canes in the pots. We then scavenged around the park to find some small plastic pots to act as cane -toppers to protect the sharp tops. I wonder how tall they will have grown by next week?

The session at the Broom Farm Community Garen was well-attended today, with some older children there too. We got them busy watering the herb wall, filling some troughs and pots with compost, and transplanting some lettuce seedlings which had been sown rather densely last week! The garden continues to grow!

Kirsty and Sheila were delighted to see so many residents at the community garden today - word and interest is definitely spreading. A runner stopped by, offering us some plants from her garden, as she is about to move house. While we continued to work clearing an overgrown flower bed of brambles, others filled a new planter with compost and repotted some herbs and marigolds. These were then arranged in the pallet planter which had been attached to the wall. It looks great! And with some seeds sown in previous sessions now starting to appear, the garden is thriving!

We had a lovely session today. We made progress with our project. Looking forward to the next one!

From Sheila: It was great to see so many of the mums and their children again - there seems to be a lot of energy for the community garden. Some of the seedlings that were sown a couple of weeks ago are growing nicely. so exciting! And fantastic that Kirsty has signed up to Goodgym, and we look forward to welcoming her on future community missions

Tonight we helped a local charity distribute information to military families about the services and support they offer. Sheila, Mandy and Amanda shoved biscuits and leaflets through tens of doors making sure to listen out for dogs. Biscuits were strategically left outside doggie doors to avoid animal teeth marks (in biscuits and GoodGymers!) Jen and Gillian took the other side of the estate diligently dropping biscuit surprises through doors. Anna and Georgeta wasted no time filling up the huge water butt with buckets of water and then threw themselves into a spot of impromptu gardening. A great job by all and then we had a play in the local park, well it would have been rude not to!

Goodgym was invited by Gurpal from Family Friends to come and help them set up a community garden. It is to be located in the Broom Farm Estate, which houses army families, and it is hoped that a community garden will bring families together and create more of a sense of community. We are starting from scratch, so today's session was mainly about engaging some of the local families and finding out what they would like from their garden. About half a dozen mums with young families turned up and are really keen on the project. Also present were volunteers from Family Friends as well as Dan from Army Welfare. Richard, one of the trustees for Family Friends turned up with Harry who had made a planter-bench from a couple of pallets during his work experience week. The young children set to work filling the planters and pots with compost whilst the mums and volunteers thought about how to fill the available space. There were lots of ideas, and one of the mums is keen to paint some murals on the walls. I'm so excited to see how the garden develops and it was great to see such enthusiasm from the residents.