The November conservation day at Grove Farm meant resuming the everlasting war on brambles to allow the wood anemones to flower in spring. The landscape of the usual blackberry-anemone battlefield looked somewhat different than in previous years, with seemingly new vegetation sprouting.

Sevan: "Stupid question: Have those trees been here before?"
Anna: "Yes. We coppiced them 3 years ago, and now they got more bushy."

Sevan and Kash ran 8.5 km to Grove Farm from their earlier mission in Acton, stopped only by a cup of coffee in Ealing, while Penny took a combination of public transport and walking through the foresty parts of Sudbuty Hill. The GoodGymers met Anna, Mike and Olena - Friends of Grove Farm, and Sue and Fred - members of several other volunteer groups.

Penny decided on the more demanding way to cut brambles: manually, using the shears, while Sevan paired with Mike and Kash with Olena. In each of the duos one person had a hedge trimmer and the other a rake. The pairs worked in absolute harmony, the rake pulling the brambles away and the trimmer cutting through them effortlessly.

The results of the work of the entire team were excellent. A couple of similar sessions in the winter months should keep the brambles at bay and let the wood anemones bloom when the spring comes.

After meeting the Friends of Grove Farm and LAGER Can members at the usual meeting spot, Anna was on hand to provide litter pickers and some bags for the rubbish and litter collection. The group divided into two teams to work along the different paths through Grove Farm, picking up the leftover rubbish. Working along the main road, it was definitely clear that someone had a Bounty craving, with many wrappers found along the same area!

Working our way into the fields of Grove Farm to clear more rubbish dropped in the sides of paths, the team all ended up at the front entrance of the site, to help clearing the fly tipped rubbish.

After bagging up the large items and collecting additional litter around the area and at the sides of the main road, the team wrapped up for the photo… And with a total of 32 bags collected, another great achievement by the team!

Todays Mission brought four GoodGymers out in the cold, but gloriously sunny morning to help out the team from Friends of Grove Farm with their monthly conservation day. Christos, Kash, Sevan and Penny joined Mike, Anna and others from the Friends of Grove Farm community at the north entrance of the park, to create more open space and visibility in the area.

After a short briefing, the team divided to conquer the 3 tasks on hand. First off, Penny and Christos took hold of loppers to get cutting and chopping away at the brambles and foliage in front of the hedge, and opening out the area for it to be more easily mowed.

Secondly, and a favourite for Kash, was an opportunity to take charge of the hedge trimmers and dutifully reduce the large hedge down to hip height for better visibility.

And if this wasn’t enough already, Sevan was also on hand to help on a third task, clearing the fly-tipped garden waste at the opening of the park. The waste and all the cuttings from the brambles and hedge were masterfully weaved and threaded with branches, to help holding the dead hedge all together.

A lot of hard work and a very noticeable change across the area by the end of the session!

A wet start to the day couldn’t stop three Goodgymers from joining the morning task to help out Friends of Grove Farm with their monthly conservation day, with Sevan braving the rain to run to the meeting point and Christos and Penny making their way with public transport.

After meeting with Mike, Anna and other members from Friends of Grove Farm, the group made their way to the area for today’s task - to clear the leftover cuttings, apparently also known as arisings, from the area after strimmers had been used to cut down the overgrown grass.

After a short safety briefing, mostly to make sure we all kept a close watch out for all the ant-mounds and giant holes in the ground, the team set to work, raking up all the leftover cuttings, dragging the chopped trees, and piling up all the waste into one corner.

With the ant-mounds making balance difficult as well as the rain continuing to come down, the team persevered with raking up and pitch-forking all the cuttings into bags to clear the area – estimated by the end to have cleared around "a-half-of-a-third" of the total area.

Hopefully all the ant-residents were not too disturbed by our activities!

Today's Grove Farm group was lower in numbers as some volunteers chose to attend the Restore Nature Now protest in the morning hours. Mike and Olena were on duty as early as 9 am, chopping away ivy, brambles and the wonkiest tree branches.

The GoodGym team didn't disappoint. Kash walked to lead the session from South Ealing, while our new starter, Bal, came from Hayes, where there is no GoodGym... yet! He showed great enthusiasm for GoodGyming: a dose of outdoor exercise, helping the community, meeting new people and getting some fresh air - much more fun than sitting on the sofa munching croissants! Bal even drafted his first report as soon as the mission registration email came up. That's the spirit!

"Spent a couple of hours gardening in Grove Farm - had a great time!" - Bal

Sevan came a bit later, running all the way from the Northfields train set task.

Today's job was to continue clearing the vegetation near the Whitton Avenue entrance to the park, this time on the left-hand side of the path. Mike was hopeful that would discourage local drinkers from hiding in the bushes and chugging on cheap beer. Loppers, trimmers, rakes and saws were in operation, complimented by some old-fashioned pulling young tree trunks by hand. Olena and Bal collected a number of beer cans, previously hidden in the thicket. Mike, Sevan and Bal piled up the trimmings to build a dead hedge that could serve as a habitat for insects and small mammals. At the end of the session, the area by the entrance looked far less wild. Hopefully, our work will improve the safety of Grove Farm visitors and prevent antisocial behaviours.

Missed today's session? Do not worry! There will be plenty of brambles and ivy to tackle in a month, so join us at the July Grove Farm session!

It's been two months since GoodGym visited Grove Farm and Madiha wore the glamourous 50 good deeds sash. This time the glittery accessory was worn for the second time - and the honour went to Christos.

Today's conservation day at Grove Farm was an excellent task to celebrate a milestone but also to join the GoodGym gang - that was the case for Gistan. He showed up already in the red t-shirt and enthusiasm for a workout with equipment offered by woodlands: heavy logs and branches to carry after chopping them down.

While the other Friends of Grove Farm lead, Anna, was hosting a pollinator survey nearby, Mike took charge of our team including the regulars: Bharti, Olena and Livio. We walked to the Southern entrance to the nature reserve, at Whitton Avenue, where our job was to increase the visitor experience. The first impression of the park resembled entering a wilderness - maybe too much of a wilderness for those worried about drinking or other anti-social behaviour concealed by the thick bushes. Before beginning the quest of destroying the drinkers' hideaways, Mike ensured us that the thicket had been thoroughly checked for the presence of birds, as it was nesting season.

Armed with shears, loppers and saws, we attacked tree branches growing downwards, octopus-like ivy clusters and nasty brambles. Hungry for more devastation, we started looking at the few fallen trees swallowed by ivy.

"If we cut away all the ivy and brambles from those trees, we will create new seats for the drinkers." - said Mike

There was an option to chop down the ivy and transfer some long bramble stems onto the tree trunks to make the potential sitting area not too comfortable. While we were about to do that, Steph Ducat and Sevan finally made it to Grove Farm after waiting for the train this morning - but it was not the train you may think about. To make the service running, they had to build rail tracks first!

Let's get back to Grove Farm: with the reinforcements, we dared to question the right of the fallen trees to lay at the entrance to the park and attract anti-social activity. The dead trees had to go!

We tore away the thick ivy, hacked the bark off the trunks and cut away the branches until the trees appeared less intimidating. Then we pushed, pulled and twisted them in any direction imaginable to tear them off the ground. Imagine a bad dentist wrestling with an uneven tooth root, that was us! Everyone survived the grappling session with the mighty trees, only Sevan fell back and scratched himself which didn't deter him at all.

The mud, rather than blood, tainted our red t-shirts but we didn't shun away the dirt and hard work. After all, that's where the black t-shirts come from - just like the one Christos earned today for the 50th good deed! Gistan had all reason to be proud of his dirt marks on the t-shirt at his first session - he worked hard and even stayed longer than the other GoodGymers to help Friends of Grove Farm.

"I like to finish the job." - Gistan
"There is quite a lot here to finish!" - Sevan, looking into the depth of the woods

The runners set off for the downhill fun run towards Ealing after climbing three hills to get to the location before. We do like the challenge of the hilly run to Grove Farm, don't we? If you are up for the upcoming session in charming woodlands (the run is not mandatory by any means!), sign up here!

Fancy fewer hills but an equally green area in the North of our borough? Join us next week at Horsenden Farm!