8 of us from Lambeth met at Larkhall Park last night to help with a bit of weeding. We met Linda who showed us the patch of plants that needed some attention. Bind weed was everywhere, it was strangling bushes, plants and trees, It was climbing the fence and tangling its way round anything it could get to. Over the last 3 months of lockdown no one had been able to do any weeding so the bind week had really taken over. After a quick lesson on bind weed removal technique we began to un-bind the weeds. It was nice to be back in a group doing a task on a Tuesday evening, everything started to feel a bit normal again. After an hour of untangling, digging and uprooting we had created a massive pile of bind weed and the plants were looking a lot happier.

27 brave runners headed out the rain last night for a selection of plant-based good. 🌱

We started off welcoming Cat, Jo and Chris for coming on their first ever GG run 👏 and congratulated Samantha for winning our SPOTM! With 13 good deeds this month and 100km+ ran to make those good deeds happen, she's absolutely smashing it. A killer haul of not one but TWO laser tag mugs, a purple piggy bank, a single packet of hot chocolate mix and of course a shower cap.

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Nicky took a small but powerful group off to Styles Gardens:

After a 1k run and a quick photo shoot in the playground (all in aid of the nationwide 1k GG Olympics race), we met Karen at Styles Gardens. With the assistance of a tree-climbing tabby cat, we got to work. After 40 minutes, we'd cleared a huge pile of branches/ivy/brambles and litter-picked a lot of rubbish. Karen was delighted with our progress and especially glad that a few residents were interested in what we were doing and how they could get involved. Unfortunately, having dodged the rain until then, the heavens decided to open for a VERY wet (but mercifully short) jog back to Papa's. 💦

Putting the style back in Styles - Karen from Styles Gardens.

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Getting to the root of it.

Everyone else split in 2 to go to Larkhall Park - George and Lucy leading a longer 3k run and the rest of us taking the direct route.

In a bit of a bind.

At Larkhall, we met Carl who told us the weeds had been growing like crazy this year. We had two patches to get to work on - One with A LOT of bindweed, twisting itself round every single plant it could find - even the weeds. The other patch was filled with small weeds and Chris, Jon and Frances were pondering the age old question;

What counts as a weed?

We decided it was down to looks, which is a bit shallow I guess. 🤷‍♂️

Rooty Pageant

At the end we took a quick snap with our piles of weeds all laid out, Carl said thanks and we blitzed some sprint relays before heading back to base.

TOP WORK EVERYONE 🎈

Next week we've got another couple of tasks: Spreading woodchip at Moorlands Gardens and helping out at Hillside Gardens Park. Sign up here.