💨 Well, this evening started with various weather-related dramas and changes but all came together in the end, thanks to some tremendous teamwork of the 11 GoodGymmers who braved the stormy weather to attend anyway. (It also didn’t actually rain on us and wasn’t as windy as expected, which was a win!)

📖 One of our two tasks was cancelled due to high winds then my train was thoroughly messed up so Ed and Mitch took the reins for the intro and warm up, which seemed to involve some communal story-telling.

🍎 They then also led the run down to Holgate Orchard and got cracking with some digging. The aim was to dig and level off a patch of ground for a shed and some raised beds to be built once it’s ready. The team got to work, with some folk digging, some raking and others on barrowing and quality control, identifying areas that were not quite level and therefore needed filling. Leanne noticed a particularly large dip in the corner and set to work filling that. In what felt like no time, Helen was happy that the job was done so the tools were taken back to the shed (including the rake, which wasn’t actually meant to go back, whoops!)

🗻 Mitch then led some hill reps on Windmill Rise while some of us walked back to base. We regrouped at CVS and headed to the pub for some good chats (and an exclusive peek at the 2024 pub dog calendar!)

👏 Thank you everyone, we’ve had a few additional tasks added this week (Thursday evening and Sunday morning) so do join if you can.

🎬 *Pun is related to a certain “classic” 90’s film, rather than anything else…

Claire, Cara and I headed back to Holgate Community Orchard and Apiary to continue with clearing the Apiary area. Today the priority was breaking up a pile of dried offcut branches before the bindweed took over. We added about 8 barrows of them to the compost. Our visit coincided with a plant swap and cake allotment event so we were brought some delicious millionaires shortbread while we worked and offered some plants at the end.

Three sprightly GG Yorkies met at Holgate allotments to continue to clear brambles, readying the patch for creating a bee habitat next to the community orchard.

While Tay and Leanne cleared a pile of old brambles onto the compost heap, James got digging to create his own pile of roots.

Soon all three were on digging duty, unearthing breeze blocks, glass and polystyrene from the foundation of an old greenhouse.

We finished up the hour by finding and heaving up a few bits of old carpet and weed guard from beneath the soil.

The next chance to join in this lovely Sunday morning task is on 21st, so keep an eye out for the listing.

*not technically peat, but we've never been ones to let facts get in the way of a good pun.

The rain held off this morning for our second bramble root digging session at Holgate Community Apiary and Orchard. We welcomed Beth to her first Goodgym York session. We started by digging up the bramble roots and then Michael and David got started on the tougher Ivy and tree stumps and roots. The hour flew by and Michael and Sherilyn stayed to finish digging out a particularly stubborn ivy root.

Six smiley GG Yorkies turned up on a sunny Sunday morning to dig bramble roots.

The next phase of the Holgate Community Orchard and Apiary is to clear a previously very overgrown plot to make space for plants and bees. Instead of an apiary with honey producing hives the new plan is to create a 'free hive' for wild bees to find and make their homes. But first, we needed to dig over the ground where we'd previously cut back brambles to prepare the ground for planting. Bee friendly plants will be planted in the space at a later date, ready to signal to the bees that they are welcome to make their home there.

We started with the ashes of the bonfire we'd made on our previous task - removing debris, bramble roots and digging over the first corner of the plot.

There's a lot of digging to be done, so we'll be back for regular Sunday morning sessions over the coming months.

Today we were back at Holgate community orchard to finish demolishing the shed and burning it!

It didn't look too big a job but took a bit of work to break up all the ivy and tree branches into burnable parts.

We welcomed Jodie to her first task and Sheila to her second. We hoped you enjoyed it and that you'll be back!

We finished ahead of time and plan to return on 16th April.