"Fun, exercise, food growing - this is our mantra" - said Janpal, the director of Southall Community Alliance, welcoming us at the Western Road community action day.

Western Road Urban Garden is a unique place in Southall. Risen from the foundations of a derelict allotment and decades-old rubbish dump, it became a flourishing place where the local community could grow food. Unlike many other sites, formed around specific faith groups, WRUG champions diversity and inclusion - everyone is welcome, no matter their background or beliefs.

Five GoodGymers: Bal, Kash, Paul, Sevan and Steph Ducat met other volunteers: John, Paulina, Ash, Jeff and two ladies from the local community and felt lucky that they relied today on their running, cycling and walking (even from a bus stop) rather than the Elizabeth Line, not so favourable to other volunteers.

"We were expecting Paul to arrive around noon." - Janpal
"Paul is here!" - GoodGym Paul

Janpal meant Paul from The Ealing Parks Foundation, who was supposed to swap with him as the community day leader, as Janpal was planning to attend the arts event at the Southall Town Hall in the afternoon.

The great indoors

Janpal gave us the usual tour around the allotment, starting with the famous polytunnel, where the temperature reached 35 degrees. Inside this magnificent structure, we discovered a plentitude of vegetables and herbs: courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes, melon, different varieties of chillies, tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, sweetcorn, marrow, coriander and fenugreek. Western Road Urban Garden was a proud grower of plants known as staples of Indian and African cuisines.

Unlike their outdoor counterparts, reaching Janpal's waist height, the tomatoes inside the polytunnel towered over John, the tallest of volunteers. Because of their height, the tomato plants needed additional support - here is where Sevan stepped in, using bamboo sticks and strings to keep the giant plants in shape.

The veggies in the poly-sauna were very thirsty in the recent hot weather. Paul volunteered to water them with a hose. We didn't suspect (or did we?) he would use his new toy for surprise attacks, sprinkling the fellow GoodGymes with cool water. Paul's targets inside the polytunnel appreciated the refreshing experience, while others promised revenge - in December!

The great outdoors

While giving the new volunteers the intro to the urban garden, Janpal told us about one of his experimental purchases from the garden centre: a lemon cucumber, which he had planted earlier in the year, and we could marvel at its unusual fruit. He also entertained us with stories about the unexpected links between Western Road and the police!

The setup of the garden served people of all ages and abilities. The allotments, rather than being maintained by individual holders, were open to community groups and school children. The raised beds offered gardening opportunities to the elderly and those with reduced mobility - volunteers could sit on the edge of the wooden bed and immerse themselves in gentle weeding, without bending their backs.

Bal, Kash and Steph chose to continue the work they carried out during the last two community days: digging out the weeds. How could more fork work be so tempting? Maybe because there were only two small plots to finish off? The hard work paid off and before they left, Bal and Steph planted vegetables on the patch they prepared - a rare privilege if you are not a school child. Or a necessity while kids are on summer vacation?

As usual, Janpal hasn't forgotten about his staple incentives for the volunteers: ice-cold water, fresh fruit, tea and, of course, samosas. Keep an eye out for more community days at Western Road to taste those goodies after a dose of fresh air and exercise at the urban garden.

In the meantime, we are linking up again with Feeding Ealing (the organisation behind the Western Road polytunnel project) and Heston Lions to pioneer a new urban garden in Greenford - join us next Saturday for a task which is just a short walk away from Horsenden Farm monthly volunteering session.

Today’s Mission brought five GoodGymers to the Western Road Urban Garden. Christos, Steph and Paul met just outside the gardens, and as the group made their way into the gardens, were greeted by Janpal to give an introduction into the task for the day. Joining us from the Western Road Urban Garden community were Ash, Andrei and Jeff.

First picking up our tools for the day – shovels, pitch forks, buckets and wheelbarrows – the team were shown two plots of 3 x 3 meters in need of clearing at the back of the garden.

We were very soon joined by Kash and Sevan, to pull up the grass, cut down and dig up the deep-rooted weeds, and clear out the rubbish from the two plots. The group, so dedicated to complete the task that nothing would stand in our way, even twisting the metal of a pitch fork all to clear out these plots!

As we dug deeper, inevitably more and more litter was surfaced, with Sevan going about collecting the glass and finding a number of bottle tops. A rare find was a very old intact bottle of whiskey buried in the soil, still with a small amount of whiskey left in the bottle. Obviously this is now very well-aged, but no drinkers!

With everyone working straight through to the end of the session, the team finished clearing the plots, and enjoyed some fantastic samosas provided by Janpal for a well-deserved break.

Upon arrival, we caught sight of an Ealing Riding School trailer with manure delivery for Western Road Urban Garden. Ash, the engineering mind behind the WRUG design, said that the manure needs to mature for several weeks, so shovelling wasn't our job for today. Phew!

"Have you ever tried a manure dive, Kash?" - Ash
"Haha, not today, Ash. I'm visiting older people that need help in the afternoon." - Kash

Janpal, the director of Southall Community Alliance, welcomed Roberta and Bal, the first-timers at WRUG, and gave them a short history talk about the place. Sevan and Kash had heard the story several times by now, and each time, they enjoyed the inspiring tale of the incredible transformation they had taken part in, digging, moving logs and helping set up a polytunnel. Janpal was very proud of the polytunnel, which now had plants growing inside. It was also a place that made everyone appreciate the temperature outside on sweltering days like today.

"Just go inside for a couple of minutes, then go out. Yesterday it was over fifty degrees in there!" - Janpal

The other sources of pride at Western Road were flowers, the fruit orchard and the community allotment plots. Not all of the plots had been ready for planting.

"We ran out of space here. The children from the local school don't have more plots for growing vegetables."

Today's job was to remove the weeds from the allotment plots to allow the kids and volunteers to continue planting. Bal, Roberta, Sevan and Kash grabbed forks and joined volunteer Jeff, who was a real weeding machine and shared a few gardening tricks with the GoodGymers. The soil was very dry and hard, and the roots were long, so the job turned out more challenging than expected. There was still a lot of glass buried in the earth, so removing the pieces took extra time.

On such a scorcher, the plants desperately needed water, so Roberta decided to help Janpal water runner beans, potatoes, tomatoes and other vegetables, and - occasionally - people.

Halfway through the three-hour session everyone stopped for a break and enjoyed the ice-cold water and samosas Janpal had supplied. Ash and Jeff opted for tea, claiming that a hot drink, counterintuitively, makes you feel cooler.

Despite being lower in numbers than usual, the team cleared two plots to make further community planting possible, and saved the day by watering the plots already in use - well done, Roberta!

We are back to the Western Road very soon, so make sure you sign up for the next session in two weeks!

Even in the absence of Janpal from Southall Community Alliance, the April community day at Western Road Urban Garden still went ahead. When our team arrived, we discovered that Paul from Ealing Allotments Partnership had brought the samosas, which made him immediately recognisable as our leader, so we enquired about jobs for the day.

One of the first GoodGymers to show up was Freya, who cycled for her first task with us and was no stranger to working at community allotments thanks to her link with Artification's project in North Acton!

Welcome to the GoodGym family, Freya!

Christos, who ran to Southall along the canal, and Milly, who walked to the task, joined Paul, Katy, Andre and Adel in moving a pile of wood to make space for a new pond. They later switched to a carpentry job with Mani, who came with his toolbox and a saw, hoping to cut the frames for the long-anticipated doors to the Western Road polytunnel. Sevan and Kash, after a picturesque run from Northfields, along with Jags, who had plenty of energy after the parkrun, joined Freya at hay bales. All the hay had to be removed before the next week's council work to make a driveway to the allotment. No more muddy shoes at the next Western Road community day?

Following everyone's favourite samosa break, the GoodGym crew grabbed mattocks and spades to start digging the future pond. The plan was to make it 1.5 m deep. In the meantime, Mani was checking out how the newly cut wooden planks fit as the polytunnel door frame. He went inside and outside Southall's largest polyethene palace.

"Anyone wants to use the sauna?", he asked.

"Soon, we will have a jacuzzi here too!" replied the pond diggers.

Despite not being a massive group, all the volunteers made fantastic progress in transforming Western Road into a prime spa resort! After the task, the GoodGymers, led by Jags, went for a walk to treat themselves to lovely views along the canal and well-deserved coffee.

It's been a year since our first visit to Western Road Urban Garden when we met Janpal from Southall Community Alliance and Ash. Throughout that time, we removed an abundance of broken glass, ceramics and rusty, unidentified objects from the soil alongside the fence. We planted trees and shrubs with Ranger Paul. We've been relocating logs with mighty Andre. We helped Mani set up the new polytunnel. And, of course, we've been treated to samosas!

Today was not too different to our spring community missions in 2023. The site changed massively within 12 months, with the new raised beds, the polytunnel and the surviving hedge by the fence. We didn't win all the battles against the weeds and rubbish. Today, we saw that the invasive vegetation had swallowed a lot of the bare soil we had been digging last year. We had to redo the exercise of turning the soil at the back of the garden. The good news was that we were finding much less unwanted things in the dirt. Sevan, Kash and Richard were still finding pieces of glass and springs from a decomposed mattress, but not bucketloads of them. The roots we dug out today were sparse and not too big - apart from one root!

Steph Ducat and Andre attacked a large tree stump growing by the fence. Apparently, some enthusiastic students had a go at it earlier, but after digging around it and cutting parts of it, they had to give up. It took Steph and Andre an hour to get to the root of the problem and dig out the whole stump. Impressive!

Janpal employed Beata to weed last year's hedge and Anuj to plant new trees. Anuj hadn't been doing anything like that since school years, so he appreciated getting involved in it again. Together with Beata, at the end of the session, they both concluded they had learned something new today. Harvey had the furthest to go and made it to Western Road on time to water all the newly planted trees. He also didn't miss the break for the samosas. That's what we call the perfect timing!

Apart from the work at the urban garden, everyone topped up their GoodGym experience with exercise on the way to the task:

• Sevan, Steph and Kash - a canalside run
• Richard - walk from a different town in the borough
• Anuj and Beata - Osterley parkrun, then a run from there to the task
• Harvey - parkrun in South London

Don't miss our next session at Westen Road in April! Sign up here!

After the morning session at the Western Road Urban Garden, where we were with Mani from Southall Community Alliance working, stayed behind with Adel another volunteer as heard that Mani needed us to help move and plant trees in Southall Green which was nearby. We noticed the trees earlier in the day and thought we were dealing with them at the plot, which was not the case. Six trees were rooting around the entrance to be move to Southall Green to be planted amongst other tress that were previously planted by Mani and the Southall community Alliance. Six trees and six volunteers ready for a move. The team took shovels, wheelbarrows including one with a flat tyre(abandoned) and pure human power to move the trees to the park. Adel and myself lifted one of the bigger trees as in a bag : great gym session. 2 for 1 : 2 volunteers per tree so 1st round we started digging holes to be able to plant the fruit trees. We hit stones, rocks and bricks!!! Round 1 : volunteers victory. Returned to the plot to get the 2nd round of trees which were bigger and heavier!! We swapped the wheelbarrows for a trolley and both Adel and myself tackled the enormous tree and carried it 80% of the way then took the trolley as too heavy and we needed to stop often to regain some force. Same action with digging and breaking bricks and ensuring that the trees were settled and stable in their new location : what a tree-t for them. Tree-mendous efforts from the team and great satisfaction of seeing trees in a local park which will have fruit at a later stage.