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.

Nice one Ellie, Josh, Madeline and Ashley for coming on your first GG run - ace to have you along!

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It was all about the gardens today - Ruskin, Styles and Moorlands, all going wild in the Summer heat, so we were on hand to do a bit of taming.

So we had a quick warm up, split into three groups and headed off:

Beth had this to say about her group:

A small but perfectly formed team of six headed to meet Karen at Styles Gardens where she needed a hand tending to the gardens of some residents, as they are currently being overrun with ivy and brambles. We had a selection of tools available, some better than others, and after about half an hour Rebecca and Ashley had been so efficient they moved on to a third garden, with Jim’s words of wisdom about dealing with bracken ringing in their ears. Once we were done we gave Karen a hand taking tools back to Loughborough junction farm and found out about all the exciting projects happening on the site and in the local area.

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Nicky took a group to Moorlands Gardens:

We got to Moorlands to be greeted by Sarah and her team and were quickly set to work doing combinations of digging, chopping and our favourite, bindweed-pulling. After half an hour or so, we'd made two huge piles of bindweed and non-bindweed waste. The team were very pleased and can't wait for us to come back soon.

Good job everyone!

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The rest of us were headed to Ruskin Park Community Garden where we've gradually been ploughing through a long list of jobs there; cutting back a load of brambles, weeding in the fruit cages and moving compost onto the beds.

We then went for a quick brain and body game in the park: Get the fox, chicken and grain up the hill without anything being eaten. Sprints, mixed with some press ups, planks and squats and a warm evening made for a serious (and slightly silly) workout.

We then ran back and went for a drink at the Duke!

Top work GoodGym Lambeth!

See you next week for a little more gardening at Agnes Riley - sign up here.