Three volunteers paced fast over 2km to clear litter at Castlehaven in Camden.

This week I was pleased to welcome back Alex and Oliver after the summer break and to hear about what they have been up to in the past few weeks. Our group run this week was heading over to Castlehaven, a distance of about 1km there and 1km back.

We were feeling fairly energetic this time, so kept up a good pace there, with Alex pointing out how very fast Oliver and I were marching - sorry Alex! At Castlehaven, we were met by Paul, who looks after the gardens and outdoor spaces here. He took us over to the arches, where we were shown a very impressive selection of professional litter-picking tools (I was possibly a little over-excited by this). With our litter pickers and bags-in-hoops in hand, we made our way out to the open space and gradually worked along the edges and paths, gathering any discarded rubbish as we went.

The space was surprisingly clean but, after just over half-an-hour of scouring, we had all managed to half fill our individual bags, not bad eh?! Next week we will return here to clear the leaves, which will now need to be kept on top of as autumn appears. Good work chaps!

Two runners took to the streets of Camden, braving some drizzle to stride the 1km to Alara Wholefoods.

Yes, drizzle. After a few weeks of hot, hot, hot, we were treated (!) to some refreshing rain. This didn't stop us embracing the great outdoors and striding with purpose towards Camley Street and the wonderful Alara Wholefoods (read their story here, they're pretty special). We were met by Alex, the founder of Alara, who took us around to the beautifully lush orchard and garden, to equip us for the task in hand.

I couldn't help mentioning how incredible the place smells (like freshly baked flapjacks!), which prompted Alex to give us each some muesli to take home - thank you!

Armed with a shovel each and a brush, we wandered around to the impressive compost heap, which is added to and taken from by various community gardens on a regular basis (there were some men with a truck filling up some sacks as we arrived). We could see straight away that the compost had burst its banks a bit and needed persuading back into place, so we set-to on the path and also an area of soil to the back of the heap. Alex pointed out some leafy plants, that looked a bit like sunflowers to me, that were almost up to their necks in compost, which needed easing back, to give them some space to grow. It turns out these are Yacon, a Peruvian root vegetable - have a read here if, like me, you hadn't heard of the plant before!

Once we had shifted and swept, we returned our tools and had a little look around the garden before marching back to Camden Road. Thank you for joining me this week Oliver, I hope to see you again soon.