Good Gym are a hardy bunch. After various parkruns in the rain 3 of us made our way to Hatcham Gardens on the New Cross-Peckham border to help local volunteers with some tree planting. The Orchard Project is an amazing project that aims to help local groups plant and maintain community orchards in urban areas.

Despite the best efforts of the weather to suggest otherwise, we’re living in a warming world and alongside planting more common species, the selection of trees included species more common to warmer climes, including persimmon, apricot and fig.

Lewis from the project team gave us some very precise instructions and soon we were at work digging and breaking up harder earth with a worryingly named tool called The Persuader. Once the holes were dug mycofungus was added to help link the trees to the wood-wide web. Next up was staking, fencing and mulching and the orchard was ready to start providing an amazing resource for the local community.