Currying on with the harvest

6 Goodgymers helped their local community in Ealing
Max Donen
Julie Tennick
Augustin Lagarde
StephDucat
Kash
Sevan
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Ealing

Saturday 2nd August

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StephDucat
StephDucat

PHOTOGRAPHER

Kash
Kash

SESSION ORGANISER

REPORT WRITER

PHOTOGRAPHER

Sevan
Sevan

PHOTOGRAPHER

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Report written by Kash

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Six eager GoodGymers were the reason why Joseph, the owner of Grape & Honey Farm, abandoned his 60 kg of freshly made damson jam and 80 litres of damson wine (”fermenting as we speak”), to meet our team in Greeford and let us into the urban garden. Joseph is a good neighbour of the community site, now managed by Heston Lions, where vegetables are grown and donated to places like the foodbank in Acton. He showed us around and explained what needs to be done in August.

- Who has small fingers? - Joseph
- Me. - Kash
- Have you ever pollinated a dudhi? - Joseph

Joseph explained the difference between male and female flowers and how to pollinate them, then took us into the polytunnel to surprise us with an abundance of produce. He told us about how many vegetables an urban garden could produce in the summer, and that it was impossible to keep up with that amount if not attending to the harvesting task every day.

- This garden could feed a family of 80. Do you have a family of 80? If I lived here, I wouldn’t need to go to the shop to buy fresh food. I’d just put a chicken coop in here.
- Do you have chickens?
- I had a few hens and four cocks. But the cocks kept crowing in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep, so I curried three of them.
- Do you mean: carried them? Away?
- No. I've put them in a curry. Cooked.

Luckily, we didn’t have to deal with chasing and converting noisy cockerels into meals. The main task was to pick up excess courgettes, marrows, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Gus, feeling like a combine harvester today, after scouring for blackberries through thorny brambles at the earlier session, committed to that job. Sevan and Steph also stayed in the polytunnel - to weed the veg beds and tie the okra and tomato vines to stakes or even to a system of strings hanging from the metal arches - a network carefully designed by Sevan, who had learned that method at Western Road. Steph and Gus later joined the rest of the team outside.

The outdoor team, busied with weeding, consisted of Jules, Max, and Kash. It was yet another surprise comeback from Jules, who this time donned her red t-shirt. For Max, the urban garden afternoon session was his first GoodGym task. He had joined us for the team lunch at Horsenden earlier, and for a chatty walk through the woods to the afternoon task - the best way to get to know us!

One of the Heston Lions joined us that Saturday: Superna, who brought us water and snacks, then got busy harvesting and watering the plants. It was nice to see her again. We are hoping to see more Lions - and even more GoodGymers - at our next visit to the Greenford garden!


This task supported
Feeding Ealing CIC
Creating an urban allotment to grow fresh food for local charities.

We're planning to erect a poly-tunnel and growing beds to produce fresh vegetables for local charities.

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Ealing

Cutting back burdock before it gets nasty - group run to Elthorne Park
🗓Tomorrow 6:45pm

Get fit and do good all in one in one of Ealing's fab parks!

KashStephDucatSevanFreya O'Sullivan
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