Sabir went back to Canbury Community Gardens and sorted all the branches that he had chopped down on Tuesday. Great work, Sabir!

Tonight’s GoodGym adventure took our group in two directions - to Canbury Community Gardens and Latchmere Park.

The Latchmere Park task was quite straightforward - fill 5 planters with compost. Just a small matter that the compost was in 3 1/2 ton sacks about 100m away from the planters! Emily, Ken, Laura, Petra and Dave donned their gloves and proceeded to fill and empty countless wheelbarrows. the time flew and the task completed with 5 mins to spare. Off to the pub!

Slightly more involved at Canbury Gardens with compost to turn, an elderflower tree to tackle, watering to do and gardening to squeeze in before darkness descended.

Claire kicked things off with an excellent briefing, particularly impressive given the jet lag from her recent trip to Korea! Rachel then provided an unexpected highlight by confidently picking up one of the resident chickens. Despite never having held a chicken before, she looked like a natural, comparing it to picking up her three-legged cat. The chicken seemed perfectly content! 🐔

Luke, Saber and Jonathan got stuck into turning the compost, while also attempting to secretly sign Rachel’s birthday card without her noticing.

Meanwhile, Jana and Marie-Noëlle gave the dead elderflower tree a giant haircut. Marie-Noëlle wielded the enormous loppers on the larger branches, carefully avoiding the tomatoes below, while Jana tackled the smaller ones. Saber later took over with a saw and ended up up the tree, prompting a few concerned looks as we watched his balancing act! 🌳😂

Claire tracked down the wheelbarrows and collected water from the river with Rachel, who later became our human lighting department as daylight disappeared.

Jana then tackled one final job, digging a hole for a donated berry bush, which we just about managed to get planted and watered before darkness took over. 🌱

With everything wrapped up, Claire entertained us with tales from Korea.

Compost turned, tree dramatically restyled, water collected, bush planted, chicken cuddled and birthday card covertly signed, another productive and slightly chaotic GoodGym evening! 💪🌿🐔

Tonight we were back at our old favourite Canbury Gardens and despite rain horizon there was still lots of watering to do both at GoodGym flowerbed and in the Community Garden.

Sabir, Luke, Dave, Tom and Jonathan filled bucket upon bucket with water and hauled them across the park to Louise, Hannah, Amy and Claire who watered all the plants.

Meanwhile Marcos was busy filling up the waterbutts from the water as it was delivered.

By the end we had a great system going and waterbutts 4,5,6,7 and 8 were filled up ready for watering by the Community Garden volunteers.

After picking a few tomatoes and beans it was time to head home.

This morning Sabir and myself were once again at the riverside to collect water to help the produce to accumulate. He enjoyed collecting his tomatoes.

Duo GoodGamers Sabir and Marie-Noëlle joined the weekend gardener squad down at Canbury Community Garden.

In the 3-round main event, H2O heavyweight Sabir lugged water using a wheelbarrow, a water barrel, and a bucket to refill the garden's main reserve. It was an absolute knockout victory over dehydration!

Undefeated by the high temperature, Marie-Noëlle completed a staggering 18-round watering can marathon to refresh the sun-baked vegetable patch. 💦 tomatoes drenched
💦 courgettes submerged
💦 cucumbers flooded
💦 runner beans absolutely soaked
A successful backyard hydration mission!

Tonight was all about watering as the heatwave continues to keep everyone and the plants hot and thirsty.

Having located the handle for the water carriers and extra buckets Dave, Luke, Claire and Jonathan headed to the river to fill every bucket, wheelbarrow and watering can in sight.

Wheelbarrows loaded with water were wheeled over to the GoodGym flowerbed for watering all the plants to keep it looking colourful and keep them going for a few more days.

Meanwhile the water carriers were taken to the community garden and emptied into the waterbutts. As fast as they were filled they were emptied for watering all the vegetables.

By the end it was a slick operation emptying the water carriers into buckets and into the waterbutts.

In between all of this Tom and Laura managed to give the compost heaps a good turn as well.

Let hope we get some rain before our next visit.