Sunny Saturday we joined Marilyn at Canbury Community Garden to help with a few chores. Taking on the dreaded bindweeds, doing general weeding around the vegetable beds, topping up the compost heap with the weeds we shredded. and giving the garden a good soak with water fetched from the river. The team filled all the garden containers with more river water ready for the coming weeks whilst keeping an eye on the chicken trying to make a run for it.

Canbury community garden opened in 2016 and very soon after they introduced the first flock of hens.

This week’s task saw us making the most of the lighter evenings with a lovely outdoor gardening session. Some of us ran, others walked or cycled, but we all met for a productive evening in two local green spaces: Canbury Community Garden and our nearby GoodGym garden.

With a big group on hand, we got loads done. One of the main jobs was reinforcing the sides of some well-worn raised beds that were bursting with growing vegetables - Marie-Noelle and Emily took on this key task.

With water levels in the Community Garden’s rain butts already dropping, Luke, Dave, Yana, Sabir and Emma wheeled barrels over to the Thames, collecting water in buckets to fill the barrels which were then wheeled back and stored in the flower beds for future use.

Meanwhile, Ana, Emily and Jana tackled the massive compost heap, giving it a good turning over. Sabir, Yana and Dave got stuck into weeding duties.

Over at the GoodGym garden, Claire, Luke and Emma checked on this flourishing space—full of tulips, daffodils, and established shrubs—taking care of deadheading, weeding, and with Claire making plans for future planting.

This was a Workout for Nature, a physical volunteering task supporting local green spaces in celebration of Earth Day, as part of a collaboration with WWF.

Great work, team!

On Saturday Emily and Alexis joined Marylin and Peter at Canbury Community Garden to lend a hand with a few jobs and for some birthday treats. They mixed in top soil with compost, dug up nettles to prepare a the soon to be tomato bed, transferred topsoil to another new vegetable bed and levelled the ground, the hens swiftly moved in to scratch away. Helped Peter move heavy furniture out of the shed and into the visitor’s corner. Marie-Noelle joined them later on and helped finish the weeding We shared some Pain d'Epices treats Marylin had brought back from France to celebrate her birthday 🎂 🥳 and distributed a bouquet of nettles to the hens.

Saturday morning 6 GoodGymers were back at Canbury Community Garden to help Marilyn transfer the old compost into the new bins at the shady end of the garden. Team 1 prepared the new compost bin area under the watchful eye of resident Robin. Team 2 dug up the old compost pile, giving it a good stir and wheelbarrowed it over to the new bins. The four hens helper soon dived in, scratching for food and wriggly treats. The old bins will soon be torn down to make way for some new planters!

Tonight's task was split in two - One team at the Canbury Gardens Community Garden and the other at Kingston GoodGym's plot just a couple of hundred metres away.

Claire, Julie, Marcos and Tom headed to our GoodGym flower bed where we found a big mound of woodchip waiting for us. After clearing away a few pesky weeds that had come up since our last visit, we spread bucketfuls of woodchip around the plants to keep them warm and cosy over winter. We even had some time left over to clear up the surrounding weeds. We left the bed looking lovely and tidy with lots the flowering plants still looking very colourful.

Meanwhile, Luke, Jane, Rachel, Helen & Dave cracked on helping the ever-lovely Marilyn with the Canbury Community Garden. The compost needed turning and a huge pile of vines and plant waste had to be chopped before making it viable for the compost heap. As always, many hands made light work with this task and we were on to the next - pruning some of the larger weeds around the area. It was during this task that we randomly found a massive bag of seafood mix - scallops, fish, octopus, shrimps... One packet, 'sole'ly on it's own - we were all shell-shocked! I'm clamming up about how good these puns are.

A HUGE congrats to Tom on achieving 100 good deeds. You ran with the cape and crown like a champ! King for the day :)

Our superhero GoodGymer, Marie-Noëlle, swooped back into Canbury Community Garden on this bright & sunny Saturday, ready to save the day! With Marilyn & Mary, they tackled an old container full of rusty & dirty goodies. After vanquishing 70 chairs and a mountain of junk, they unleashed the compost bins and sent those old, broken pallets packing. Who knew gardening could be such a wild adventure?