A wonderful light evening, sunshine and a brand new project to help - It must be a goodgym Tuesday.

Tonight was our first visit to Grow Cardiff's newest project at Grange Medical Centre, the space that they have been given is very large with great potential......We will certainly be having a return trip here. Grow Cardiff have been going since June 2015, and have some really inspiring community gardens set up around the city.

Their mission is to inspire people to use community gardening not only to grow fantastic vegetables, herbs, trees and flowers, but through this to build caring and inclusive communities where everyone can thrive.

With such goals, goodgym are a great group to get involved and help.

It was a shorter run than usual, but with so much to do the added volunteering time was useful. Our jobs for the evening were,

• remove the layer of manure from the garden and move it to the compost heap
• build a compost heap
• remove all grass and weeds from the seating and pathways
• litter pick
• lay cardboard and woodchip on pathways

We had nice new gloves ready to wear and all the tools needed for the jobs, so it was straight to work. We got to meet a few of the locals who were also going to get involved with the project, nice to see the project already gaining volunteers. After 40 minutes of shovelling, wheelbarrow moving, pulling of plants and laying of woodchip it was time to step back and see the results of our efforts. There was a very visible difference to the plot today, and a great feeling of satisfaction.

Thanks to all, Grow Cardiff for task and you lovely volunteers to help spread the goodgym joy.

Get signed up for the next task here, as we get our painting task on again

After the downpour and blowy gusts of Tuesday, it was a pleasant change to meet for the first time on a Thursday for our task. The sun was out (even if still a bit nippy) and we were raring to go.

Just a short hop from the start location, the walkers left first whilst the rest waited until 18:30 for everyone. Then the joggers headed off, just a hop, strip and a jump to the task. A much longer day of volunteering tonight, but it would be well worth it - with a whopping 50 minutes of digging.

We were back outside the Riverside Medical Centre, to help on their community garden which is led by Grow Cardiff. The last time we were here was back in January 2022 when we helped to fill their very first - and at the time only raised bed.

What a change

Now with some much new growing space, it really was an oasis of a garden just brilliant for people to get some time to relax and unwind. But that's enough time looking at pretty things, we are here to complete a task!

Today we were going to be laying some wildflower turf, but there was 'prep' work to get done first. So we rolled it out in position, then cut around it with an edging tool, moved the turf back out of the way. Now came the spades, we had to remove the grass that already there so that we could finally put the turf in it's new home.

We got into teams and got down and dirty whilst 'Joined at the strip'. A team removed the old turf in a wheelbarrow as it came flying from all around.

And finally, we were done.

This was our first time helping out with the new community space at Riverside Health Centre, another wonderful project from Grow Cardiff for more social prescribing. We met up at the Church of Saint John the Evangelist in Canton as they were donating some old turf to help fill the raised planters.

We met up with Chris from Grow Cardiff who had the vehicle all ready to load up, there were already boxes and bags of twigs on there, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work, squatting and lifting the rolled up turf. It was a great workout for the morning but we weren't finished yet, just as the turf was all loaded it was time to take a quick jog over to Riverside to unload it.

The planter had already had some larger twigs and old greenery put into them, so we used the smaller twigs, greenery, even an old wreath to fill nay gaps. We packed everything tightly, layered with some leaves and compacted a bit more with feet - like squeezing grapes. Now came to turf, this we off loaded it and unrolled it into the planter until it was all off the vehicle and the planters were a good 3/4 full. Just the compost to go when that arrives for them later on in the week and the planting can begin.

A successful morning well worth a quick break with a coffee and some biscuits.

On our first DOUBLE DEED of the year (January challenge standard), we made our way to our newest task at St. John's Church in Canton.

Our first time here, we were welcomed by Chris who is also going to be using us for another new task next Saturday helping to set up the new community garden at Riverside Health Centre. All part of the wonderful Grow Cardiff's 'Grow Well project'

But back to the task at hand, Andrew was looking after this task and arrived with boxes of bulb and rhizomes. We introduced ourselves as he explained that we were planting in the crescent of the Church land to create an inclusive community garden for everyone to use and enjoy. Some of the local residents had already planted some so we were playing catch up.

We planted a few different things, bluebells, snake's head (fritillaries) and something that looked like twiglets. In just under an hour we had planted everything that had been given to us, so a quick group photo and now we hope for good weather so that they can grow.

Get signed up for next Saturday HERE

Why not come out with us all on Tuesday for a group activity and exercise? Get signed up HERE

Today we returned to the Dusty Forge to help at the gardens out back, the mission to (try) build a compost bin. With plans, wood and tools we made our way to where the old heap used to be. Firstly we measured out the positions of each metal post holder, in accordance with the plans, secondly our resident He-Man (formerly known as Ben) whacked them into the ground. Or at least we thought..........

As we weren't too sure what was under the soil (hindsight is a wonderful thing), we wouldn't have known that they would hit a rock / concrete section - Bending the post holder and then breaking the hammer.

Michael got to work digging the bugger out, whilst Ben and Karolina continued to find a way of hammering the other back posts into place.

Eventually, the posts were(kind of) in the ground, the first one in a large hole that was then fixed in place with postcrete.

We stepped back to look / admire our wonky work. It had taken much longer than anticipated but was at least a start, but now it was time to head home and get some dinners in our bellies.

It was time for a return to our friends at Dusty Forge - a community growing project in Cardiff. After my first 'run' in what feels like forever, I arrived at the project to find that Karolina and Martin were already there.

Claire from Grow Cardiff explained that the plan for this evening was to remove two existing beds and install four raised beds, ideally aligned to each other. The key barrier to doing this was a flourishing rhubarb plant, which had to come up to make way for more vegetables. The plan is that the rhubarb will be planted elsewhere in the gardens.

We got to work and pulled up the existing frames before shifting the compost in situ and digging into the ground to ensure that there was a solid base for the new raised beds. The compost revealed some unusual items, including peanuts and a bird skull! We pulled up some of the weed protecting sheets to make way for the beds and firmly planed them into the ground. Ben had also arrived to help and began weeding the plot too.

Claire told us all about the site. The assumption is that Dusty Forge was once an actual forge before becoming a pub and more recently a community centre. A local food pantry operates from the site with food donated from supermarkets and an open access policy that there is no criteria required to ensure that people in need receive what they need. The growing project supports people in the community to get out and about and involved in growing fruit and vegetables.

We reinstalled the paths between the planters, laying down some more weed proof layering before layering up more wood chip. The raised beds looked good and Claire told us that she'd sourced them from somewhere that was going to dispose of them so a sustainable contribution!

Our time at the task was up and we stood back to peruse the beds, which all looked good. We also shared that the polish word for rhubarb is 'rabarbar' and in Spanish it's 'ruibarbo.'