Two runners made it to Growing Better this afternoon to help out.

Due to the continued COVID situation they've had to entirely reconsider their priorities, as a non-profit organisation, they've had to adapt to no longer being able to count on sales to restaurants of their micro-greens to sustain other activities.

This meant that the steel racking shelving that bolted into the container that supported their hydoponics systems needed unbolting and dissasembling, the lights removing and everything stacking so that they can utilise the space for the next stage as they change their priorities and make space for some new placement students coming to help them develop the business plan.

Due to being indoors we had to keep numbers to a minimum, and were masked up, muffled, and distancing throughout, but we're assured of new outdoor tasks on the horizon allotment once we're through the cold patch at least!

3 of us met up at Growing Better today, then after a bit 7, then 8 and yet another one of us took a bit of a diversion purely out of the kindness of their heart just to follow up on a previous task and check up on the trees over at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm 😬 - we missed you Minnie - next time!!

As is tradition at Growing Better it was muddy with a capital MUD, Dorota had a couple of different tasks for us tonight, replanting the 'donor' saplings that we'd temporarily planted up on the allotment, (way back in January) over towards the muddy bank to the side of the new road. Easier said than done, coupled with a solid layer of hardcore in places, we worked it out with Katie and Carol digging out the donor trees and Tom and Rob planting these all out with all of us doing the final push to get them in the ground whilst the other group waited for us to finish up

At the drier end of the site - the guys cleared out trays of seedlings and plants, and then dug out the overflowing compost bins and filled the raised bed for planting out.

Honorary GoodBoyGymmer Reuben did his absolute best to help/get in the way/dig up the plants, but ended up becoming best friends with Liam and sneaking in to the finish photo.

*Shocking quality photos are mine, good ones by everyone else!

Six of us met up at Waitrose in Meanwood to get out there and spread the news about their volunteering, services and Veg Box offering.

We quickly split into pairs and each took an (inevitably) uphill road to deliver to and then aimed to meet at the top.

Carol & Rob undertook a scientific study as to the effectiveness of a silicone spatula vs the traditional wooden spoon when leaflet (I wood guess you can predict the outcome)

Good to see Mike back for his second task! and we even bumped into another GG Leedsie on route who's not been for a while so he's now gone off to keep an eye out for new tasks and we hope to see him soon!

50 or so minutes later we'd distributed 500-odd leaflets and all met back at the bottom of the hill - till next time!

*also, definitely not trusting me to take the photos next time...

Okey-croaky† - Seven runners braved the pending gloom of a rainy afternoon for our toadally† awesome first anniversary task (toad† you we'd make it to a year!) , traditionally as we were going to Growing Better it was decidedly damp all afternoon, but still not the mudfest we're used to..

Despite leaving a few builders bags of sand and gravel about as decoys to confuse us, our task today was actually to dig over the area in the allotment between the Veg Patch◊ and the donor trees that we planted many moons back. 7 Goodgymmers plus Aaron from Growing Better made short work of this, partly due to letting Alex loose with a mattock (!) (luckily no-one was wearing open-toad† running shoes)

This was followed by dragging the weed mats back into place to kill off the thistles and to weigh it down again as much as possible, whilst Reuben tried his best to help/investigate/drag Dorota across the allotment.

Task thoroughly done we returned to the car park to scrape mud off our shoes but we didn't froget† to celebrate so a bit of celebratory cake in the twilight was the order of the day.

Hopefully this has been ribetting† enough to keep you reading,

◊ No, i'm not entirely sure why I capitalised this either..

† Oh, and Katie found a Toad..

So, a good day for it this time, the rain yesterday hadn’t turned everything quite to a total mudbath as feared, two tasks were on the cards for today – Group one set off transporting wheelbarrows and builders bags full of compost from the back of the container round to the bay we helped build a few weeks ago.

I can be a spreader (Damu)

Group two moved up to the allotments to help weed out as much as they could between the ACTUAL VEGETABLES GROWING IN THE ALLOTMENT(!!) definitely the first time we’ve seen evidence of it transforming from a patch of mud, in the dark, covered in plastic sheeting, with rocks on it, to an allotment – great to see!! Rachel managed to hunt down the Courgette of Destiny which she promptly presented to Jenny.

Really good to see Ellie and Bethany joining us today – you’re welcome back anytime! Also great to see Amy back on UK soil, and joining us again from York. Under duress, I was tracked down and finally forced to wear the cape of good deeds, and having checked the next recipient it’s likely to come down to either Katy, or Amy if she comes over from the dark side..

Following this we had an absolute blast round the assault course that none of us had really noticed before, there aren't many missions where you that get to do that! Looking forward to a head torch version in a few weeks time ;)

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Having definitely tempted fate, it wasn’t raining, we hardly saw any mud, and we discovered there’s a climbing tower at the community centre!! having never seen it in daylight before, so after a few months ‘rest’ 7 of us reconvened at Growing Better to do what we do best – kill plants! Not quite, but Dorota explained that given the adjustments that the community centre were going to go through they were doing much more outside activities and they wanted to clear the stretch of foliage next to their container and start building a raised bed so that they could do some gardening activities a bit closer than the allotments.

Enough said – all set to work, lopping, chopping, and up-rooting the remnants of the roots. The wood chip was cleared to a pile, and a builders bag full of tree was generated for chipping later in the week. Rob singlehandedly took on an ant colony and won, Sleepers were moved to form the outline of the raised bed and it’s ready for filling.

Dorota gave us a quick tour of the allotment and surrounding areas – (most) of our trees were surviving and at least 40% of the pallet fence is still standing - they’ve got some veg in the ground and plenty of tasks for us in future weeks :)