Last Saturday, before the 10th anniversary celebration of GoodGym Ealing, our gang joined the Hanwell and Norwood Green Orchard Trail (HANGOT) to cut back orchard hedges and water young trees at the Elthorne Triangle Orchard.

But what about the older trees? How were they going to survive the extreme drought that has been affecting London since the end of June, especially with Hilary and Clive from HANGOT away for a week in August?

The GoodGymmers offered to take care of the mature trees in the Elthorne Triangle orchard, and, thanks to Ranger Jon, they were given access to 10 five-litre water containers. According to Hilary, that was just the right amount of water to keep the trees going that week.

What better excuse to perform the farmer’s walk routine than carrying containers to water fruit trees in a public orchard! And that’s exactly what the GoodGymmers did, hauling and tipping the containers around the orchard. It was the hottest day of the week, with temperatures reaching 37°C, but with five pairs of hands on the job, the task was short and easy, taking less than 20 minutes. In fact, a significant percentage of that time was spent simply opening the storage space where the containers lived!

The GoodGymmers decided to add a bonus task: weighted step-ups on the steps leading from the canal to Elthorne Park. Since the ranger had provided a bucket, funnel and rope, they also decided to fill the empty water containers with water from the canal, ready for the next time the trees needed watering.

The five GoodGymmers also used the session as an excuse for some extra light exercise on that very hot day. Scott cycled, Richard, Sevan and Steph Ducat ran, and Kash walked. It was a great way to get out of the house or work and into the outdoors, making the most of the golden hour before sunset.

In recent years, GoodGym Ealing's birthday celebration has lined up with a morning session with HANGOT, trimming the hedge at The Piggeries orchard. Today was a little different as the ongoing drought added some extra jobs to the To Do list, watering the trees in 3 orchards!

Steph and Jo volunteered to haul buckets of water out of the canal, over the lip, onto the towpath and into a 100 litre bowser. They then wheeled the bowser to each orchard when full to fill watering cans.

The water carriers first covered Bernd's Orchard as it was close to HANGOT's base of operations, then they moved to Elthorne Triangle. This was the toughest orchard to water as it was up a steep hill from the canal and the pair spent the longest time here watering 7 young trees. Next was The Piggeries where everyone else was trimming hedges, then finally back to HANGOT's base to fill the bowser, ready for use in a few days. Great work Steph and Jo, you're made of tough stuff and walked over 3km during the task too!

While Steph and Jo were doing the tough work with buckets, the rest of the team was having fun giving the hedges a short top and sides at The Piggeries to keep the orchard looking neat and maintained. One group of hedge trimmers were full of giggles and cheer. Had they started the party early? They claimed not. They were having a great time working as a team, pairing up with shears and loppers to cut and grab thick branches growing through the top of the hedge.

The cutting back gave passers by more space to use the canal towpath safely, so many people walking past thanked the team and one even brought some cool drinks to share around. All that was left to do was rake the cuttings to complete the job. That sounds easier than it was as so much had been taken off the hedges that it took many trips to the compost pile to finish the morning's task. The results left task owner Clive impressed:

"I'm really surprised that we've managed to do the hedges and watering. Thank you!"

The last task to tick off was to walk to Brent Lodge Park. There the team met GoodGymers old and new to celebrate a decade of GoodGym Ealing supporting organisations like HANGOT and older individuals in our borough.

It was more kitty then snippy at the start of our monthly session with HANGOT today. As we walked the tools from HANGOT's base to Osterley Lock Orchard, Steph and Andrew found a cat owner in distress. The pair helped the owner get back onto their bike and later, Melissa saw the cat and the human lazing by the canal 😺.

When the team got to the orchard, everything had shot upwards since their last visit 4 months ago and the ground was covered with nettles and brambles. Those needed to be cleared from around the trees and at the back, there was a damaged plum tree to take care of too.

Steph and Andrew went straight for the log moving task at the plum tree. It turned out to be some big branches that needed to be cut down to size and moved to the compost heap. With the help of some HANGOT saws, the dead wood and weeds were cleared and the tree patched up, with the hope that the tree will recover and continue to give fruit.

Melissa, Scott and Sevan roamed around the rest of the orchard, clearing rings around each of the fruit trees. They chopped, they raked and they moved the brambles, nettles and other weeds to the compost pile, completing their work on most of the fruit trees. Cutting away the rival plants meant that the trees could take all of the nutrients and rain (if there'll be any) that they needed from the soil, instead of having to share it with the growing blackberries.

Today was the last session for long time HANGOT leaders Mirjam and Frank who are moving out of the area. Mirjam was the task owner when GoodGym Ealing were introduced to the group and they've influenced how HANGOT has developed and thrived. The relationship with GoodGym was handed over to another HANGOT member, Clive, a few months ago and new leaders are now in place, but Mirjam and Frank's departure marks a changing of the guard at the orchards.

As it happened, the person who founded HANGOT 11 years ago came back to volunteer at today's session. As she and Clive caught up about the many changes and moments of luck and difficulty over the years, Clive was heard to say:

"We couldn't have kept going without GoodGym."

...and he said it because he believed it. Not because Sevan was sitting next to him.

GoodGym's first visit to Blackberry Corner since October showed a huge transformation. Through spring, things had sprung. Mostly weeds around the fruit trees. HANGOT's Orchard Love day for May looked to clear space around the trees so that they could feed off all of the precious sunlight and water that hit the orchard.

HANGOTers scythed the paths first, with everyone staying out of the way of the swishing blades. Once they'd passed, GoodGymers got rolling with their shears, quickly chopping 2 metre wide circles around the tree trunks. Nettles, grass, cleavers and hemlock were wiped out with each snip. The animal lovers in the group found lots of ladybirds, spiders and snails, which they moved to safety before removing the weeds that they'd been sitting on. Rakers followed the choppers, moving the cuttings into large piles to dry out.

After the trees were given some breathing room, the team moved onto cutting back a large overgrown area at the far side of the orchard and also digging out burdock and hemlock, which needed regular and sustained removal to eventually kill them.

The tasks were completed quickly thanks to a lot of volunteers and a desire to get off to today's Hanwell Hootie music festival. A couple of the ladybirds had the same idea. Rather than searching for a new home in the orchard, they decided to hitchhike on a bag to go on a journey of musical discovery via a coffee stop.

Today was the day for GoodGym's annual spring session in Elthorne Triangle with HANGOT. Like previous years, the aim was to prepare the fruit trees and walnut tree in the orchard to give the local community the best chance of picking some fruit in the summer. The difference this year was that the 10 amazing GoodGymers present blitzed through the task with half an hour to spare.

The session started with a GoodGym classic, mulching! Unlike last month's session with HANGOT, the wood chip was sitting at the top of the hill instead of the bottom, so today team had the slightly easier task of wheeling it down to the trees in need and spreading it around the trunks.

In the orchard, Mirjam, one of the long running HANGOT members, was giving GoodGymers and others lessons about the orchard. They learned some interesting facts about the weeds that the team were tackling:

"You can tell this is hemlock because of the purple splodges on its stems."
"Where you see it, there can be up to 7 years worth of seeds in the ground already."
"That means we need to catch it early, before it seeds, for 7 years to kill it off." - Mirjam

So all of the hemlock and burdock, no matter how small, needed to be found and chopped. Iram took special pleasure in slicing young burdock stems after being attacked by it at last month's task. Surprisingly, the team also learned that nettles are actually good for something:

"The nettles are good for increasing biodiversity."
"That will enable children to come to the orchard as an educational space." - Mirjam
"Do you mean educating them not to touch the nettles?" - Sevan

Despite the breaks taken for bad jokes, the team made fast progress. With the areas around the trees mulched and the unwanted weeds chopped, everyone was wondering what the next job was. There wasn't one. The team had ticked off everything on HANGOT's list in a hour, so they went early to a local coffee shop for today's social.

Great work everyone!

On another HANGOT day, the sun came out to play. That was good news for the team as they would find out later. With most of the group present, the HANGOT and GoodGym volunteers took a long walk along the Grand Union Canal to Osterley Lock Orchard, where the fruit trees needed a good mulch and dead plants needed to be cleared.

The team put their 4 wheelbarrows to work, with Ashley, Steph and Kash joining HANGOT volunteer Mas in filling wood chip into wheelbarrows and shuttling it to the orchard at Osterley Lock, where Iram, Sophie and Sevan were ready to remove weeds, spread the wood chip and chop back any dead plants.

"I have a small challenge if you'd like it."
"Can GoodGym take mulch to the terrace?"
"It's at the top of the hill, so we don't often go there." - Hillary

That did sound like a challenge. None of the GoodGymers had been to the terrace before though, so no one knew where the hill was how how difficult it would be to get to the top. At that moment, Shubham and Purva arrived for their first GoodGym task, joining the others to power wheelbarrows up the muddy path to the sun-drenched orchard up the hill. Welcome to you both! 👋

With mulching of the terrace trees complete, everyone gathered to celebrate 🎊 Iram's 50th good deed 🎊. The only snag was that Iram's epic battle with burdock had left her covered in burrs and she needed some emergency hairdressing, expertly performed by Ash. Iram achieved the "black belt" sash under a year since she started attending tasks, then writing creative reports, leading tasks and finally promoting GoodGym through the videos that she creates and shares online. That's some journey. The coveted black GoodGym t-shirt will be heading Iram's way soon. Congrats Iram! 🥳

Everyone returned to the main orchard for some speed mulching and chopping in the last few minutes of the session. Then, it was time for the group photo and a walk through Elthorne Park to a local coffee shop for social and some refreshments.

We'll be back helping HANGOT in April for our regular monthly session. Sign up here.