Holgate Community Garden group are trying to tidy and sort the garden over the winter ready for bringing some new life to the garden with planting in the spring. 5 of us from Goodgym helped out with their gardening session. David, Ed and Paul completely emptied one of the three large compost bins and spread the compost onto the beds. There was lots of healthy compost and worms and a few other interesting items including an item of clothing! The bin was warped and at an angle so we flattened the ground when it was emptied and reset the bin for future use. A large rat poked its head out of the second bin to see what they were doing but decided not to stick around. Cara spread out the compost and sheared around the beds. Laura helped with a range of tasks including moving a tree and removing rubbish out of the compost. The gardening session was very successful and the group were really grateful for our help.

In January we had weeded around the play train at Holgate Community Garden ready for bark chip to be laid. However with this being delayed, the area had gone back to grass and weed. The council agreed to provide bark chip if the weeds were cleared so we were called in to the rescue. In 45 mins we managed to clear most of the weeds around the train leaving only a short amount left to do. We welcomed Olivia Olivia who has recently moved to York to her first Goodgym task. Luckily she wasn't too put off by the strange topics of conversation and joined some of us in the Fox Beer Garden at the end.

We welcomed Aimee from Newcastle Goodgym who joined us to help tidy up the Community Garden for the Community Picnic later in the day. Aimee and Laura weeded the long bed whilst Stef trimmed the long grass around the trees and David collected all the cuttings and weeds in the wheelbarrow. After an hour the garden looked much tidier ready for the picnic.

Five GG Yorkies met on a breezy but sunny Friday afternoon to help tidy up at Holgate Community Garden. We welcomed newbie Clare to her first GG session - welcome Clare! GoodGym have worked on this area many times over the years and it was lovely to see it in the sunshine, bearing lots of flowers, lovely wild areas with interesting grasses and several fruit trees.

We got to work along the one border, pulling up the "bad weeds", trimming shrubs that had flowered, removing brambles and tidying up the edges. I trimmed back some honeysuckle from around the noticeboard which was completely covered and then trimmed the grass from around one of the fruit tree signs - turns out it was a Nashi Pear 🍐 - Niitaka.

After an hour we had filled several barrows full of weeds which were put onto the compost heap and the area looked a lot neater and tidier. I'm sure we will be back to tackle more of the "bad weeds" soon.

*Unfortunately there wasn't anyone called Dick (or Richard although we did have a Dave) but it made a good pun!

Two goodgymers made a start in tackling a very overgrown community garden with the help of Ruth Jenaway from Edible York. David trimmed the grass around the Beds and tree signs whilst Laura got to work tackling some of the weeds and grasses that were swamping the pollinator flowers in the long bed. The sticky weed had definitely been thriving in the absence of recent gardening sessions. Ruth brought her expertise to help prune the Rosemary and tie up some of the roses and other trailing plants and provide advice as well as weeding. Despite there only being 3 of us there was a definite impact.

A team of hardy GoodGymers defied Storm Isha to head out for another night of digging and weeding. We started the night by celebrating not one but two people hitting milestones, with Lyndseycompleting her 50th good deed and Martin doing his 100th. Great work guys 💪. There was also a round of applause for Max becoming the first person to complete the January challenge bingo (who'd have thought it!?!?) and for all those who completed the Brass Monkey half at the weekend including a big PB for Paul Kelly

We then split into two groups with Ed leading the run out to Heslington Lane for another night of soil inversion for the long stretch of soon-to-be wildflower verge. I have a feeling we're going to be back to this task quite a bit! Jamie, Anna and Stef started where we'd left off last Monday, whilst Jenna, Mitch Max and Lucy got to work slightly further down. The soil was a lot claggier (is that a word?) than our last outing in sub-zero conditions, so the going was somewhat slower and shoes a fair bit muddier. But we preserved and made good progress regardless.

Michal led the rest of the group out to another session at Holgate Community Garden. Here's what he had to say...

10Goodgymers departed from our meeting location, 12 were at the task and 6 came back. We never leave anyone behind…. I promise. On the way to the task we ran through some back alleys to Laura’s house where husband David was waiting for us with a selection of hoes, forks big and small, brooms and other gardening tools ready for the task in a wheelbarrow. From there it was a short walk to the play area/community garden where the task was to dig out weeds around the wooden play equipment frame in preparation for a layer of bark chippings - our next task.

After about 20min of light weeding and chatting we moved to the swing basked and raised bed for an inpromptu fitness circuit featuring swinging in the basket, pushing the basket swing, broom handling, log lifting, lunges, wide squats, star jumps, triceps dips, bench jump overs and incline push-ups. “Accurately” measured 40sec repetition of each exercise before moving to another was perfectly done by each and every one of the 12 goodgymers present. My watch said 9min50sec when I pressed the stop button making our maths spot on. Right?

After that dose of exercise we made our way back to CVS, had time to stretch, chat about GG badges and if you would re-mary your ex to get a GG badge - that is if there was such a badge, stretch more, more chat before the second group arrived. Apparently they were running late, but what do I know?