Holgate Community Garden are working hard to get on top of the weeds and cutting back in the garden ready for the spring so yet again Goodgym joined them for their monthly gardening together session. As Nicky had to get back to Harrogate after coming to York for the morning task, David, Laura and Nicky started the task 45 minutes early and were joined at 2pm by Jane and other people from the local area. We met Hannah, who had heard of GoodGym through a friend, and is hoping to join us at a group run session soon. Nicky cleared the dead leaves from the strawberry bed and weeded around it. Jane cleared the grass roots from one of the other beds ready for planting before helping with the long bed that Laura had been working on with others. David did some clearing and drew a plan of the garden, marking in the trees and bulb locations so the group know where to plant more bulbs in the Autumn. It was great to spot all the bulbs coming up giving a real sense that spring was coming soon and we found and replanted quite a few more bulbs that were just under the surface. In the end, as it was a lovely sunny afternoon, we were down for 2 hours between us rather than the one planned and made great progress.

You definitely know it's January when the bad weather increases numbers on a task due to other commitments being cancelled! As it was a bit snowy to do any gardening most of the group got to work clearing the paths. Leanne and David found some grit and gritted the steps of the pedestrian bridge before bringing some back to the garden where we gritted the cleared paths to stop them icing over. In the meantime Claire ad Alastair had brought a long tool to attempt to rescue some of the 3 half lids that had gone over the wall. They heroically climbed into the compost and rescued all 3 lids before reattaching them and putting them back on the bins. Finally we all enjoyed some brownies that David had brought. Debs continued after the task to do a further good deed by gritting the rest of the foot bridge to the cinder track and steps down the other side!

Three of us helped three other members of the Holgate Community garden group to continue clearing and trimming back ready for planting in the spring. We welcomed Lace Alacia to her first Goodgym session. David continued with the compost while Lace and Laura cut back the trimmed and weeded along the long bed. We spent time cutting back the raspberry canes, sage, rosemary and lavender, taking out the plants that had gone too woody. It was great to see the progress that had been made by the end of the hour.

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.