Nine GoodGymers who visited Western Road on a cloudy Saturday morning were in their element the moment they jumped into action. And the element of the day was water. Somehow, miraculously, it didn't rain in the morning - that, obviously, had to happen at some point. It was the water tanks that served as the theme for the February session at the urban garden.

Firstly, a heavy tank had to be emptied of water and a sludge-like mess, then wheeled on a trolley to a different part of the garden. Secondly, two other water tanks - 1000-litre monsters each - were waiting to be placed in more suitable locations. Our job was to create those appropriate places for them: one high and one low. While Sophie and Afshin were digging a wide hole for one tank, Sevan and Steph were using the dirt extracted by them to build a platform for the other container.

A side quest, not related to water, had Danny, Kash and Steph moving woodchip to a newly planted section of the native hedging, to be raked by Kat and Iram. The fun part? There were only two wheelbarrows, one of them undergoing surgery at the beginning of the session. Once the barrow got a new (puncture-proof!) wheel installed, it got captured by Afshin, who had to move the soil for Sevan, who was building the water tank podium. The woodchippers ended up, again, with a single wheelbarrow between them, but quickly got creative and found some buckets to reduce the need for wheeled transportation.

Lena joined a team (partially including members of Let's Go Southall) whose job was to take down a mound of soil and use the material to even the ground around the polytunnel. And guess which tool was most useful to move the soil? Yes, that extra task meant even more competition for the wheelbarrows!

We managed to do the jobs thanks to teamwork and creativity, then found some time to enjoy fruit and hot and cold drinks in the polytunnel. White strawberries captured the most attention as a curiosity, unseen before by most Ealing GoodGymers.

For half of the eight GoodGymers, who visited Western Road on a chilly Saturday morning, the day started with parkrun. The nearby Southall Park event celebrated its 200th occasion and 4th birthday. Sevan and Steph Ducat couldn't miss the opportunity and ran to volunteer at the parkrun, while Richard, one of the GoodGym new joiners, ran the course. Chris also decided to begin the morning with a parkrun, but his local Gunnersbury one, from where he cycled to Southall. Iram also came on her bike, and Kash ran from Ealing along the canal.

There has already been plenty of activity just to reach Western Road, and the 3-hour session ahead would involve even more exercise. Fortunately, Janpal from Southall Community Alliance, the organiser of the community day at the urban garden, came prepared with a fruit bowl, tea, coffee, pastries and samosas to keep the energy levels high!

The January session meant preparations for the next season's food growing, and our team focused on the central veg bed in the polytunnel. First, we removed last year's stakes and remaining chili plants, and then topped the beds with a super-nutritious mix of three layers:

1. Rich magic soil donated by the police
2. Potent manure, marinated for a year
3. Good, old woodchip

While the rest of the team got busy carrying and tipping bags with soil, Iram and Sophie were picking chili peppers from the bush to save their seeds for growing next season's crops. Despite the temperature in the polytunnel being 5 degrees (so noticeably warmer than outside), chili-picking was brutal for the fingers with no gloves on. Sophie later wholeheartedly welcomed the manure-shovelling as a more dynamic alternative, where she could keep moving and stay warm.

Winter or not, the day brought to the Western Road Urban Garden not only the core crew: Janpal, Paul and Ash, along with the eight GoodGymers, but also a group of volunteers from Let's Go Southall and Mr Bhasin from neighbouring Manor Way Allotments. What a turnout! With such a strong team, we finished not one, but all three veg beds - and all the samosas - in no time! It was great to see guests from GoodGym Hounslow, Chris and Maxime, and welcome Richard and Sophie to our Ealing team.

Ash has shared the plans for the first quarter of the year - one of them involves an exciting shed building project! Meanwhile, our February session will feature clearing the space for the shed and for replanting part of the native hedge. Join us next month to get involved in the bold plans at WRUG. We've been working with them from the start for two years now, and know that visiting the garden regularly is the best way to see the astonishing transformations between the seasons!

The last community day of the year at Western Road Urban Garden brought four mighty GoodGymers for a proper strength workout: dismantling a pile of tree stumps and logs. The task was not only about the fitness pursuits - Janpal, the manager of Southal Community Alliance, laid out his vision of the transformation to come. Firstly, he wanted to create more space for food growing, and the timber mound stood in the way to a perfect location for new veg beds. Secondly, the gaps in the fence between the urban garden and the neighbour’s private property needed fixing, and a natural barrier made of logs seemed like a simple, proven solution. We had built timber walls at Western Road several times before and knew our craft, so we turned into nature’s best engineers once again.

I feel like a beaver doing this - Afshin.

The timber mound was defended by tall nettles. Sevan and Kash had run to the task in the typical GoodGym armor - shorts and t-shirts - which was not best suited for stinging opponents, but, luckily, Paul from Ealing Parks Foundation came to the rescue with a strimmer.

Having secured access to the materials, the GoodGymers made sure the foundations for the Fortress Western Road were strong. Afshin and Kash had to pull out a fence part and a derelict trolley from under ivy overgrowth. The first thing Janpal was going to repurpose, the second was only junk and a reminder of how full of rubbish Western Road had been back when we first started supporting the site.

Two very different approaches to construction dominated the scene this Saturday. The gap in the fence, filled by Ash and Sevan, was built with stumps and thin, long logs shooting to the sky like skyscrapers. It was bold, innovative, and unapologetically vertical. The other wall, erected by Afshin, Kash, and Janpal, was a tribute to stability and tradition, with its unruffled horizontal lines of perfectly slotted large, straight logs.

Just when the masterpieces of contemporary and classical art were finished, Western Road was treated to a visit from Mr Bhasin from Manor Way Allotments, and the volunteers were treated to a feast of veg and meat samosas, tea, coffee, coconut water, and a couple of trays of sweet, fresh fruit. The members of the community, who visited the garden, could help themselves to the last bits of this year's harvest: pumpkins from the polytunnel.

After the break, two GoodGym architecture schools joined forces for the last hour of log lifting, rolling, flipping, and hurling in an effort to clear the timber area entirely. This time, filling the fence gaps resembled a rogue speed-stacking the tree stumps and covering them with smaller twigs and sticks that had to be used up, too. Eventually, Fortress Western Road stood strong, protecting its newly acquired, valuable growing grounds. It will remain unconquered by anyone - maybe apart from the local fox!

We are pausing the Western Road sessions for a December break, but we will be back early in the new year, in January, February, and March. We’ve got the dates - save them now!

This October, our usual third Saturday of the month, dedicated to Western Road Urban Garden, turned into a celebration of the end of the growing season. With the harvest already collected, all that was left was a tidy-up and throwing a party afterwards!

The atmosphere in Southall was buzzing with the upcoming Diwali festivities. It was a fantastic time to join GoodGym and Southall Community Alliance at a very special community day. Deepak decided to do exactly that. Welcome to the team, Deepak!

With eight GoodGymers to help the urban garden this Saturday, Janpal and Paul scrambled to provide them with a variety of light and heavier tasks. Steph Ducat, Ash, Afshin, Kash and Sevan, together with a good friend from previous WRUG sessions, Andre, and a new volunteer, Sangheeta, chose a tricky task of moving timber stacked alongside the polytunnel. The planks were not only heavy and long, but also packed with nails. Everyone was extra careful, resisting any temptation to show off, which resulted in a new stack of timber in a more appropriate spot and zero mishaps on the way! Sevan then joined Iram, A.B. and Deepak in meticulous weeding around the fruit trees in the orchard and wheelbarrowing the surprisingly large amounts of green waste to the compost heap.

It was not yet noon when our team and the new arrivals at WRUG slowly started gravitating towards the polytunnel to uncover its hidden treasures. This time, we don't mean okra, chillies or gourd, but a feast prepared by Janpal: samosas, chicken biryani, Indian sweets, hot and cold drinks and an abundance of fruit! The mid-session break was a great opportunity to chat with the familiar and the new faces and sample the flavours that are best found in Southall.

It might have been tempting to call it a day after such a pleasant interval - but not for the GoodGymers! The timber carriers team logged a new log-moving achievement in their portfolio. They migrated another pile of wood into the space created after removing the planks to build a timber wall with a double function: a border with neighbouring property and an enormous bug hotel.

That's not a hotel. It's a resort!"

When the main objectives, weeding the orchard and moving the wood, were done, the GoodGymers proactively asked about a bonus task - and Janpal responded! The recently cleared hedging and the bases of the orchard trees needed a thick layer of woodchip. With forks, wheelbarrows, buckets, and, of course, great teamwork, we completed that activity in no time. That was finally the time to call it a day (and the end of the season) - unless you were one of the GoodGymers with yet another session in store on Saturday!

GoodGym Ealing kicked off their Ealing Climate Week with a bang! The Saturday morning in Southall was packed with action: encouraging people to get active by supporting Southall parkrun around the course and at the funnel, a jog to donate old sports kit at Open Southall, and, finally, arriving at Western Road Urban Garden for more joy of connecting with others taking positive action on climate.

GoodGymers Sevan, Steph Ducat, and Kash met familiar faces at the garden: our host, Janpal from Southall Community Alliance, Ash, who just came back from a clean-up at the canal, and our friend, the mighty Andre. For Afshin, it was the first time at Western Road - surely, a less prickly experience than his very first GoodGym session at the farm, where he had earned his red t-shirt. It was a good opportunity to meet people from Active Communities and Let’s Go Southall, whose aims of getting the local community confident going out, making new friends, and getting active are similar to ours.

Today’s task for our group was to clear and tidy the area around the polytunnel in preparation for the end of the season. With a large group of colleagues, we removed the weeds in no time, and had enough time at the end of the session to connect with other volunteers and enjoy samosas, snacks, and fruit from Southall Community Alliance. We are already looking forward to the October session at Western Road!

Western Road Urban Garden is a wonderful place managed by Southall Community Alliance. The site, converted from a derelict allotment and dumping ground into a thriving garden, welcomes children from local schools and helps them learn where food and vegetables come from (spoiler: it's not the supermarket!). It also connects Southall residents through gardening and helps fight inequalities in access to fresh food by donating its crops to the local foodbank.

While our previous visit to the garden had been during the time of extreme heat, the July community day welcomed us with the return of the typical British weather: a downpour! Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, Janpal, the SCA manager, and four GoodGymers still made it to the session!

There was an indoor element to the task, quickly finished by Angela: planting and watering aubergines in the polytunnel. Despite the lower turnout today due to the weather, Janpal was happy about the rain as plants desperately needed it. The ones planted in the polytunnel had very limited access to the rainwater. And here's where Angela came in, fighting this in-aquality with a watering can!

Janpal told us about a better irrigation system he planned to install next year. Watering inside the polytunnel every day to keep the crops alive was quite a commitment! WRUG's resident fox might have also been thinking about the irrigation improvements, as he had recently ripped another hole in the polytunnel and had been seen walking on top of it! We've heard more stories about the fox: Janpal's victory over the troublemaker by beating him to the ripe apricots this year, and fox repellents made of wolves' urine.

Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash worked outside for most of the time, getting all equally soaked. They've made a big difference, chopping nettles and pulling bindweed to free the native hedging. As a result, a massive heap of weeds grew nearby, which Janpal hoped would be collected by the council.

As we completed clearing one side of the hedge and got thoroughly drenched, the session finished earlier, with the usual refreshments: fruit, tea, coffee and samosas in the polytunnel.

WRUG is taking a break from hosting community days in August, but you can join us at a different urban garden. Come to volunteer in Greenford at the beginning of next month. Sign up here!