Six of us ran and walked to help Southlands Community garden plant 5 fruit trees. James and Antonia got going on the first hole and made quick progress. Tay and Laura had less luck with digging the second which seemed to be full of large rocks, very solid clay and finally a water or sewage pipe which luckily we didn't dig through. Leanne and Mitch quickly completed the third and fourth holes and the final one was dug by one of Southlands volunteers. Once the holes were dug they were filled with compost and the trees planted. We look forward to seeing them in fruit in future years

The space where the church community hall used to be is being transformed into an open community garden and we were called to help make it happen.

Katie, a local artist who uses the space at the church for her studio had three tasks laid out for us this morning.

Leanne, Kathryn, Michal and Paul went to dig over section of the garden by the brick wall, remove any weeds and stones and add fresh compost to raise the ground level and make it more nutritious for new plants. Meanwhile Katie picked up a brush and some paint and applied her skill to make the wooden fence beautiful. We were also asked to move a metal cabinet within the church, from the first floor to a room on the ground floor, however after a thorough assesment Michal and Paul decided that it wasn't save, due to it's weight and very narrow staircase. Gill from the church found our assesment very useful and will look at potentially dismantling the cabinet into smaller sections to make it possible to carry.

We were offered some tea and coffee and it was nice to be able to work alongside volunteers from the church, get to know them a little bit and let them know about GoodGym.

After just one hour of honest work Katie painted a large section of the fence and the rest of us dug over the entire flower bed, transported and raked in two bulk bags of steaming compost.

Happy with our efforts we posed for a team photo before heading off for a well deserved lunch.

It was our third and final task working on the Southlands Church community garden makeover.

Katie and Cara bagsied the hoes and got to work on the the front flowerbed, digging out the bindweed.

Laura and Leanne went with forks to turn over and weed the soil in the last few beds out back, and Paul Kelly dug some big holes to put trees in.

David turned up early to meet Laura, and was dragged into the fold to help drag a now half-emptied sack of compost to spread onto the remaining flowerbeds.

In under an hour, the garden was transformed and ready for admiring glances of the visitors at this weekend's York Open Studios event.

Thankfully unlike the last time we were scheduled to do this task it wasn't a total wash out!

Once the merry band of GG-ers had assembled Katie (Not GG Katie whose 200th good deed it was!) explained our mission for the morning and it was divine music to our ears - complete clearance and digging over, although I'm sure David was eager to show off his budding botanical knowledge from the last weeding task.

Leanne, Paul, Katie and David got stuck into churning over the soil in the bed to the front of the church, sorting the roots from the rubbish. We were also warned about the electrical cable which Katie managed to unearth several times (No Katie's were harmed in the making of this report). So not to compact the soil the team tactic was decided and starting in the middle (as socially distanced as possible) we worked out way outward.

Meanwhile Jenna and Louise took up the challenge of weeding an entire bed between them with some more of the Church volunteers in a more secluded garden round the corner.

David took it upon himself to sort out all the bulbs we dug up which seemed to trigger a round of tea and biscuits for all the workers, heavenly!

Amongst the many curious pieces of rubbish unearthed our prize find today was an old nokia handset (which probably still worked!) Which was soon complimented by the other team finding a sim card (what mysteries reside?).

After an hour and a half team Paullsop were finished but Jenna and Louise valiantly persisted for a few extra minutes to finish their bed.

After a quick tidy up and a group photo we left to the sounds of the church volunteers singing our praises. A job well done!