As the regular visitors know, there is always something to do at the Tree Musketeers' Nursery. This Friday was no exception. After dropping off a couple of wooden pallets, always useful to store things off the (damp) ground, the crew had a little break. This provided the perfect opportunity for a little tour around the Nursery for Stefan, showing him all the different things going on and how Goodgym gets involved, both in the Nursery as all over Hackney.

Tea/coffee done, it was time to move some pots, more little shoots into bigger pots and plant some as well, meanwhile catching up with the TM crew. Rumours have it that there might be some more teaming up over the summer.

Hope Stefan enjoyed his first visit and maybe come back another time!

A small group of GoodGymers braved the strong gust and wet weather from storm Jorge at the Hackney marshes nursery armed with waterproofs and enthusiasm.

Liz, our amazing TM, divvied out the tasks to the super sextet; Abi, Amanda, Danny, Kat, Toyin and Helena.

We shoveled the compost heap giving it a good airing out and sieved through looking for bits of plastic and rocks, careful not to disturb the hibernating grass snake in a nearby heap.

We also did some pot weeding with a cool gardening gadget which could easily double up as an elephant nose picker.

Toyin, Amanda and Helena were tasked with washing the lattice shaped plant 'Air-pots' which unique design encourages healthy root development and maximise aeration.

After a hard morning's work, Liz invited us to have a lovely cuppa and choccy biccies as we listened to the pounding rain on the polytunnel.

In all, a brilliant and productive session.

A crack team of GG'ers (some coming straight from Finsbury Parkrun) assembled in Clissold Park to join lots of other volunteers to plant more trees with our friends from the Tree Musketeers.

After Russels intro about all things trees the positions for the trees were marked out and people set to work. Unless anybody got scientific evidence to the contrary, Russels theory on square holes over round ones holds up - so a square hole was dug, through grass & soil & rubble. Sophia turned out quite eager to smash up some rubble with a metal breaker bar especially brought down for that reason.

With a few tips from the TM team in between, the now 'Poppy' christened black poplar soon had a comfortable spot, a protective cage raised to help it withstand weather and wildlife. Note: i had no involvement with the pole going into the ground!

After two last trees were dealt with as well, all tools were (hopefully) safely tucked away to ride out storm Ciara tomorrow before being returned to the nursery.

Total tally of trees planted across 6 Hackney parks since November now stands at 104 (all grown in the nursery)- Goodgym has lend a helping hand with quite a few of those! Keep an eye out for more tree fun with the Musketeers, there is bound to be some more planting happening soon, if not there is always something to do at the Nursery on the Marshes.

This morning GoodGym teamed up with the Tree Musketeers and Trees for Cities to help plant 6000 whips on Hackney Marshes. The aim is to create a new area of edible forest that will add to the existing woodland edge and provide additional habitat and food sources for urban wildlife. Once established these trees will provide edible produce such as hazel nuts, cherry-plum and medlar fruits for local people to explore and harvest. Many of team Goodgym had received training from Tree Musketeers last week so after our briefing session we donned our yellow high viz and were instantly promoted to supervisor status. The marshes was absolutely t(r)eeming with volunteers with over 500 people signed up. We planted wild pear, oak and hornbeam whips and naturally any GoodGym task would not be complete without distributing a few barrow loads of mulch to give the new forest the best start in life.

Firm GG friends the Tree Musketeers were in need of some wooden pallets as base for a storage area at their nursery - cue some Goodgym muscle in the form of Queen Liz & Peter to help unload a van with some eagerly awaited pallets!

Shortly after Matt joined as well, a little delayed by having gotten off at the wrong stop on his way down to Hackney, area 9 on his tour of London GG areas.

Next task involved tools, of the sharp variety - cutting back stubborn thin growth around a damsel (?) tree to stop it interfering. The thinner ones were no match for the robbers, where the silkies came out to cut through the thicker bits. Several arms full found their way to the pile of wood in the corner of the nursery - what a bonfire would that pile be! Some litter-picking in between resulted in several sets of number plates, raising some questions on what sort of things were happening in the car park when it was quiet...

All too soon work called for all three, so after goodbyes each went on his/her way.

Good luck to Matt in visiting all of London goodgym areas in turn - look forward to seeing you in Redbridge!

Thanks to Liz for the pun & pictures, hope you got to do task #50 in the January challenge!

Where a lot of Goodgymmers are already aware of the Last Saturday of the Month at the Tree Musketeers Nursery, there are actually also regular weekday sessions.

Cue nosey me, wondering what was going on during the week.... so todays lunch break was spend clearing an area of loose stuff in preparation of wood storage and chopping some tree branches down to size. 'Borrowing' a pallet from the parks depot next door was a start, but more are needed - why not pop round on Friday to give me a hand unloading some pallets?