...midges.

A beautiful April evening, except for the swarms of midges, for GoodGym Richmond’s second Monday of the month Group Run task at our sponsored plots in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond.

But I guess, particularly as this was a WWF/GoodGym ‘Workout for Nature’, we should embrace the midges and the less glamorous animals, insects and wildlife that are all part of the broad biodiversity and healthy ecosystem that we are trying encourage by are gardening work.

So let’s hear it for midges Chironomidae (Diptera): their larvae and pupae are important food for fish and other aquatic organisms such as newts. And the flying midges in their adult stage are eaten by fish, insectivorous birds, bats and flying predatory insects.

Enough of midges and onto our heroic humans Anita, Chris, Jade, Lucy and Suze.

Anita, Chris, Jade and Suze. set about sweeping, weeding and litter picking around all the benches and in the borders. Our weeding focused on weeding out unwanted plants such as ivy and also three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrum) which looks very pretty, like a white bluebell, but is actually a real thug, a non-native invasive plant listed on Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (making it an offence to introduce the plant to the wild in the UK).

Meanwhile Lucy, who had completed 16km of her London marathon training to get to the task, still had the tenacity to prick-out and pot-up a whole tray of salvia ‘blue admiral’ seedlings, before she headed off into the dusk to clock a further 3km.

A very warm welcome to Mamoud who joined Anita for Task preparation for the Richmond GoodGym second monday Group run task in the evening.

As well as walking through Buccleuch Gardens assessing the most urgent gardening tasks required across our sponsored plots , we also unloaded compost and salvia seedlings and took them down to the Arcade, then went down to the river to wash out plant plots and trays in the river, preparation for pricking out and growing on the salvia.

A chatty run along a very quiet riverside this evening as we welcomed Zak to his first experience with GoodGym during his visit from Bristol. 😁

Our destination was St Christopher's Fellowship in East Twickenham where we often go to help in their large and quite unruly garden. We made a plan for ourselves with some extensive weeding in the vegetable patch and against the main building, Anita's monumental effort sorting out the compost heap and plenty of tidying up in the front drive.

A successful 45 minutes later, everything looked more manicured, even if our gloved hands did not!

Fun task this morning as a bunch of goodgymer's and other volunteer groups combined to do a mass litter pick across Petersham common. Led by our unfortunately injured, but local resident outdoors man Ken - we set about combing the area clean of garbage. There was a lot but we smashed through it, and felt good for having done our bit! Coffee and a stroll past the 3 pigeons plot (another goodgym managed site) to admire the lovely flowers and we were done!

On to the next one... Monday ... "we go again! We do not let this slip!" :-)

On Monday night Daisy, Lucy, Susan, Chris and Anita all took a zero tolerance approach on when it came to clearing the weeds from our adopted ‘Three Pigeons Plot’ in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond. A similar ‘tough love’ approach approach to the weeds along the adjacent wall and riverside path left our sponsored plot on the Thames Path looking well kempt and all ready for the growing season ahead.

Wellcome back and a special thank you to Daisy, joining us on her second task and to Lucy who stepped in as run leader and combined it all with her London Marathon training.

Goodgymers Amy, Chris and Anita helped Violets, Lamb’s Ears, Hellebores and Woodruff find new dream homes in an idyllic riverside location in Richmond.

As well as sizing up jobs suitable for the Monday evening Richmond Group Task at our sponsored plots in Buccleuch Gardens, we were able to make use of the spring sunshine to undertake some ‘division’ and replanting.

The Violets and Lamb’s Ears (stachys) that are really flourished in the Arcade Rockery were divided and small clumps removed and replanted at a number of points across the bed.

Self-set hellebores and overcrowded woodruff from Anita’s garden were also given new homes with room to expand in the Arcade Rockery and around the benches.

This evening we welcomed Daisy for the first time as well as Honor returning for the second time as well set off from Richmond town centre to INS in Twickenham. A round run trip of nearly 9km, the run gave plenty of time to chat as we ran down Richmond high street, across th bridge and made our way to Twickenham, collecting Monika and Honor on the way.

Arriving at INS, task owner Sarah showed us a storage cabinet that needed to be emptied and moved from room one (with a very small doorway) to room two while a desk needed to move from room three to room one, a chair needed to move from room two to room one and another desk needed to move from room four to room two!

It all called for a lot of pivots, some good upper body strength and some sensible manoeuvring. But many hands do indeed make light work and we were done ahead of schedule, ready for the run home!

A short but productive lunchtime mission in GoodGym Richmond's sponsored plots in Buccleuch Garden's Richmond to plant bare root shrubs (spiraea vanhouffi aka bridal wreat) , deutzia scabra and philadelphus virginal) .

The council contractors had been in and cut back a lot of shrubs between the Thames Path and Petersham road which also enabled Chris and Anita to do a quick litter pick in places that are normally too dense to reach .

Shout out for Chris who combined the mission with a 10km run.