"Every session is different" is a GoodGym Ealing mantra, even for the same organisation. The changing seasons mean our partners' needs change too. To paraphrase someone or other famous who may have volunteered at Care4Calais with us:

"GoodGym is like a bag of donations. You never know what you're gonna get."

A month since our futile attempts to try and untangle overgrown tomato plants at Feeding Ealing, today we were doing something quite different. Preparing the raised beds for new planting and future crops. A big welcome to Emily, who joined us for her first GoodGym task, walking with the group from Horsenden Farm 🥳🎉. Give her a cheer! 📣

Emily and the others must've wondered what they'd let themselves in for when our task owner, Joseph, asked "are you ready for some graft?". He then led us to a huge pile of manure. From there, we were shown the raised beds that needed to be refreshed before new planting started.

"Where did that [big pile of manure] come from?" - GoodGymer
"From a really big cow" - Joseph

The team tried different ways to organise themselves to:

1. Get manure into wheelbarrows
2. Move the wheelbarrows to the raised beds
3. Tip the manure out and spread it
4. Mix the manure into the existing soil

Joseph wasn't wrong. It was heavy work, from filling the wheelbarrows through to turning the soil. On the upside, it wasn't as stinky as some people feared. Give that giant cow the Nobel prize for Chemistry!

"I've never seen manure that doesn't smell" - Therese

It was a real work out for the team. We managed to fertilise 11 of the raised beds, some of which'll have beans growing in them soon 🫘. Joseph was really impressed, as he always is with what GoodGym achieve with Feeding Ealing.

"You've done more today than 40 people from Tata managed" - Joseph

Big praise for 6 GoodGymers and Therese's husband. 🙌💪

It was already October, and the leaves on many of the trees on Horsenden Hill had turned golden, but everything else around us tried to tell us it wasn't really autumn yet. Short sleeves and sunglasses, rather than a rain jacket, were the right outfit for the mild and windless day at the community farm, where eight Ealing GoodGymers welcomed guests from GoodGym Hammersmith & Fulham and GoodGym Hounslow.

David, who joined us for his first Ealing session, was impressed by the farm's unique and peaceful character and gave us the all-too-familiar line about Perivale's hidden gem.

"I lived all my life in West London and didn't know this place existed!"

We’ve heard it many times, and we know that Horsenden likes to surprise those who eventually get to discover it.

Today's surprise on our way to the two assigned tasks was the new arrival in the horse meadow: Charlie the pony. Last month, we'd been creating a new paddock for him and his companion, Trixie. Since then, the meadow we'd cleared had been fenced off for protection, and new grass had already started to replace the areas cleared of brambles.

The October Horsenden session continued expanding the meadow up the hill. Half of the GoodGymers, the Bramble Team, took loppers, shears and silky saws, not only to cut back blackberries but also to saw through thick branches along the way.

Meanwhile, the other part of the gang, the Rubble Team, transported debris from the car park to fill the gaps in the eroded ditch near the canoe club shed. What we learned later from Ranger Jon Staples was that the idea of using rubble came from the military's riprap - a rocky, loose material laid in a way that helps protect shoreline structures.

The second part of Team Rubble's assignment was to spread mulch over the riprap that had already been laid. In the near future, when a hedge is planted above the rubble and decomposed woodchip, its roots, together with the rocks, will help protect the bank from further erosion, while the hedge will prevent canoeists and visitors from falling into the ditch.

Both teams did a fantastic chunk of hard work that will help the volunteer-led farm thrive. Later in the day, Elsa, the task owner, sent us a lovely message:

"Thank you so much to your team for all the hard work you did today. I don't know if you all realise how valuable it is to us."

If being recognised for impactful work wasn't enough, our team took an hour for an indulgent team lunch with pizza, local soft drinks and craft beer, then marvelled at the tiniest rodents in the whole of Europe - the harvest mice - at Horsenden's Mouse House.

Check our future sessions at Horsenden Farm here.