After the HANGOT task a few of us grabbed a well deserved coffee at Momentum in Hanwell. It certainly gave us the momentum to keep going. Some people had to run off to other tasks (GoodGym or otherwise) and others stayed for a chit chat. Well deserved after a chillier morning of gardening!

Today was the day for GoodGym's annual spring session in Elthorne Triangle with HANGOT. Like previous years, the aim was to prepare the fruit trees and walnut tree in the orchard to give the local community the best chance of picking some fruit in the summer. The difference this year was that the 10 amazing GoodGymers present blitzed through the task with half an hour to spare.

The session started with a GoodGym classic, mulching! Unlike last month's session with HANGOT, the wood chip was sitting at the top of the hill instead of the bottom, so today team had the slightly easier task of wheeling it down to the trees in need and spreading it around the trunks.

In the orchard, Mirjam, one of the long running HANGOT members, was giving GoodGymers and others lessons about the orchard. They learned some interesting facts about the weeds that the team were tackling:

"You can tell this is hemlock because of the purple splodges on its stems."
"Where you see it, there can be up to 7 years worth of seeds in the ground already."
"That means we need to catch it early, before it seeds, for 7 years to kill it off." - Mirjam

So all of the hemlock and burdock, no matter how small, needed to be found and chopped. Iram took special pleasure in slicing young burdock stems after being attacked by it at last month's task. Surprisingly, the team also learned that nettles are actually good for something:

"The nettles are good for increasing biodiversity."
"That will enable children to come to the orchard as an educational space." - Mirjam
"Do you mean educating them not to touch the nettles?" - Sevan

Despite the breaks taken for bad jokes, the team made fast progress. With the areas around the trees mulched and the unwanted weeds chopped, everyone was wondering what the next job was. There wasn't one. The team had ticked off everything on HANGOT's list in a hour, so they went early to a local coffee shop for today's social.

Great work everyone!

Even the chilly wind could not spoil the first conservation day of spring 2026 at Grove Farm nature reserve. A bright, sunny Saturday was the perfect time for maintenance jobs Friends of Grove Farm needed help with.

Sevan and Steph gave Mike a hand with sawing off branches of fallen trees obstructing the paths, while Breda, Shubham, Purva, Kash and Portia cleared the side of a woodland walkway to access the ditch, which no longer looked like a ditch. The trench, intended to collect rainwater, had become overgrown and filled with mud from the path. The job was to scrape and dig it with a mattock, a spade and a fork. The GoodGymers discovered that the drainage under a small wooden bridge over the path was all full of compressed soil, and decided to unblock it too. It was a proper workout, leading to some seriously muddy shoes, but also successful restoration of the drainage.

Before running or walking to their next thing, the GoodGymers visited the wood anemones patch they had been clearing off brambles during the winter months. Now, the entire slope was full of white flowers that managed to come out, without having to fight for sunlight with their spiky competitors. What an amazing display of natural beauty it was!

Sunny Saturday and we returned to Western road urban garden. Ash welcomed the early birds Richard who cycled from Southall park after his parkrun ,Sophie who walked and Steph Ducat who walked along the canal.Ash debriefed the crew and the the Goodgym Ashley arrived. we split into 2 smalls teams and then Shubham arrived with Hestia who struggled to find the garden. They joined the 2 teams. Welcome Hestia for your first Goodgym community mission. Two teams but the same goal : level the ground at 2 different areas to then install the water tanks. Sophie, Richard and Hestia were sorting stones/rocks and gathering them in the square hole which had a wooden frame. They were braking the bigger rocks to fit in the frame and no they were not playing rock, paper, scissors!! On the other side behind the loos, near the house where previously Goodgym cleared space for a water tank, the 3 other musketeers had to level the ground for slabs and the tank which will be at a higher level. The team had to bring the level down, get rid of all metal items in the soil and also created a nice path alongside the polytunnel. The spirit level was the key tool today and the sun also kept the goodgymers spirit levels high. next phase will be to cement both frames and install the water tanks on top. The other team also did some clearing of weeds in front of the polytunnel. We all enjoyed frsh water, oranges and cookies at the end of the session.