GoodGym Barnet – Barnet Climate Action Week tiny forest Barnet

A beautiful day to get together at Mutton Brook as part of Barnet Climate Action Week, combining a little practical work, citizen science and a chance to introduce more people to our local Tiny Forests.

Starting at 11am, Richard and Subhamboth local residents, were already on site and quickly got stuck into some litter picking after a chat about the four Tiny Forests.

The original Tiny Forest is now well established, but the three newer forests have endured a brutal summer and are showing signs of stress, with some struggling trees and plenty of weeds.

These three forests are particularly interesting because each has a different soil preparation method. Looking up the slope, the middle plot uses biochar, the right-hand plot follows the standard Miyawaki method, and the left-hand plot uses a simpler, no-dig approach incorporating cardboard. On general inspection, the middle biochar forest appears to be showing the strongest growth, although proper measurements will tell us more. Victoria said Yes lots of fun. Like high school science class again haha!

’innovative approach to growing trees with the help of biochar was recently featured on BBC Countryfile at Blenheim Palace on 1 February 2026. You can find out more on BBC iPlayer.https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002qwy0

Roman & Victoria were both new to the Tiny Forest project and got stuck into our citizen science work, identifying trees, recording their positions along a transect and measuring their diameters. This helps us monitor growth and understand their potential for carbon capture. We’ll share the data with Earthwatch and hopefully continue these measurements over the coming months.

It was also a lovely opportunity to chat about our local community and the wider work GoodGym gets involved with, supporting green spaces, community groups and projects that encourage people to get outdoors and take practical action.

And, as has become something of a GoodGym tradition, we rounded things off with a little frisbee throwing and a runaround for anyone who fancied it!

A big thank you to everyone who came along. A lovely mix of practical volunteering, learning something new and enjoying our local green spaces together. That’s what GoodGym is all about!

This morning, we headed to the beautiful Hampstead Heath for a parkrun, kicking off Saturday with fresh air, fitness and a bit of hill-based character building!

Hampstead Heath certainly doesn't make things easy but interesting, with its woodland trails, gravel paths, tarmac and those climbs. With around 99 metres of elevation gain over 5km, it's fair to say that our legs got a little more than they bargained for! 😂

The route took us through the stunning woodlands and Parliament Hill Fields, reminding us that running in London doesn't always have to mean pounding the pavement.

We also support the fantastic volunteers who make parkrun possible every Saturday, helping create a free, inclusive event that brings people together through movement.

After the run we had canolli and coffee at a local coffee shop to home.

Well done to Subham who did his first parkrun at Hampstead Heath with a great time to became the 9th in his age category.

As I always say, Health is Wealth! 💚

And remember: why settle for just running 5km when you can cycle there and back too? We really went the extra mile… or several as we covered 17.50km! 😆

See you at the next GoodGym adventure! 👟