Joseph's secret forces had been hard at work since GoodGym Ealing's last visit to Feeding Ealing. A month ago the team had added manure to the raised beds to prepare them for next year's growing season. Since then, Joseph's worm army had been digesting the soil and manure to prepare for one part of today's task, turning the soil to prepare for new planting.

Kash and Sevan volunteered for what Joseph called the "graft" task, to take last year's potato growing beds and get them ready to have broad beans planted next season. Thanks to the worms and the little bit of rain that'd fallen, it took the full 90 minutes with Joseph's help to turn the soil in all of the beds. It was lighter work than last month and between them, they found plenty of potatoes that had escaped their harvest earlier in the year, with some of them were still being good to eat.

"I was going to ask if there were different varieties of potatoes here."
"But this is just a stone." - Kash
"There area early whites and desiree potatoes planted in the beds."
"That one is a stone potato." - Joseph

Inside the polytunnel was the second, fun and aromatic task with less graft. Cherian and Therese were uprooting this year's tomato plants and harvesting any remaining fruit. Green tomatoes were put into one bucket for Joseph to make his tasty chutney with, while yellow and orange fruits were separated out. Knobbly, spiky karela was picked too.

At the end of the session, the team were offered potatoes, the yellow/orange tomatoes and mild peppers to take home and cook with as a thank you for their efforts. At least the peppers were supposed to be mild as they weren't mature according to Joseph, so Kash must have been unlucky when she bit into one that was hot, hot, hot! 🌶️