Wednesday marked a return to Orchard Triangle to help the Marston Community Gardeners. The warm wer weather has been heaven for cow parsley, and all of the young fruit trees were surrounded by head-high weed growth. Our task? De-cow parsley the fruit trees, weed a good circle around the base of each tree and mulch with a barrowful of woodchip.

Setting to work, we unearthed most of the central patch of trees - featuring figs, apples and pears. Our battle against the bitey evening midges continues, but I think we're starting to win with the new additions to our arsenal (Avon Skin so soft spray, citronella bracelets, long trousers).

Welcome to GoodGym Andy!

KEEN are an award-winning youth-led organisation. They create inclusive projects, and support and promote inclusion in Oxfordshire. The KEEN participants are a group of children and young people with a wide range of disabilities - they love gardening and allotment sessions provide benefits to their wellbeing, time outside and the chance to gain new skills and new friends.

The KEEN team are unable to take on the more physically demanding tasks necessary to prepare the allotment for the 2024 growing season, so they called in the GoodGym flash mob to help.

We've never been to the Elder Stubbs allotment site before, so it was lovely to see the Restore and KEEN plots as well as the fun driftwood sculptures. The main task for the evening was to weed the vegetable beds and dig them over a bit ready to receive the seedlings ready to go in the ground which are currently housed at KEEN's base near South Park.

An hour and many mozzie bites later we'd made a significant difference to weed quantities, which will allow KEEN to get participants in to start gardening as soon as possible!

Welcome to GoodGym Sarah, Hei, and Wiktoria!

Iffley Glebe plays a vital role in maintaining the rural atmosphere of Iffley village. The glebe is full of wildflowers and the hedge across the field provides birds with nesting places, and insects and berries for food. The glebe is owned by Oxford Preservation Trust and they often ask GoodGym to help with maintenance tasks.

This week we were tackling one of our regular tasks - weeding the Iffley Glebe wall. Everyone spread out along the inner and outer walls to denude it of weeds and stop them from getting roots established and destroying the structure. We managed to get the whole front boundary wall cleared, and most of the inside too, filling a large sack with greenery in the process. The mossies were probably delighted at all the flesh to feast on, so we all have some itchy momentos. Note to self; find the local Avon lady for insect repellant.

We'll probably be back to Iffley Glebe again later in the summer for a second go over the wall, plus tackling a section on the northern edge of the site, some hay raking, and sycamore removal.

Welcome to GoodGym Jenny!

With light evenings comes the return of tasks in Oxford's green spaces, and one of our favourites is Aston's Eyot. Tucked between the Iffley Road and the river, the Eyot was a rubbish dump in the 19th Century, but it's now a thriving nature reserve managed by the Friends of Aston's Eyot.

Wednesday's task was nettle removal. Scything and pulling the nettles allows light to get through for wild flowers, and removing them reduces the richness of the soil, which wild flowers prefer. This should all help increase the biodiversity of the area. Scything is always a fan favourite at GoodGym, so there were plenty of volunteers for that task. Henry very competently assembled the new scythe, and Axelle did great work pruning back an elder tree which was getting a little thuggish. Some of the GoodGymers were lucky enough to spot 2 muntjac deer on the way home - it's always surprising and delightful how much nature can thrive yards from busy city streets.

Great work team!

Welcome to GoodGym Emma and Ines.