GoodGymmin' with my best Spuddies!

It was very humid last night, but nonetheless 10 GoodGym volunteers put on their running shoes and came out to help their community. We ran to Alice Park Community Garden and got involved in all manner of tasks to help the project. We really enjoyed being surrounded by nature and clocking up over 5km in total.

Welcome everyone!

I welcomed the group in our usual spot (outside the leisure centre) and shared the running news. Lots happened at the weekend! Allie wore the GoodGym red in one of the Two Tunnels running series (doing really well to get 3rd in her age category - well done!) , Mary wore the Tardis blue in the Tardis 10 race organised by GoodGym Bristol (and won 'best dressed'!) and Emily, Max and I ran along to Cleeve Hill campsite to help Bath Scouts maintain the camping area.

After a warm-up we were on our way along the canal. We paused halfway to get in some extra training by doing some squats. After those legs were burning we set on our way again and made it in good time to the garden. Kathy, our host, gave an introduction to those of us who hadn't been along to the garden before.

The Community Garden at Alice Park was set up 10 years ago by a team of volunteers from Larkhall who wanted to create a community space where everyone and anyone could get the benefits of growing and enjoying fruit and veg. They host regular volunteer meet-ups and everyone is welcome to join (see the pictures above for more info).

Kathy had a whole whiteboard of tasks for us to get on with. We only had 45 minutes ... but we love a challenge!

A Damson in distress!

Some of us spent time weeding the plot where the Damson tree lives. We harvested from the tree late last Autumn so it was great to help it on another year of growth. Once we did that we also did a bonus task of weeding the bed where a Cherry tree lives.

Water way to spend an evening!

Some of the runners got their step count up high yesterday as they watered the plants in the garden. I estimate that we walked over 200 litres from the filling station to the watering beds. Good work!

My love for volunteering has flowered!

We also spent time dead-heading the flowers in the wild area. This is important to allow the plants to put their energy into growing new flowers, and it also makes the area much more attractive to bees!

A favourite task of ours by now, we turned some of the compost pile into another container. This needs doing regularly to make sure that the organic matter mulches down effectively. This was tiring work, especially as the compost at the bottom was quite wet! But we love doing exercise and volunteering at the same time, so we were happy (but also mucky!)

There's a leek in the bed!

Two of our runners embraced their inner farmer and dug up some potatoes that have been growing in the garden. This is a fantastic example of community gardening at its best! In their place we planted some leeks into the garden bed to start growing.

I made sure to rotate us around each of the tasks to make sure that everyone got a chance to try something different and to swap between less and more physically intense tasks due to the heat.

Thanks!

Thanks to Emily for back marking for us and thanks to Nicola for the potato-themed pun this week. And thanks to Kathy for hosting us last night. We had a great time and can't wait to come back again soon!

Upcoming runs:

• Next week we are helping out on the Skyline Walk with the National Trust