I love it when a planter comes together...

On Monday evening, our Goodgym crew braced themselves for a potential wash out, following a torrential downpour at 5pm. However, we were pleasantly treated to a warm autumn evening of gardening at Grenville Gardens instead!

7 Goodgymmers (regulars, familiar faces and new attendees including Jonathan and Matilda- welcome!) met up outside the Arsenal Community Hub on Benwell Road before we set off for a 1.5 mile run up Sussex Way. Area Activator Simon almost took a wrong turn on the way up to Archway, but luckily Kike and Steve were on hand as backmarkers to correct the course!

On our way over, we chatted about our weekends- a lot of us watched London Marathon on TV or in person. Congratulations to Steve Coman and Sam Chapman on your Marathon endeavours! Super inspiring!

Upon our approach to Grenville Gardens, we met up with 8 other Goodgymmers waiting outside the community gardens, and found Sarah, a local FROGG (aka Friend of Grenville Gardens) who invited us into the space.

Our main task for the evening involved transferring masses of lovely home grown vegetables and plants (lavender, mint, spinach and other greens) out of a large broken planter, and then dismantling the flower bed using electric drills. Our headtorch heroes on the opposite side of the park were busy digging holes and trenches in between other plants, ready for community bulb planting on the weekend. Another team set about clearing loads of overgrown ivy from out of the flower beds (a very satisfying job after the rainfall- nice soft ground to work with!).

After almost a full hour of activity, we downed tools, and parted ways. 6 of our runners ran back to the Arsenal Stadium (enjoying the down hill on quiet streets!), and a few of us enjoyed a few social drinks at The Highbury Library on Drayton Park as part of our monthly routine (back again next month!).

Thank you for joining us, folks! We will be back again next week to help with flyering for FoodCycle Islington. See you then!