Brushing up on our weeding skills

It's been a while since Ealing GoodGymers had a chance to fight with weeds. Yes, we did a good amount of bramble bashing during the winter months yet we haven't been battling with the likes of dandelions and other leafy invaders recently. The spring weather, along with lots of greenery and blossoms, brought back the weeds! Today's group run to Acton Town gave us a perfect opportunity to get a reintroduction to the weeding craft.

We ran to help maintain six planters where Cultivate London provided soil and planted flowers. Seven GoodGymers showed up at the task which was a nice surprise as in the morning we still had less than half of that number signed up. Having extra people meant that a couple of us, Madhan and Chris, took care of litter picking at the site, while Milly, Sevan, Claire, Lionel and Kash, together with the task owner, Romina, dived into the planters.

Pulling the weeds wasn't too hard as their roots didn't go deep into the soil (Claire explained that this is usually the case with annual weeds versus perennial weeds that tend to have roots that run deeper). Lionel was still not convinced about the feasibility of pulling the weeds with our hands and went to the local shop to make an investment. He returned with a couple of bamboo toothbrushes that served us as tools in the absence of forks and trowels. They worked quite well, so kudos to Lionel for his creativity!

Having finished the job, we headed back to Cultivate's plant nursery. Unfortunately, we missed the chance to revisit the wildflower trail as we got less than 10 minutes on the task remaining. As a nice closure, we unpacked a little surprise from our new sponsor Raleigh - everyone received a little gift and with a smile on their face walked, run or cycled back home.