Perfect Turf? That's a Pipe Dream.

A fabulous team of 21 ran to help Edible York at Greenfields Garden.

This was our second of three visits to Greenfields to help install a land drainage system under the guidance of Bill Eve (also known as Edible Bill), and one very lucky new runner came along on just the right night to join in with such a brilliant task - let's give a big Yorkshire cheer to Jenna.

The task involved:

• removing turf as neatly as possible
• digging a long trench to very precise depth specifications
• lining with gravel
• laying pipe
• filling with gravel
• topping with the turf

Phew!

Some of the gang had been to the previous trench-digging epic and led the way, with only 40 minutes on the clock, there wasn't time to hang about. Spade choice was also very important with some of the team favouring a pointy spade for scooping the depths of the trench.

Meanwhile Abi was spadeless, but made excellent use of her time by picking the very best blackberries and raspberries to sustain the rest of the crew.

There was lots of tape measuring throughout the task to ensure the trench was absolutely perfect. We discovered that when Ellie is knee-deep, that's ideal for the low end.

It's hard to get the depth bang on; when the middle section was 1cm too shallow, Abi used another method which was jumping in and stomping it down - much better than digging.

5 minutes to go!!!

With the heavy wheelbarrows of gravel whizzing back and forth, the good bits of turf were re-laid and soil filled all the cracks. It was sort of supposed to look like we'd never been there but I think it will look a bit like that at some point, maybe next year?

Anyway, the task was complete and we ran back to base to finish up with some balance and single leg exercises - the best way to celebrate a good deed done.