I visited Mrs A of Perivale on my way back home from two group sessions at Horsenden Hill. I entered the property using a key from the lockbox and said "Hello" loudly a few times. From the faint sound of commotion, I guessed Mrs A was upstairs.

The lady, in her late eighties, partially blind and with mobility issues, was worried about descending to the ground floor in her chair lift, which had broken at least three times in the recent weeks. She was also unsure which tools she had for the gardening job I was about to start and whether I would be able to accomplish anything at all on the day.

While I reassured Mrs A that she didn't have to go downstairs if she didn't feel well enough, I convinced her I'd find the tools and inspect the garden if she told me where the garage keys were. Mrs A decided to travel to the ground floor in the dreaded chair lift, which turned out to be working just fine. I easily found the keys to the garage and, inside it, I located a rake, a pair of shears and a fork. Wandering around the garden, I found some hand tools I could use for weeding.

The garden itself didn't look too bad. Someone must have been maintaining it until recently. I noticed the roses and fruit trees had been pruned, and that the brambles encroaching from the neighbouring garden weren't as long as they could be. One thing I smelled before I saw it was the fact that the garden served the local cats (and foxes) as a giant litter tray. I decided to tread carefully.

Since Mrs A couldn't see or easily access the garden, I used my previous gardening experience to assess the situation and decide on the best course of action. First, I chose to give mowing a miss. With only a few longer grass blades sticking out of the otherwise short lawn, setting up the lawnmower would have been a waste of time. I turned my gaze towards the brambles and slightly overgrown trees and cut those back.

Afterwards, fighting with the stench of the huge "litter tray", I collected rotten, fallen apples and weeded the flower beds. Having done that part, I swept fallen leaves and took out the hydrangea flowers that had already wilted. With some space still available in the green waste bin, I cut back some of the ivy opposite the garage - but that's when Mrs A decided it was time to stop.

Although she couldn't see the result of my work well, Mrs A was pleased and grateful for keeping the garden in good shape. Funnily enough, Mrs A was convinced I'd do a top job from the moment I opened two gates she found tricky in the back garden and brought in the green bin.

"You did it quicker and better than the men. Actually, I'm very happy I had a lady helping me today as I live on my own." - Mrs A.

Well, I was glad to hear that for a change, after being misjudged by beneficiaries many times when I turned up for missions without a male GoodGymer companion. Perhaps, alongside the foxes and cats, there was a dark horse in Mrs A's garden too.

Arriving at Feeding Ealing today, there was already a large group of volunteers there. More than had been at the site for months. Walking through the growing area, compared to August plenty of harvesting had already been completed as growing beds had been picked and cleared.

Joseph was glad to see the GoodGym team again and had tasks ready for us to do. In the polytunnel, there was produce still shooting upwards and ripening, which sounded like a nice problem to have. Hiding behind the polytunnel were raised beds, where potatoes had been been growing and were ready for harvest.

Team To-may-to

Giles, Therese and Sevan made up team To-may-to. Their goal was to untangle tomato plants that had gone rogue. They were mingling together and not sticking to their own bamboo stakes, making them hard to support with the canes and difficult to spot ripe fruit and harvest from when the time comes.

They joined another volunteer in the very densely packed tomato patch who'd been at it for 2 hours already. The volunteer was teasing the vines apart to try and have a single stake per plant, from the roots to the shoots. The plants were brittle though and easy to break, so there were some casualties along the way.

This was Therese's first task and she asked if they were all like this. Complicated and difficult to complete? Well, it's not unknown and GoodGymers often need to use their ingenuity to solve problems at tasks. Today's was particularly challenging though. Well done on your first good deed Therese and we hope to see you again soon 👏🎉.

Team Po-tah-to

Team Po-tah-to was larger, with Delphine, Kash, Maxime and Dora, who's become a regular recently. They found that some potatoes had already been removed from the soil in the morning and Joseph said to leave the rest to be harvested later. Instead, the team was asked to tidy the area around the veg and potato beds to help the remaining produce grow stronger.

Time To Call It Off

The weeds were removed and Team Po-tah-to were successful, with plenty of time left in the session. They were even able to flex their muscles and move a heavy table too 💪.

Inside the polytunnel, Team To-may-to admitted defeat against the renegade tomato network. Between the heat, the density of plants and not having a good way to keep each one supported and separate to the others, they let Joseph know that it was best to leave things as they were.

Despite the tangled tomatoes still growing wild in the polytunnel, Joseph was very happy with what the team had achieved and decided to call it a day.

Just as we thought the 2026 heatwaves were over, the first Saturday of September hit us with a blast of scorching sun before noon - but we liked it! On a beautiful, warm day, ten GoodGymers gathered at Horsenden Farm to help the newest residents settle in nicely. The new additions to the farm animals gang were two ponies. One of them, a retired mare, Trixie, had already arrived, and we saw her grazing behind the orchard. Her companion, a working pony, was due to arrive over the next few days.

Today's task was to create a new paddock for the ponies. We didn't need to worry about building the fencing - the job required clearing an overgrown meadow, full of thistles that had outcompeted even the frequent offender among the invasive plants - blackberries. We collected thick gloves, shears and loppers from the tool store and headed up the hill, saying hi to the two goats and the farm cat on the way.

The result of our nearly 2-hour chopping extravaganza was spectacular. Thanks to teamwork, the satisfying feeling that cutting back activity offers, and staying well hydrated, we managed to clear a large area that would certainly be comfortable for more than two ponies at a time. Or at least we thought so. We really tried to look at the paddock-to-be from our customers' perspective.

"If I were a pony, I'd like to hang out under those trees." - Iram.

The task owner, Elsa, was delighted to see how much had been achieved in such a short time. We hope that Trixie and her new pony friend will be equally pleased with their new space.

On the way to the seating area, where we'd devour pizzas and drink locally produced beverages as a reward, we spotted that the harvest mice were back in town. The cute tiny rodents hiding in the glass terrarium got the adult GoodGymers as excited as kids! It might have been one of the last chances to see the mice this year, as they are released into the wild every summer and autumn to rebuild the population of a species that had been extinct in our borough until Ealing Wildlife Group had reintroduced them.

If you missed this month's Horsenden Farm session, worry not! The next visit to the hidden gem of Ealing is in October - save the date now!

For my Friday morning off work, I was looking for a fun mission to guarantee a good start of the day. A familiar beneficiary, Miss G, came up on the GoodGym website, so I set my eyes on the run to East Acton to revisit the garden where I had done missions twice before, with two other GoodGymers.

Miss G was a bit surprised, having discovered that I showed up on my own this time, but I haven't disappointed her, tackling the front garden and quickly tidying up the path to the house. Only a shortage of black bags slowed me down a little bit, but Miss G resolved that promptly, bringing me another roll of sacks in no time.

It was a lovely morning, with just a short episode of rain, a pleasant breeze blowing to cool me down on my double 5.5km run, and a huge amount of thistles successfully removed from Miss G's front garden.

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

Elthorne Park saw many battles between the burdock and Ealing GoodGymers. Maybe not a hundred, but at least eight in the recorded history. The ninth encounter was going to be a special one.

"Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

Five GoodGymers unexpectedly descended on Elthorne Park on Thursday, breaking the four-year-old rule of confronting their enemy on Tuesday evenings. They came from different directions, using diverse modes of transport to surprise and surround burdock. Richard and Kash ran to the park, Amy and Shree cycled, and Dora walked. All GoodGymers were carrying sharp loppers and protective gloves.

It was the very first GoodGym session for Shree, whom we warmly welcomed as she went into battle with the invasive plant with unwavering enthusiasm.

”To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” - misatributed to Sun Tzu.

Some of us took that advice to become the enemy quite literally, letting the sticky burrs cover us head to toe, to the point where we had more burrs on us than a real burdock plant!

It took us one hour in total to locate a burdock-ridden area along the path from the Bambi statue to the River Brent, just ahead of Osterley Lock, and cut back large patches of the invasive plant. We dropped all the cuttings behind a nearby woodchip pile, creating our own heap towering over its neighbour, to avoid the spread of burdock seeds outside that area. Hopefully, next year we’ll see fewer burdock clusters in the south of Elthorne Park!

If a conservation session in Hanwell like the one above (minus the burdock) sounds like your thing, why not join us on Saturday the 12th September at one of community orchards in Hanwell?

If you don’t want to wait that long, we have an outdoor session for you this Saturday at Horsenden Farm, followed by team lunch. Sign up to be part of it!