Another cracking Tuesday for the GoodGym Lambeth crew! We rocked up at Papa's, laced up, and jogged over to Ruskin Park to link up with Tom from Lambeth Parks — a man whose garden kit game is honestly unmatched. Best gear in Lambeth, no notes. 🏆

Today's mission: bramble bashing. And bash we did. 💪🏼

Armed with rakes, secateurs and loppers (basically a horticultural Avengers lineup), we descended on the bramble bushes with genuine menace. The technique was simple but effective: rake 'em out, chop 'em down, pile 'em up for composting. The brambles didn't stand a chance. 🌱🔥

A huge shoutout to Lea, who joined us for her first ever GoodGym session — welcome to the fam, we hope the brambles didn't scare you off! 🎉🍾 Also out there getting stuck in: Michael (fresh from his Big Half heroics) Katie, and Adam, all bringing the usual mix of chat, chaos and quality composting content.

Ruskin Park is looking noticeably less prickly thanks to this lot. Great work all round — fitness sorted, good deed done, brambles thoroughly put in their place. 🏃🍾❤️

See you next time, Lambeth! 🧰✨

This weekend the Community Healing Garden in Vauxhall held a big free summer party for local residents to enjoy the garden. We’ve been holding monthly community mission sessions in the garden and it’s been so lovely to see how much progress the volunteer team have made to this beautiful green space.

The party was a great success, with loads of homemade food, craft activities, a bug hunt, face painting, and live music performances on the main stage (we couldn’t choose between ‘V-Fest’, ‘Vaux-Stock’ or ‘Gardenbury’!)

But we weren’t just there to enjoy the cakes! We helped out by setting up the chairs, table and stage, putting signs up, and running the badge-making stand. After a few false starts we became expert badge makers and took a few home ourselves!

Big shovel energy tonight at Holy Trinity, team! 💪🏼 One of our fave return fixtures — barrows loaded, wood mulch flying, and the orchard garden finally got the thirsty tree bases and borders the mulch they’d been begging for. Parched no more! 🌳💦

Squad on task: Adam, Ben, Fi, Katie, Michael, Rich and yours truly, Yianny. Absolute mulch-ines, the lot of them. 🍾

And because it was the end of the month, social snuck back into its rightful evening slot — chef’s kiss timing. 😊 Ben went full Bake Off with homemade feta parcels and veggie sausage rolls (someone give this man a task-and-tasting badge 🧰❤️), everyone else brought food and drink to match, and our host with the most, Tilly, ran a properly spirited round of Linkee that had brains and bellies both working overtime. 🤩

Thanks to Nicole and Adam for hosting us!

Mulch spread, minds boggled, tummies full — you really can’t beat a GoodGym Tuesday.

The Community Healing Garden are holding their big summer party next weekend, so needed all hands on deck for party-prep. Luckily, Goodgym-ers descended from all across London to boster numbers - Julian, Marta and Khai from Greenwich; Tracey from Wandsworth; and Manuel all the way from Elephant and Castle!

Head Gardener Hugh started with a tour of the garden and it was great to see the planters thriving despite the endless dry spell - the residents have done a great job with the watering efforts!

The main task of the day was to shift piles of poles, planks and pallets from the central party zone, to the far corners of the garden. Many hands make light work, and by setting up a production line we efficiently lifted and shifted everything in sight. Our efforts were rewarded with a well earned cup of tea and a cookie - but the real celebration will be next week's party - Sunday 6th Sept 12-4pm, all welcome!