Daryl, Gemma and Sam ran from a previous Community mission to meet Simon at the Clubhouse in Thorlands. He greeted us with a warm smile and keys to the Walled Garden to collect the tools. Lisa met us at the gate of the Walled Garden as it was her first time at Thorlands and her second good deed ever! Kudos!

After giving Lisa the overview of Thorland, we gathered the tools before heading back to the Clubhouse and the Kitchen garden where Joao was waiting with his bike.

The task was to mulch the fourth bed (after doing the other three in January), which had a lot of thorny plants. Daryl and Joao worked together to rake all the woodchip mulch we had left in a pile whilst Gemma and Lisa trimmed back the thorny plants and dug up the weeds.

By this time, Nathan had arrived to help dig up and edge the first 10 centimetres of the bed to put down cardboard and mulch it to avoid any weeds from growing in that area.

Once the bed was clear and ready, we brought over barrows and barrows of woodchip mulch for Gemma to rake across the bed.

The task brought us to the top of the hour and with little time to start another task, we called it a day (plus Daryl, Gemma and Sam had to rush off to a football game in Dulwich).

After quick hunt for Tom, who had disguised himself in camouflage trousers, we were all quickly put to use - Joao and Michael making light work of the digging. In the meantime, Tracey and Lisa (who completed her first session today!) got stuck into litter picking, followed by some hardcore ivy removal. By the end, the trees had a new ‘leaf’ of life and nobody managed to injure themselves on the saw 👍

A great session with lots of hard work - well done team!