When Auberon and Kasia came to Dean Gardens in Cultivate's Mystery Machine full of daffodil bulbs from Ealing Council, they couldn't know how many volunteers would show up at the Saturday afternoon planting event. Two ladies, Sarah and Mary, did not disappoint. Was that enough people to plant all the bulbs in two hours though? Hold tight!

Whoosh! A gang of six GoodGymers has been dropped by Destiny right in the middle of West Ealing's green space. Madhan, Harvey, Sevan and Kash arrived after a session to prepare the bedding and set up beds for a night shelter at Haven Green Baptist Church. Moona came all the way from East London to make another guest appearance at GoodGym Ealing.

Doreen, determined to show up no matter the weather, decided to make her volunteering debut at Dean Gardens today! ⭐

Doreen made a great start to her GoodGym adventure by stepping in for the first task of the session: raking the leaves to uncover the soil. Harvey was collecting and wheelbarrowing them out of the way.

The rest of the crew split into diggers and planters. The first group dug holes in the ground for the second team, whose task was to fit ten bulbs in each pit. When asked about the pattern of holes, Auberon opposed any approach other than organised chaos - GoodGym's speciality. 👌 The patches of flowers in the spring were supposed to give an impression of natural disarray.

After each cluster of bulbs was buried, Moona diligently fed the soil with bone meal. If you think the plants are vegan, think again! In case you never heard of bone meal, it is a mixture of ground animal bones and other slaughterhouse waste that provides phosphorus and calcium to plants, acting as organic fertiliser.

Having covered two locations under the trees at the far side of Dean Gardens, we moved to the last location - the familiar bed that GoodGym Ealing helped transform during a few Tuesday sessions, starting in September this year. We planted the remaining bulbs and raked the new layer of mulch to cover the soil. With no baby daffodils left, we were done ahead of time!

The most faithful companion of the Dean Gardens tasks in autumn is mud. Those who experienced MudGym at Tuesday lunchtime sessions will know what I am talking about! Some of us, like Moona and Doreen, came well-prepared, sporting proper boots! 🥾 The rest - running or marching straight from other tasks - happily goodgymmed in light running shoes. 👟 An additional task of scrubbing the soles guaranteed!

If a bit of mud doesn't scare you and you are looking for an activity that boosts your lunchtime, pop into Dean Gardens for a weekly Tuesday session with Cultivate London and GoodGym to improve the green space for the local community!

Another beautiful Monday night saw a small-but-dedicated group of GoodGymers heading to the pretty, well-tended gardens of St Leonard's Priory Park this evening.

Starting with some lower body work around the useful vegetable planters, we sped through a short fitness session, concluding with some time-honoured stretches using the beautiful trees as props.

Welcoming the final couple of additions to tonight's group, Larry our task owner proceeded to show us the area we'd be focusing on tonight: the soon-to-be fern glade area. A shaded area of the park, on a previous visit to the park we'd laid the woodchip in this area, but following a damp summer, weeds have grown tall and the woodchip concealed. Working steadily, filling large bags with weeds, we made our way around the area, tackling a variety of weeds, some definitely more stubborn than others.

It was a nice little upper body workout as it turned out (grabbing a weed by the root works the rear delts nicely), not to mention the perfect opportunity for a squat or two.

As 8pm came and went, and the sun proceeded to set, we decided one final blitz of a large tree area would be the perfect end to a productive night.

As we gathered the last fork, and Chris emptied the last weed bag into the compost, we concluded it had been an enjoyable, productive companionable evening.

We return to the Park next month, for some more garden-clearing.

In the meantime, coming up:

• Our new September series of sessions with Bethnal Green Foodbank!

• Pilates in the Park next Wednesday!

Until then.