There was a big group this month for the walk over Horsenden Hill to the Feeding Ealing site. It started out dry and got more wet the closer that the group got to their destination, with umbrellas popping up and waterproofs being worn. Given the threatening grey skies, everyone was happy when Joseph said that they'd be working inside, in the polytunnel. On a day like today, Joseph had no desire to get soaked and he didn't want anyone else to get wet either.

Walking through the site, Joseph pointed out the changes since GoodGym's visit last month, with the Dudhi plants being well established in the muddy holes that were dug last month. Inside the polytunnel, there was a lot of new growth too, with tomatoes, peppers and more shooting up in the raised beds and some exotic beans climbing up the walls.

It was the tomatoes that Joseph needed help with today. As they grew, they needed to each have a bamboo cane that they were tied to for support. Kash, Angela and Maxime grabbed string and scissors, cutting it into lengths for everyone to get tying. Part way through, Joseph came to the team with a with a new task and each person could choose the one they found the most fun:

1. Tying the tomato plants to stakes
2. Dismantling old garden furniture that was inefficiently filling the skip

Maxime, Angela and Delphine found their happiness in placing stakes and binding the tomato plants to them. Steph, Kash, Kaja and Sevan on the other hand went for destruction. They grabbed the wicker chairs out of the skip and got kicking, stamping, twisting, sawing and pick-axing. Anything they could to turn the bad 3D seating into good 2D seating that would neatly stack back in the skip.

With both of Joseph's jobs completed, the rain got heavier and everyone took cover in the polytunnel. While they waited out the heaviest of the rain, Joseph told everyone about last year's harvest and the plans for this year. He encouraged everyone to come back at harvest time to pick some crops and make their stomachs happy. That's the most important thing in life, according to Joseph.

The session wrapped up early and team GoodGym headed home or onto their next tasks. As they left the site, the rain stopped and the sun beamed down... for a few minutes at least, until clouds returned overhead.

Kash and Sevan found task owner Joseph rebuilding his energy levels after a morning of guiding new volunteers. They were a bit green, so needed a lot of support. By contrast, team GoodGym apparently knew what to do to help Joseph plant some epic dudhi:

"We just need to know how deep and wide [the holes need to be]." - Sevan
"You know how to dig holes. You've dug some BIG holes in the past." - Joseph

It was quite warm on the south facing plot. Inside the polytunnel was another level though, reaching 40C+ through the day. It was perfect to grow warm weather vegetables and the team were shown tomatoes, chillies, okra, ginger, sweet potatoes and more, all growing in the soil. As impressive as that was, the GoodGymers were grateful that they were digging outside, even if they were under the afternoon sun.

Joseph had a contact who would give him free dudhi seeds and all that Joseph needed to start his dudhi enterprise were 12 holes, 30cm wide and 45cm deep. After days without rain, the ground was hard, so a hose was set on the trellis covered planting patch to make digging easier.

"I didn't think I was going to get muddy today." - Sevan
"When you come here, you always get muddy". - Joseph

Before they could start digging, the first job was to clear the weeds from the plot. Weeds were having a field day all over the allotment, so everyone turned over the soil to clear it, finding some tough roots from nearby trees hiding underground.

Kash and Sevan eventually did start digging, slowly scooping the wet clay soil out of the ground, dodging around the trellis poles. It was hard going and it was definitely muddy. The tree roots caused problems again too, needing to be broken through or worked around. As holes were completed, Joseph poured his special potting mix into each one, preparing them for the big dudhi planting day tomorrow.

A pleasant walk over Horsenden Hill led Kash, Maria, Melissa and Sevan to the Feeding Ealing site, where there were already a lot of greens shoots on display. Task organiser, Joseph, explained that the onion and garlic shoots planted last year were part of his ingenious organic food strategy, keeping flies and other nasties away from the crops.

Where were the crops though? Well, that was today's task, to plant fruit and vegetables into the soil to harvest later this year. Joseph had long term plans too, to plant asparagus and strawberries which would take 2 or more years to mature. Melissa made great use of her horticultural knowledge at her first task, mastering the art of planting the octopus-like asparagus crowns in the trenches the team had dug. Welcome! 👋🥳

Different planting techniques were used for each of the other crops, with the strawberries being transplanted from pots, Swiss chard planted in rows dug with sticks, then onion and garlic being poked into holes made with gloved fingers. Most interesting were the carrots. Joseph showed the team how to lay a strip of toilet paper just under the surface and cover it with soil. How did that help to plant carrots? The Andrex like strip had the carrot 🥕 seeds 🥕 perfectly 🥕 spaced 🥕 along 🥕 it 🥕. Once Joseph explained that to the confused GoodGymers, what they were doing made a lot more sense.

At the end of the task, the veg beds looked almost the same as did 90 minutes before. The only sign that GoodGym had been were the strawberry leaves poking out of the ground in 2 beds. Underneath the dirt however, Joseph and GoodGym had kick started some magic that nature would take care of through spring and summer. In the case of the asparagus, it would take a bit longer than that.

We'll be back in the coming months to see how our veg is growing ⏳.

The first session of the year at Feeding Ealing was chilly, despite taking place at the warmest part of the day. Joseph had a solution for the team, a task to keep them moving and keep them warm. The remnants of a large pile of wood chip and bark would be used to refresh the path into the community growing space.

Steph, Kash and Sevan got shovelling and wheelbarrowing the new path topper. Joseph took on the task of raking it into place, even though he'd recently injured his foot in the orchard. There was no convincing him otherwise.

"I can't sit and watch others work for me while I do nothing" - Joseph

Between the 4 of them, they completed the path in an hour, smoothing out the lumps and bumps of the dirt path underneath. That made the entrance to the growing space accessible to all, even those who are a bit unsteady on their feet.

With the hard work done and the GoodGym team being kept warm as promised, they needed something else to keep that feeling going once the task was complete. Joseph produced a thermos of water, some tea bags and 4 mugs to warm their fingers and stomachs while chatting about Joseph's big plans for 2026 and beyond at Feeding Ealing.

Flowerbeds, that is. When team GoodGym arrived at the Feeding Ealing site today, task owner Joseph boasted that their growing area had increased by 80% in the past few months by building extra raised beds. There was still more to do and that's where the GoodGymers came in. Joseph's plan was to grow sweet potatoes next year and he explained that they need deep soil, so 4 of the existing growing beds in the polytunnel needed to have a loft extension.

Joseph provided the materials, planks, batons, saws and screwdrivers. All the team needed to do was to decide how to use them to grow the super tubers. Once they had a plan, baby, mummy and daddy mallets were added to the tool roster, long stakes were sawed and they were knocked into the corners of each bed, with hidden water pipes under the soil providing extra jeopardy 🌊.

New sides for the beds were roughly measured and cut to size, then the challenge was to make everything secure so that it would hold together through the next growing season. Screws were applied liberally, with some of the team having their first go at wielding a drill.

"Gently press the trigger and the screw should go into the baton"
"Don't worry. If you screw it up we can undo it" - Sevan
"Nice pun" - Maria
"Actually, that was completely unintentional" - Sevan

With the taller beds ready, Joseph could then fill them with a secret substance that he called his "very fertile soil". The recent - and first - growing season at the site had been successful too and Joseph was keen to share some of the produce prepared through the hard work of volunteers, like the GoodGymers. As the sun was setting, they wrapped up early and Joseph treated them to a glass of 2025 damson wine and jars of Wiri Wiri Chilli Relish and Green Tomato Chutney, which the team helped to harvest for last month. It was a tasty end to the year with Feeding Ealing and GoodGym will be back in early January to prepare the 2026 crop.

Over the past few weeks, GoodGym Ealing have been clearing up after the growing season in a few different community allotments and gardens around the borough. Today was no different as at Feeding Ealing, Kash, Beck and Sevan worked away in the polytunnel to clear out this year's produce and prepare for next year's planting. That was lucky as they stayed pretty dry while rain showers came and went outside.

The team were asked to say "toma-go" to the tomato plants and "bean-ough already" to the beans. Everything removed was to go onto the compost heap to provide nutrients for next year's crop. After discussing the best tools to use and choosing their favourites, they discovered that everything could actually be pulled out by hand, no tools required, making the task a bit easier.

Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say, and there was a cloud too to the simplicity of pulling the old plants. They were tied to bamboo stakes and other supports using nylon string and that needed to be removed. Who may have done such a dastardly thing as using non-biodegradable string? Well, that might have been Sevan... only because there was nothing else available back in July when he and Gus were asked to tie the crops up. Much effort went into destringing the plants to not pollute next year's compost.

Towards the end of the session, Joseph decided that any remaining crops could also be pulled as it was too late in the season for them to ripen, with the weather overnight being too cold for the chillies. So, the group said "chillio" to the chilli plants as they were also pulled out of the soil. A few green chillis were recovered that Joseph said would be added to his chilli chutney. In fact, there'd been a bumper batch of chutney this year. The earlier green chillis had also gone in the pot as well as 60kgs of green tomatoes, producing 16kg of tomato chutney. Nothing's gone to waste from the urban allotment's growing this year.

As everyone wrapped up for the day, Joseph said that the next cycle of fruit and vegetable growing will start in December. There are plans to create deeper beds and to start enriching the soil with manure and other nutrients, so we'll be back next month to make 2026's harvest an even bigger success than 2025.