Sarah and Johnny were doing a GG double today.

After helping out at Eltham junior parkrun they joined local families and residents on a litter pick in the streets of New Eltham, oganised by Roots4Life.

With lots of people involved there was quite a pile of filled rubbish bags at the end.

And a lovely sunny 2.5k walk done.

Thank you to the friendly team at Roots4Life for the soup-er tasty soup and drinks afterwards.

This morning we were helping Roots4Life tend to the young fruit trees in their orchard.

Working alongside other volunteers we 1) removed the support straps that had become too tight around the tree trunks, 2) laid cardboard from packing boxes around the bases of the trees to kill weeds that were competing with the tree roots for nutrients, and 3) covered the card with woodchips to keep the it in place and feed the soil.

Tasks completed we chatted in the sunshine over tea and biscuits.

And we even got the first stamps on our Geen Hearts loyalty scheme cards, rewarding people for supporting Roots4Life in its mission. Find out more about their great work at https://roots4life.org/.

What a nice way to spend a couple of hours, taking care of trees at Roots4Life!

Three of us joined a team of volunteers, Martin and Marta having run Parkrun beforehand.

It does something for the soul, looking after nature - not least these lovely fruit trees. Some of them had sadly died so we had to fell them (yes, I did shout "Geronimo" when I pushed mine over). The others needed some TLC, with some pruning, weeding, watering, cardboarding and composting!

We'll be back in the autumn for a follow up session and we can see how our trees are getting on!

Great to spend time with you guys and to meet you Martin - see you next week at the social.