This October, our usual third Saturday of the month, dedicated to Western Road Urban Garden, turned into a celebration of the end of the growing season. With the harvest already collected, all that was left was a tidy-up and throwing a party afterwards!

The atmosphere in Southall was buzzing with the upcoming Diwali festivities. It was a fantastic time to join GoodGym and Southall Community Alliance at a very special community day. Deepak decided to do exactly that. Welcome to the team, Deepak!

With eight GoodGymers to help the urban garden this Saturday, Janpal and Paul scrambled to provide them with a variety of light and heavier tasks. Steph Ducat, Ash, Afshin, Kash and Sevan, together with a good friend from previous WRUG sessions, Andre, and a new volunteer, Sangheeta, chose a tricky task of moving timber stacked alongside the polytunnel. The planks were not only heavy and long, but also packed with nails. Everyone was extra careful, resisting any temptation to show off, which resulted in a new stack of timber in a more appropriate spot and zero mishaps on the way! Sevan then joined Iram, A.B. and Deepak in meticulous weeding around the fruit trees in the orchard and wheelbarrowing the surprisingly large amounts of green waste to the compost heap.

It was not yet noon when our team and the new arrivals at WRUG slowly started gravitating towards the polytunnel to uncover its hidden treasures. This time, we don't mean okra, chillies or gourd, but a feast prepared by Janpal: samosas, chicken biryani, Indian sweets, hot and cold drinks and an abundance of fruit! The mid-session break was a great opportunity to chat with the familiar and the new faces and sample the flavours that are best found in Southall.

It might have been tempting to call it a day after such a pleasant interval - but not for the GoodGymers! The timber carriers team logged a new log-moving achievement in their portfolio. They migrated another pile of wood into the space created after removing the planks to build a timber wall with a double function: a border with neighbouring property and an enormous bug hotel.

That's not a hotel. It's a resort!"

When the main objectives, weeding the orchard and moving the wood, were done, the GoodGymers proactively asked about a bonus task - and Janpal responded! The recently cleared hedging and the bases of the orchard trees needed a thick layer of woodchip. With forks, wheelbarrows, buckets, and, of course, great teamwork, we completed that activity in no time. That was finally the time to call it a day (and the end of the season) - unless you were one of the GoodGymers with yet another session in store on Saturday!

GoodGym Ealing kicked off their Ealing Climate Week with a bang! The Saturday morning in Southall was packed with action: encouraging people to get active by supporting Southall parkrun around the course and at the funnel, a jog to donate old sports kit at Open Southall, and, finally, arriving at Western Road Urban Garden for more joy of connecting with others taking positive action on climate.

GoodGymers Sevan, Steph Ducat, and Kash met familiar faces at the garden: our host, Janpal from Southall Community Alliance, Ash, who just came back from a clean-up at the canal, and our friend, the mighty Andre. For Afshin, it was the first time at Western Road - surely, a less prickly experience than his very first GoodGym session at the farm, where he had earned his red t-shirt. It was a good opportunity to meet people from Active Communities and Let’s Go Southall, whose aims of getting the local community confident going out, making new friends, and getting active are similar to ours.

Today’s task for our group was to clear and tidy the area around the polytunnel in preparation for the end of the season. With a large group of colleagues, we removed the weeds in no time, and had enough time at the end of the session to connect with other volunteers and enjoy samosas, snacks, and fruit from Southall Community Alliance. We are already looking forward to the October session at Western Road!

Western Road Urban Garden is a wonderful place managed by Southall Community Alliance. The site, converted from a derelict allotment and dumping ground into a thriving garden, welcomes children from local schools and helps them learn where food and vegetables come from (spoiler: it's not the supermarket!). It also connects Southall residents through gardening and helps fight inequalities in access to fresh food by donating its crops to the local foodbank.

While our previous visit to the garden had been during the time of extreme heat, the July community day welcomed us with the return of the typical British weather: a downpour! Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, Janpal, the SCA manager, and four GoodGymers still made it to the session!

There was an indoor element to the task, quickly finished by Angela: planting and watering aubergines in the polytunnel. Despite the lower turnout today due to the weather, Janpal was happy about the rain as plants desperately needed it. The ones planted in the polytunnel had very limited access to the rainwater. And here's where Angela came in, fighting this in-aquality with a watering can!

Janpal told us about a better irrigation system he planned to install next year. Watering inside the polytunnel every day to keep the crops alive was quite a commitment! WRUG's resident fox might have also been thinking about the irrigation improvements, as he had recently ripped another hole in the polytunnel and had been seen walking on top of it! We've heard more stories about the fox: Janpal's victory over the troublemaker by beating him to the ripe apricots this year, and fox repellents made of wolves' urine.

Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash worked outside for most of the time, getting all equally soaked. They've made a big difference, chopping nettles and pulling bindweed to free the native hedging. As a result, a massive heap of weeds grew nearby, which Janpal hoped would be collected by the council.

As we completed clearing one side of the hedge and got thoroughly drenched, the session finished earlier, with the usual refreshments: fruit, tea, coffee and samosas in the polytunnel.

WRUG is taking a break from hosting community days in August, but you can join us at a different urban garden. Come to volunteer in Greenford at the beginning of next month. Sign up here!

The longest day of 2025, which happened to be the June community day at Western Road, brought temperatures soaring to 30 degrees. Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash ran from different directions to reach Southall's urban garden and meet Angela on her first session. The GoodGymers knew Angela from Ealing Soup Kitchen (not the coordinator Angela) and were delighted she had decided to give volunteering through gardening a chance.

The tour of the garden

Angela was warmly welcomed by Janpal, the organiser of the community day, who gave her a complete tour around Western Road Urban Garden (WRUG). All the GoodGymers entered the polytunnel, which they had helped set up. Those who were still feeling hot and sticky after their run experienced an entirely different level of heat! The thermometer inside showed 41 degrees - the current temperature, and 59 degrees - WRUG's polytunnel heat record!

Janpal presented the results of his planting in the polytunnel this year: from staples like tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, and red bell peppers to more exotic plants like gourd, karela (bitter melon) and snake gourd. Melon and marrow were difficult to distinguish without visible fruits. Okra still awaited to be planted. The vegetables grown at Western Road are distributed among those in need in Southall. Because many residents belong to the South Asian community, Janpal makes sure the people struggling with food affordability are able to cook their traditional dishes with the local produce. That explained why the polytunnel was rich in different varieties of chilli peppers!

"Those chillies here are *banging hot*! It's pumpkin chilli pepper. The packet said 35,000 on the Scoville scale" - Janpal.

We walked outside, where the breeze made us feel that the temperature was quite agreeable compared to the sizzling polytunnel! Janpal had more to show us on the subject of hot peppers: cherry chillies - the result of the veg seedling swap with our friend Joseph managing the urban garden in Greenford. Those were apparently quite deadly. Asked about who such chillies were for, Janpal mentioned an idea about organising a chilli-eating contest at Western Road!

Outside, we saw Janpal's pride: dahlias. Angela was quizzed on her knowledge of the plants as we walked past fennel, fenugreek and poppy. We reached raised beds with onions, cabbage, cauliflower and rare plants originating from Southeast Asia - a kind of very long, thin beans. The most inspiring was the raspberry and lettuce plot planted by seven-year-old children. We entered the orchard and were amazed to see that all the trees planted less than two years ago already had fruit: apricots, mulberries, apples, cherries, and pears. Janpal was excited about the ripening apricots but worried that the WRUG's fox would get them first. The troublemaking fox was notorious for damaging the dahlias, digging holes and stealing fruit and vegetables.

"So what is today's task? A fox hunt?" - Kash.
"The fox is okay. He keeps the rats away. We've learned to coexist" - Janpal.

The task

Our team was joined by Paul, Katie, Ash, Geoff with his daughter, and later, Ravi. Janpal and Ash were hoping that there would be enough hands to clear the entire space next to the tool shed of weeds and greenhouse parts. Katie and Geoff's daughter then started by decorating the gate instead - the result was wonderful! In the meantime, our team moved parts of a small greenhouse (to be assembled in the future), and a solar panel, then pulled or cut tall weeds on a large area we've been working on. There was plenty of bindweed, which should not be placed together with compost, so we piled it up separately to be later burned. We faced a real challenge when we had to dig out the roots of the weeds. The recent hot days made the soil so hard, we could not stick a fork in it! Only Geoff, the professional gardener, seemed totally unaffected by those conditions and kept digging successfully.

The tables turned when Ash brought us first small pickaxes, and later an adze and mattocks. Those gradual upgrades were a true game changer that allowed us to clear the entire space we were preparing for the second shed. We also buried a trench and levelled the ground for the new construction. In the last few minutes of the session, Ash convinced everyone to pull together and place a membrane to cover a section of the levelled area. That will help suppress the mad weeds' growth in the next weeks!

"A tremendous effort today by your colleagues in very difficult conditions. It has made a real difference." - Janpal.

The reward

If the sight of what we've achieved today was not rewarding enough, the generous refreshments provided by Southall Community Alliance certainly felt like a reward! There was a mountain of fruit (not the crops of the garden yet), delicious samosas and a bucket with ice full of water and soft drinks to keep us cool and hydrated.

The next chapter

Whether you have joined us today or not, the next opportunity to support Western Road Urban Garden awaits! Come to Southall for more fun, rewarding community work in a friendly group, and those excellent samosas in July - sign up now!

Legends about the feats of strength, bursts of joy, and - most importantly - samosas at Western Road in Southall spread quickly outside the Ealing Borough. The accounts reach as far North as Ickenham, where our newest addition to the team lives: Zahra!

Zahra made Western Road her first GoodGym session and was warmly welcomed by Janpal from Southall Community Alliance, who told her the story of the Western Road Urban Garden project. Apart from the GoodGymers, the allotment was visited today by volunteers Andre, Paul and Katie, with a brief cameo from Mr Bhasin.

Janpal likes to bring colour and vibrancy to Western Road. This season, he bought some dahlia tubers of many varieties, some of them named after cocktails and liqueurs like Cuba Libre and Crème De Cognac.

"What about crème de la crème?" - Andre asked.
"That's all our volunteers!" - Janpal replied.

The day was sunny, yet the cold wind made us think that the spring was not quite there. The first task was to bring the bags with soil from outside into the polytunnel, stir the earth and top it with compost. The dahlia bulbs would have much better chances of sprouting in the warmth of the polytunnel than outdoors.

With that job completed, the team: Zahra, Steph Ducat, Kash, Andre and Paul moved to another assignment: moving donated wood from next door's garden to the urban garden site. Sevan was receiving the planks handed over to him and putting them aside. With nails sticking out of the timber, and glass discovered in the grass at the boundary of the gardens, the task was abandoned as the safety of the volunteers was the priority, and not everyone had sturdy enough shoes to risk a cut.

When Lena and Marta arrived, they joined Zahra, Kash and Andre in planting the dahlias. The process involved soaking the tubers, writing variety names such as Tsuki-yori-no-shisha or Kennemerland on donated plant labels, and planting the bulbs. The Dahlia crew filled the soil bags with all 32 bulbs prepared by Janpal. Nice work!

Steph and Sevan returned to their ambitious task of splitting the massive tree stump which had been started last month. 28 days later the GoodGymers discovered the poor wedge still stuck between the stubborn wood and getting rusty at the top, where it had been repeatedly smashed and, as a result, had lost its protective coating. The two GoodGymers took turns hacking the stump and eventually released the wedge and gloriously split the wood. What a victory it was! Both pieces of the root were taken on a trolley and placed on top of the barrier made of logs like a trophy.

After the break, when Janpal's legendary hospitality was proven true (yes, there were samosas, drinks, biscuits and fruit!), Sevan and Steph moved on to a different job: preparing the soil at the community allotment plots. The session ended at 1 pm, and the volunteers were offered the produce to take home, this time: leeks.

We are looking forward to the late Springtime sessions at Western Road and seeing our dahlias' colours coming to life! Stay tuned for our next session at Southall's favourite urban garden. Next Saturday morning, we will be meeting for a dose of conservation work at Grove Farm Nature Reserve.

Our first session at Western Road Urban Garden in 2025 brought an even more formidable challenge than last year's log relocation. There were plenty of different tasks to do - including planting in the gaps of the native hedge - but when Kash asked who would like a non-muscle task, she heard a resounding silence from Mohamed, Liuba, Steph Ducat and Sevan. Everyone was determined to tackle the job that Janpal thought only GoodGymers would be capable of doing (in the absence of Council's heavy machinery or a chainsaw): moving bases of 70- or 80-year-old pine trees!

For the first four stumps, we used a combination of rolling and pulling a trolley to move them closer to where Janpal wanted to create a natural barrier to the garden. Thanks to stellar teamwork, the five GoodGymers and our friend Andre were well-equipped to complete that job. The remaining two giant tree trunks (one of them was a double tree!), even the mighty Andre considered impossible. Splitting the logs into smaller pieces would make the job manageable - but how?

Just as Deux ex Machina, WRUG's Chief Engineer Ash arrived with his head full of ideas and a wheelbarrow full of tools (sadly not the chainsaw!). His strategy to tackle the big problem was to split it into smaller chunks, using a saw, an axe, a maul, a wedge, a mallet and a sledgehammer. Liuba and Sevan were at the forefront of the transformation, removing the soil from between the roots, and then sawing grooves in the weakest parts of the wood. Steph, Mohamed, Kash and Ash were taking turns hacking into the rifts in the tree bases with the axe and the maul, making slow but constant progress in splitting the trunk.

Halfway through the task, the gang took a short break to replenish their stamina with samosas and tea, kindly provided by Janpal, and warmed themselves up in the polytunnel. The GoodGymers had a chance for a chat with Paul and Katie, who were busy with another job at the urban garden today. Our team found out that the wounded pigeon that Katie had found in the morning sadly didn't survive till the afternoon.

Life had to go on, so we went back to our wood-splitting challenge with fresh energy. We kept turning the enormous tree base (which needed three people!) and attacked it from different angles. The crevices got deeper and deeper with each strike of the maul. We handed the mallet to Janpal for the honorary last blow... which didn't happen! Instead, the wedge was stuck deep in the wood and we could no longer reach it with the hammer! We kept manoeuvring the wood, hoping to split it from another way or at least release the wedge, but we ran out of time. So close - yet so far!

Now it was time for the team to split, with Liuba and Mohamed heading home, and Steph, Sevan and Kash running to their next missions. Ash promised the GoodGymers they would complete the job at the March session at Western Road and the team pledged to return to claim the glory for their hard work. Come and join us at the session next month - the wood-splitting challenge is still on, and other, less extreme, tasks are waiting to to be done.