Another fun and also informative evening at the allotment with Greener and Cleaner, Efi and friends! Tonight the group was busy planting out potted seedlings, pruning the grape vine, giving the potatoes some tasty compost, putting the stinky natural nettle-based fertiliser to use, and giving all the vegetables and herbs some much-needed water. One fig was also spotted on the tree! Various people also went home with some courgette flowers, rainbow chard, vine leaves and seeds to use. Thanks for having us!

Our Wednesday evening crew took on the Greener & Cleaner allotment, meeting the brilliant Efi to hydrate some thirsty plants, layer cardboard into the compost, and even learn how to make some nice natural (stinky) fertiliser out of nettles!

We were also lucky enough to go home with some giant rhubarb stalks, sage, mint and sunflower seeds - thanks so much! (I can confirm that these have all been put to good use, not just transformed into daggers for a quick duel…)

We went to Churchfields Recreation Ground tonight for some weeding abd watering in their tiny forest!

As usual, we met at Bridge House where we introduced ourselves and answered this week's question - what's your favourite ice cream flavour? We ran the gamut from run & raisin to cornetto chocolate, but Kelsey won the evening with orange choc chip :O

It was a 2km run through Penge and along Avenue Road to the Ground where we met Amanda, who helps run the Friends Group, who handed out tools for us to water the trees and take out the weeds.

We worked industriously as the sun set and left the tiny forest looking better than we found it, which is grand!

A pleasant 2km run back to Bridge House for some stretches and then split up to bead home :)

Massive shout out to Lindsay🤓 - first time GoodGymer!

Meeting as usual at the Bridge House, all beaming from the sunshine, we had a brief chat about our favourite DIY tasks, which ranged from just the pure satisfaction of completing any job, to the complicated rewiring of electrical things (hot tip - take a photo of how it looked before you touched it!)

We jogged off for a little loop round the sights of Penge and back to Anerley, and peered in at the frogspawn in the little corner pond of the St Hugh's community garden.

Mark had already collected some willow stems, and some of us set about planting them to make a living hedge (which you can weave together once it's a bit more established). The rest of us had a heavy little workout shifting railway sleepers and pallets from the front of the garden to the back, where they'll make more raised beds and other garden features for locals.

All in all a lovely productive sunny evening :)

Louise, Andrew, Sara and Hannah joined the friends of the Palace Park for another volunteering session! Things got off to a ceremonial start with Bromley‘s mayor coming by to cut the ribbon for the official entrance to the park; he then joined a guided walk around six of the Bromley parks with several other interested parties. Meanwhile, we headed over to the other side of the lake to get back to clearing away ivy, brambles and laurel (and rubbish) to make space for more plant diversity. Andrew managed to tackle a huge overgrown holly too. Great work!