Mondays task saw us back at Southampton City Farm, one of our regular organisations who always have something fun and interesting for us to help with!

This evening was no different with our more creative side being employed to help the farm create signage to help direct people to find the farm from the carpark and surrounding space.

It was lovely to welcome Ian to his first goodgym Southampton task and who did a stellar job with his sign painting skills! Helen and Janet got to work each creating their individual signs and Ellie and Lauren tackled a multi sign with bubble writing and acrylics!

It was nice to do something a bit different flexing our creative mind muscles. We will be back with the farm very soon hopefully to help leaflet drop.

Back to Aldermoor Community Farm again this evening where Richard had plenty of compost to keep us going. We set to work in two teams to move the compost from the bins in the poly tunnel to the outdoor compost bins. Our new lights from Energise Me helped us get the task done safely in the dark. We trialed a few techniques to get the compost out but trowelling into big plant pots seemed to be the best one. Wilson was first to hop into the compost bin which also helped speed us up! Great to welcome Janet, a seasoned GoodGymer, to her first session with Southampton. I celebrated my 100th good deed again, after reaching the official milestone last week with Portsmouth GoodGym, and modelled our Southampton wings. Can’t wait to see who will don them next!

We quickly split into two teams to get the job done - the shovelers and the forkers! Shovelers were tasked with loading the wheelbarrows with compost and then transferring it to the beds. With a perfected wheelbarrow wiggle the compost was deposited expertly ready for spreading. Forkers then got to work turning over the soil and incorporating the new compost. With the music pumping, we managed to clear a whole compost bay and get the beds ready for the farm volunteers to plant the Elephant garlic. We look forward to seeing that when it’s grown!

On Monday four goodgymers made their way to help out the friends of portswood rec. It was our first time attending a task here and our first where it has started to get dark. We were greeted by the lovely Denise who told us all about the gardening group and the impressive work they have done making over an area which used to be brambles into a flower garden.

Denise tasked us with chopping back a hedge that was encroaching onto a path. With the help of Denise and her husband we set to work cutting the hedge back to make it easier for people to use. Wilson was a very useful human torch making sure we could all see as the darkness set in as well as reaching very high to reach difficult branches.

Once the hedge was all cut back Lucy and Helen helped move all the cuttings to the park entrance for the council to collect. We had a lovely evening and hope to be back soon.