Our green-fingered contact Sybil at Emmanuel Church invited us over to St Mary's Allotments to help get the site spick and span ahead of their Cabin Open Day on 18th July — and for once we got to see the place in glorious daylight! Three of us — me, Adam and Eugene — jogged down from Freaks and Geeks to get some extra kilometers in before the graft began.

There was plenty to be getting on with: creeping ivy to cut back, weeds to chop and clear from around the social area where the plot holders hoped to expand their gathering space.

We tackled the area under a magnificent plane tree first, setting about the carpet of dried leaves and weeds — raking, bagging and clearing until the ground was transformed. With that conquered, Adam spotted the creeping ivy that had been quietly plotting a takeover of the fence line and embarked on a side quest that proved difficult to drag him away from. There's always one more strand of ivy, apparently.

One thing the task description didn't mention: the dust. Every armful of dried leaves sent up a cloud of it, and before long the allotment echoed to a chorus of sneezes. But by the end of our time there we had a dozen or so bulging bags of garden waste lined up under the tree, a beautifully cleared social area, and fence lines on the way to being liberated from their ivy overcoats. The before-and-after is genuinely satisfying, and the space is looking ready to welcome visitors on the 18th.

As is tradition, Sybil's legendary generosity appeared right on cue at the end of the task — this time in the form of mac and cheese croquettes and spring rolls amongst other things. Seemed like an excellent idea at the time, less so on the run home. Worth it though.

Huge thanks to Sybil and the plot holders for having us back and working alongside us — it's always a pleasure, and as Sybil says, it shows what can be done with a bit of effort, determination and teamwork.

If you fancy getting fit while doing good in Newham, come and join us — new faces always welcome!

This week we returned to the Independent Newham Users' Forum (INUF), the user-led mental health charity based at Ithaca House in Stratford. INUF's community hub hosts drop-ins, yoga, art, dance and all sorts of wellbeing sessions, and the garden provides a calm, therapeutic space for everyone who uses it — or at least it will do, once we've been able to help get it back into shape.

A brilliant turnout of GoodGymers arrived to find that the back of the garden had been making the most of the summer sun. Brambles scrambling over the walls, buddleia with ambitions of becoming a tree, and nettles claiming a fair amount of territory. This week's mission: get right to the back of it all and take the space back.

We got stuck into weeding, pruning, sawing and bagging. Highlights included:

• Taming the buddleia and blackberry brambles along the boundary wall
• Giving the olive tree a much-needed haircut, with some impressive saw work on the lower branches
• Digging out weeds by the root — one heroic root ball very deserving of the photo
• Cutting back the nettles and undergrowth around the compost bins so they're actually reachable again
• Filling an impressive fleet of black bags with green waste

Special shout outs this week: to Lucinda for some cross-border GoodGymming — thanks for lending Newham your trowel skills! And it was lovely to see Steven and Bianca back at the garden — clearly the assorted weeds didn't put them off last time.

By the end of the evening the transformation was plain to see: the back of the garden went from a bit of a jungle to a clearer, open space, with a liberated olive tree and more room for the peaceful, welcoming garden INUF's community deserves.

Thanks to Pat at INUF for having us — we'll schedule a return for September - and a huge thank you to everyone who came along. These sessions can only happen if we have INUF volunteers (sorry), so please keep coming back!