To celebrate Love Parks Week over the weekend, GoodGymmers across Merton and Kingston headed out to give our cherished local green spaces some well-deserved TLC!

Equipped with litter pickers and bin bags, we scoured local parks to ensure our community spaces remain safe, clean, and welcoming for everyone (and the local wildlife!).

With local residents opting out of council glyphosate spraying, keeping the pavement edges and tree pits tidy purely by hand is a big task. The GoodGym Merton team is often called upon to join a SWAT team and armed with gloves, bags and hoes we were happy to help!

Three GoodGymmers headed to Merton and Lambeth Citizens Advice in Mitcham for our first task supporting the team there, with a mission to make the front of the building more welcoming for visitors. Whilst there were a few weeds to evict along the way, the main challenge quickly became clear: trees and bushes had gradually encroached over the public pavement outside, substantially narrowing the route to a busy Mitcham bus stop. Armed with loppers and determination, we set about reclaiming the footpath one branch at a time.

After a considerable amount of lopping, chopping and branch-dragging, the difference was striking. Several feet of pavement width were reclaimed for pedestrians, making the route to the bus stop much easier to navigate and giving the frontage a far tidier look. The task may have been modest in size, but the impact was obvious, and this was just the beginning: we'll be back in a few weeks with a full GoodGym crew to take on the much larger challenge lurking in the back garden. A successful pilot prune!

What started as a simple mission to move a stack of logs at a community allotment quickly escalated into one of those productive missions where finishing the original task just opens the door to three more. Our brief was to clear a log pile so that Lisa could get to a fence, eventually to remove it and install a gate. With four GoodGymmers on the case, we made such short work of the logs that the various creepy-crawlies suddenly finding themselves exposed to daylight barely had time to lodge a complaint! With the logjam thoroughly broken, we moved on to taking down the fence itself, clearing a patch of weeds, and generally making ourselves useful around the plot.

Along the way, Lisa’s thorough plant knowledge kept us entertained and educated. Highlights included discovering that magnolia flowers are edible and that bindweed - usually the villain of the allotment world - can be woven into baskets. As if that wasn't enough, Lisa made each volunteer a personalised rustic bouquet from a wonderfully varied selection of plants growing on the site, including lavender, yarrow and rosemary. The final reward came in the form of a bumper blackberry harvest, with enough gorgeously ripe fruit to spark serious conversations about jam-making as well as bramble crumble. We left with bouquets in hand, tubs full of blackberries, and the unmistakable scent of pure summer in our nostrils. A berry successful task indeed!