Unlucky for some but not us, 13 GoodGymers gathered outside Glass Mill ready to tackle the hills to help the garden team at Seniors.

We skipped the warm up this week in favour for a steady run as a group to Seniors as it's a bit of a longer run and I'd spent too long chatting as usual!

At Senior's, Alice had a big list for us to get through which included: - watering the plants - admiring the plants in the poly tunnel after we did some hot bedding - clearing the weeds that were growing through the cracks in the building - planting tomato plants - covering the stems of the tomato plants with vaseline to protect from slugs - moving the fly tipped woodchip from the front of the building to near the poly tunnel

Anyone who wasn't there and happens to think "who would fly tip woodchip". It's the same question we thought and the same question the gardening team at Senior's though. Next time, a little request that they fly tip in a more convenient location for the gardening team. Luckily for us, it was a good workout moving it in wheelbarrows.

Most of us frequented the local drinking establishment whilst the rest of the group tackled the hills back to Glass Mill.

Big cheers for Khai who completed his longest run yet!! Amazing effort especially on those hills. We'll make sure next weeks group run is a short and flat route...it actually is!

We have a brand new group run next week to The Ladywell Unit to help in their garden. It's around 1km there so 2km in total.

Welcome to Janet and Andy who were joining us on their group run and what seems to be tradition, you joined us on one of our longer runs to PNK Garden. Hopefully we'll see you at future GoodGym sessions!

Once we tackled Deptford High St and as soon as we see the golden arches in the distance we know we're nearly at our task for the evening.

Our task for the evening was to water all the vegetable plants and every pretty looking plant in the garden and some of them were looking pretty thirsty after the recent warm weather!

Our second task for the evening was to clear all the brambles that had previously been chopped back to make the edge of the garden a bit tidier.

If we got all those tasks done then the next task was weeding and of course we got to that. We managed to squeeze in a little 5 min of power weeding.

Next week we're heading to Florence Green to shift some bark and remove the protective wrapping from the baby trees! This has been a regular monthly community mission but now it's going to be our first group run there!

Finally the sun was shining and on a group run, we'd be very happy if the sun stays for all group runs over summer now!

Onto the task for the evening, it was our monthly visit to Senior's and Alice and the gardening team had a long list of tasks that they needed our help with.

First we had to run up and over the hills to get to Seniors and when we arrived Paul had already got stuck into clearing the weeds from one of the beds.

The other tasks for the evening: - moving tables - filling the water butts - turning over a bed and planting tomato plants (and adding some worms)

It's always a lovely run back as the hills are quickly done and you get rewarded for the hills with the view at the top of Blythe Hill Fields.

Next week we have a shorter run to Luxmore Gardens to continue keeping on top of the weeding.

Fresh from the Three Peaks I gave all leading duties to Oli who kindly agreed to lead the group up the Two Peaks to Luxmore Gardens whilst I walked ahead.

It was our first visit to Luxmore Gardens this summer which meant the alkanet would be out in force. The alkanet is loved by bees but its leaves cause a rash on humans so the volunteer team have decided to remove it to prevent it taking over (which it easily does).

The main task for the evening was removing the alkanet and any other pesky weeds that are suffocating the plants. By the end of the evening we had piles and piles of weeds along the path and the last job of the group run was to pile it all up on the compost heap.

Thanks for your hard work team!

What is a hot bed I hear you cry!! Google kindly answered that question for me:

*A hotbed is basically a raised bed filled with layers of decomposing straw and manure or other organic matter. You then add a thinner layer of growing medium (soil/compost) on top to grow plants or seeds.

Like any other compost heap, a hotbed is built up using organic materials. Ideally, there should be a good mix of nitrogen-rich ‘green’ and carbon-rich ‘brown’ materials.*

Mo and Oli did a fantastic job of digging up all the soil before adding manure (that wasn't too stinky) and then readding the compost on top. A fun fact, our first ever group run to Senior's approximately 7 years ago (maybe longer) was hot bedding.

The rest of the team tackled a variety of other tasks including digging a trench for potatoes, digging over vegetable beds, cutting off diseased leaves from the roses and transplanting seedlings.

A great effort from every member of the team and it was soon time for a cold drink in the nearby beer garden. Not before saying farewell to Oli who was making the return journey to Glass Mill.

Next week, the bank holiday doesn't stop us and we are heading to Marsha Phoenix Trust.