GoodGymers took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
Elsa saw them and GoodGymers looked good.

Elsa, from Friends of Horsenden Hill, knew the fearless 14 GoodGymers who arrived at Horsenden Farm on a sunny Saturday were the only team large and brave enough to work so close to where the Gruffalo lurked in the woods behind the farmhouse.

First, she asked Gus, Steph Ducat and Richard to gather the timber stacked beside the farmhouse and reinforce the dead hedge. A sturdy barrier against the hungry Gruffalo, perhaps?

Next, Elsa sent Afshin, Iram and Kash to wheelbarrow a mountain of green waste - rotting onion tops, spoiled peppers, pattypan squash and potatoes - to a spot near the canoe club. Was this a cunning plan to tempt the Gruffalo towards the canal instead of the farm?

Finally, Elsa recruited Andrew, Breda, Emma, Harvey, Melissa, Penny, Scott and Sevan for an enormous weeding job, hoeing and scraping the grass and weeds from the path leading to the Gruffalo's lair. Surely she wasn't making it easier to spot the monster's turned-out toes? Not at all. By clearing away the soft carpet of greenery, she'd ensured that if the Gruffalo sneaked in to steal the pigs, the scrape of his terrible claws against the hard, dry ground would give him away long before he reached the farm.

With the farm secured from its fearsome woodland neighbour, the GoodGymers, led by Elsa's trusty dog Archie, headed through the deep dark wood, following the heavenly aroma of Horsenden's famous pizza. Then, suddenly, they stumbled upon... the Gruffalo!

"Here's my favourite food!" the Gruffalo said. '"GoodGymer crumble!"

But one sniff of the pizza wafting through the woods changed his mind. By the time he reached the farm, there wasn't a slice left. The well-fed GoodGymers simply strolled past the Gruffalo's lair on their way to their second task at the top of Horsenden Hill, leaving the poor monster to rummage through the pile of green waste by the canal in search of a few scraps of rotten onion.

As part of London Climate Action Week 2026, GoodGym Ealing hosted three wildlife survey sessions in three of the Tiny Forests across the Ealing borough that GoodGymers had helped plant within the last couple of years. Earthwatch Europe, the organisation behind this fantastic project, helped promote our events designed to connect local people with these small, densely planted native forests that support biodiversity while strengthening relationships between people and nature in urban settings.

From the perspective of raising awareness about the Tiny Forest hidden in the heart of Hanwell, the session at Cuckoo Park was a success. Alongside five GoodGymers, Steph Ducat, Sevan, Kash, A.B. and Penny, two local residents and nature enthusiasts, joined the fun.

Noah and Faye, who live nearby, had no idea the Cuckoo Park Tiny Forest even existed and were excited to discover it. They joined the wildlife survey, helping GoodGymers count butterflies, pollinators and ground dwellers such as ants, snails and earthworms. They were also keen to learn more about the project and expressed an interest in helping maintain their local Tiny Forest and spreading the word within the local community - potential future Tree Keepers in the making!

After the survey, the new Tree Keepers got stuck into some maintenance work, removing weeds and tall grasses that could suppress the growth of the smaller trees. Flowering plants were left untouched to continue attracting pollinators.

The Cuckoo Park Tiny Forest looked dramatically different from our previous visit. Tall grasses and thistles had sprung up throughout the site and, somewhat unexpectedly, so had several clusters of cereals! The forest was buzzing with life, and during the survey, we discovered that insects weren't the only creatures calling it home. While searching beneath a slab for ground dwellers, we uncovered a tiny mouse which stole the spotlight from the butterflies.

If that sounds like your kind of evening, we're hosting one more wildlife survey session during London Climate Action Week, this time combined with an optional run. Join us at the Hanger Hill Tiny Forest and help us discover what wildlife is hiding there!

GoodGym's first visit to Blackberry Corner since October showed a huge transformation. Through spring, things had sprung. Mostly weeds around the fruit trees. HANGOT's Orchard Love day for May looked to clear space around the trees so that they could feed off all of the precious sunlight and water that hit the orchard.

HANGOTers scythed the paths first, with everyone staying out of the way of the swishing blades. Once they'd passed, GoodGymers got rolling with their shears, quickly chopping 2 metre wide circles around the tree trunks. Nettles, grass, cleavers and hemlock were wiped out with each snip. The animal lovers in the group found lots of ladybirds, spiders and snails, which they moved to safety before removing the weeds that they'd been sitting on. Rakers followed the choppers, moving the cuttings into large piles to dry out.

After the trees were given some breathing room, the team moved onto cutting back a large overgrown area at the far side of the orchard and also digging out burdock and hemlock, which needed regular and sustained removal to eventually kill them.

The tasks were completed quickly thanks to a lot of volunteers and a desire to get off to today's Hanwell Hootie music festival. A couple of the ladybirds had the same idea. Rather than searching for a new home in the orchard, they decided to hitchhike on a bag to go on a journey of musical discovery via a coffee stop.

The Early May Bank Holiday weekend sounds like a time when everyone wants to get away to enjoy a break, right? Wrong! A revolutionary team of 12 GoodGymers descended on Horsenden Farm, redefining Italian cuisine and the rules of landscaping.

Such impressive numbers guaranteed at least a double task, so the team split into two. Sevan, Richard, Thaiza, Amy, Maxime and Afshin went up Horsenden Hill to marvel at the views while dealing with treacherous spikes, while Penny, Danny, Kat, Steph Ducat, Augustin and Kash headed down to the car park to make a very special lasagne.

The first team continued the task started last month at the top of the hill. The goal was to remove as much prickly hawthorn as possible to make space for the Horsenden cows to graze and enrich the ecosystem with their wonderful cow pies - a buffet for countless insects, fungi, and bacteria, and a source of nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for plants to grow.

With thick gloves and loppers, the six GoodGymers finished off the leftover hawthorn from April and moved on to the next patch, where the newest addition to the team, Amy, spotted a memorial sign and cut through the spiky plants, determined to find out what was written on it. What a start! Amy met us last month at another outdoor task, so we knew she'd fall in love with losing herself in Horsenden's nature. Welcome, Amy!

The hilltop team destroyed the second hawthorn patch in no time and moved on to make a start at the third one, which they had to leave unfinished. Throwing the tangled, spiky cuttings over the fence and pushing them down was not a quick and easy job as one might think. The group made great progress, with some hawthorn still left behind for the next volunteer group.

The second team was a team of cooks. As you can imagine, things can get tricky when you get too many of them. To add to the complexity of the intricate lasagne recipe we had to follow, we were boosted by two additional cooks (other Horsenden volunteers). Luckily, Elsa, our task owner and chef, joined the group to masterfully coordinate the execution of her staple recipe:

Compost Lasagne

(Serves: 1 happy ecosystem)

Prep time: As long as it takes to fill a wheelbarrow
Cook time: A few months (slow food at its finest)

Ingredients

• 4 parts “green waste” 🌿 (plant trimmings + signature “lasagne sh*ts” a.k.a. manure)
• 6 parts woodchip 🪵
• A willing team of GoodGymers

Equipment

• Pitchfork 🍴
• Shovel 🥄
• Wheelbarrow 🛒

Method

1. Lay down a generous base of lasagne sh*ts. This is your rich foundation.
2. Sprinkle a layer of plant waste over the top. Think of it as your herby middle layer.
3. Cover with a thick layer of woodchip to seal everything in and keep things nicely balanced.
4. Drizzle a light splash of compost béchamel (questionable brown liquid) over the layer.
5. Keep layering: manure, greens, woodchip, 2 to 3 times, or until your compost lasagne reaches impressive heights.
6. Let it rest - leave your masterpiece to slowly “cook” down into beautiful compost.

Bon appétit (for the soil)! 🌍

Chef’s tip

The secret ingredient is teamwork and not taking yourself too seriously.

After assembling three impressive lasagne, we left nature to do the rest of the cooking. We then all headed for a well-deserved team lunch, which offered an equally unconventional take on Italian cuisine: pizza with a pickle and egg!

If you think that sounds like a fun thing to do on a Saturday morning, join us next month at Horsenden Farm!