3 GoodGymmers joined with Maryland Community Group to make up a team of 20+ pollution pickers!

Meeting at Maryland Station we divvied up grabbers and high-vis before splitting into two teams - one heading towards Water Lane and adjoining roads and the other sweeping down to Henniker Point and its neighbouring roads. The latter team scoring high-point finds - one shoe, a full bag of Haribos and a sledge!

As we picked our way to the lovely community garden at Thorogood Gardens, some team members found themselves picking on their own front gardens which was a bonus! It was good to not only clean up local spaces but also spread the word to residents and promote keeping our spaces clean. The sun made a few welcome appearances but otherwise the high winds made for a blustery morning - tricky when trying to pin down litter into plastic bags! A well deserved Kotch brunch awaited us afterwards.

Phoebe came out of hibernation to help the team at Abbey Gardens at their community volunteering day.

Piles of wood to be sorted ready so it can be reused to make benches.....

Wood chip to be spread to help reduce weeds.

Back at Abbey Gardens supporting their transformation project. Sorting good wood and bad wood, lifting wood, and piling wood....whittle by whittle...who woodnt?

The team may not have known it, but this evening’s session at the Get Out Gardens was a milestone in our relationship with this brilliant charity.

Get Out’s main aim is to use environmental education to connect young people in Tower Hamlets with nature, developing self-confidence and life skills through several strands of activities. One of these activities is surfing, which sounds like a great idea – we are yet to get involved in this particular strand, but we are very much involved with their flagship project, a permaculture garden in Bow, next to Malmesbury Primary School. The site occupies about a third of an acre, and 2 years ago was disused and completely overgrown. It’s now a productive food forest and acts as a hub for education and connecting to the natural environment. GoodGym Newham first started helping out about 18 months ago, dropping in for the garden’s regular Saturday sessions where Get Out’s founder and fountain of permaculture knowledge, Kieran, would be on hand to direct and answer questions. However, the long term vision involves getting volunteers to develop their own knowledge so they can take a bit more ownership of the garden (as well as using that knowledge for their own gardening projects), and in doing so, this means that progress is less dependent on Kieran’s time, efforts are more widely shared, the garden is more sustainable and more people will benefit.

So back to our session… Having pitched in for a while now and some of us have even attended a permaculture training course, Kieran had sent in advance a set of instructions to interpret (including how to get in) and we were let loose in the garden to follow those through by ourselves. Although a seemingly straightforward task of weeding an area in preparation for more vegetable growing (which we made a great start on) it still enabled us to demonstrate our understanding of the composting system (which we largely got right - it’s all about the carbon to nitrogen ratio…) Anyway, great stuff everyone, we hope this can carry on as a regular group run task, once again showing the effectiveness of a large number of enthusiastic hands in a short space of time.

T'was a blustery evening down at Cody Dock. Six of us were on tree planting duties; Downy Birch, Goat Wilow and Wild Cherry. We planted them all, hopefully a large percentage live on, greening up the surrounding area, providing a habitat for local birds, insects and more. A nice thing to have a hand in, that permanence, or more precisely longevity, it's satisfying.

Asides from that, big up Theo Lee, hopefully you enjoyed that and your budding permaculture garden goes well - look forward to having you back. Everyone else, it was wicked to see you.

With group runs coming back in June, and the participant cap removed from missions...we'll be seeing a whole lot more of each other. That wasn't supposed to read like a threat, more of an exciting window into the summer. Should be glorious.

sign up here for next week's session

Till next time,

B