Tonight’s team of volunteers arrived at The Wandle River Community Garden (formerly the Paul Bowness Memorial Garden) after a truly scorching day! Fortunately, the evening air had cooled down just in time, providing the perfect conditions to get stuck into some serious community action.

We were excited to hear about the future plans to grow native plants here specifically for natural dyeing, adding a brilliant, sustainable, and creative twist to this local green space.

To smash through the to-do list, we split into two teams to tackle both the garden itself and a spot a short distance up the river:

Team 1: Armed with secateurs, set to work clearing a thick patch of stubborn brambles, prepping the site for the native dyeing plants.

Team 2: Focused their energy on the main community garden area: weeding, sweeping, tidying up, and clearing litter to get the oasis looking pristine again after a very busy weekend of visitors.

An amazing transformation - well done everyone!

Pairing up for this session was the ideal way to do good and get something back too. The team are now Wellnergy goody bag experts and no doubt we'll be enjoying more from the festival later this week!

With a big number of sign-ups expected, it was the perfect opportunity to help both the Friends of Raynes Park and arrange an additional job at one of the Merton Garden Streets nearby. After the runners arrived, a breakaway group headed off to tackle the weeding job up the road and get some extra steps in, while the rest of the team checked in for duties at the station embankment.

We split into teams to tackle pruning, litter picking, and turning the compost, making fantastic progress across the board.

Meanwhile, the watering team faced a hilarious logistical puzzle due to a missing hose (apparently removed by workmen!). Instead, they improvised with a brilliantly inefficient bucket brigade: filling watering cans, emptying them into trug buckets on trolleys, and then pouring them back into watering cans at the embankment.

Despite the extra steps, everyone adapted brilliantly. The pruners, litter pickers, and compost-turners crushed their tasks, and the watering team managed to get some momentum going and plenty of watering completed. Well done, team!

Four intrepid GoodGymmers made their way along the River Wandle on a fair Friday morning to help Deen City Farm set up for their weekend fair. The main task was setting up several gazebos, and after figuring out how they worked (plus a DIY repair to one of them!), we were a lean, mean gazebo-constructing machine!

A last-minute change of heart meant we needed to swap a fully constructed double gazebo from one paddock to another. No problem either for our crack team! With a few extra (farm)hands and military precision we had them both up and over the fences like a well-oiled machine.

Although our tasks weren't meant to be farm related, a few local residents did decide to get involved - from a riding horse interested in our tent pegs to Meg the Shetland cow 'horning' in on our selfie! Farm life 👩‍🌾