We returned to Carrington Community Gardens on a sunny (but thankfully slightly cooler) evening for a second round of clearing the overgrowth. We met Councillor Nayab Patel again on arrival before setting to work. On our last visit we made a start on clearing the main pathway and this time we turned our attention to some of the other areas that have become untidy and filled with weeds and brambles.

We all agreed that some of the best tasks involve us just being able to pull things out of the ground as it gives us both a physical workout and a satisfying psychological boost. What isn't quite so fun is negotiating the thorny branches which seemed worse than ever on this occasion, or maybe our gardening gloves just weren't quite thick enough. Either way, we all got a few pricks along the way, but we still managed to fill 8 bags of cuttings and unearth some litter and a mirror. Thankfully, our work was rewarded and our minds distracted from our thorn-filled fingers by Nayab's treat bag which was once again generously filled with muffins and crisps!

As we prepared to take our group photo at the end, we were joined by two police officers who were on the beat in the local area. They were very interested in what GoodGym do and thankful that we were in the community garden to clear it up rather than set up a camp! They even helped out by taking our group photo with Nayab.

A few milestones to mention - Vytautas hs just hit 10 tasks, Matthew has now done 15 tasks and Rosemarie recently reached 20. Well done to them all! We also have Peter and Tom edging very close to some big milestones which we look forward to celebrating very soon!

A stonking 10 GoodGymers descended on Walter Halls School this week for an evening of garden renovation. We were back in the same area we started last time that is being turned into a pond and wildflower garden.

We welcomed Peter for his first session, which he took with gusto, swinging a pickaxe like a pro, taking turns with Peter and assisted by Dayna and Rosemarie with spades.

Debbie and Aj started off by collecting stones to put in the tyre planters, then topped them up with branches and soil.

At one point, Pete M and Dayna (the two tallest people) helped remove a rainbow tarpaulin from the wooden pergola as it had seen better days and Adele wanted to repurpose the material for something else.

Nigel, Rachel and Marta planted some wild flowers in the no-dig beds we created, and Marta did a lot of watering with Debbie

Leah and one of the school staff, Emma, headed off up to the entrance to cut down some branches that had been causing a trip hazard on the paths, loading them into one of the now-empty tonne bags for use later in the planters.

Busy busy busy! Too bad ITV cancelled on us at the last minute!

Four Goodgymers headed back to the Windmill Community Gardens to tackle the second half of the brook

Peter, Nigel, Rosemarie and Neville ( for his GG debut - welcome aboard!) armed themselves with sturdy gloves, loppers and rakes (the scythe stayed in the shed - probably for the best!)

First job was to actually get in amongst the brambles and, with the help of Linda from gardens and a bit of crawling under the bridge we were in!

What followed was 60 minutes of hacking, lopping, raking and generally trying not to get scratched and gouged as we managed to clear most if the other half of the brook.

So satisfying to see our hard work pay off, especially as it seemed an almost impossible task. We can't wait to see what they have lined up for us next..!

GoodGym Nottingham felt all a bit Stone Age this week!

We were back at Walter Halls School with Adele, this time tasked with helping make over a patch of ground that will soon become a garden for the children to tend to.

Peter took a pickaxe to the patch marked out to become a pond. The ground there is pretty tough at the moment and Adele wants to have the kids help dig it out, so he was breaking it up and turning it over for them to make things a little easier.

Dayna, Vytautas and Rosemarie were digging holes to plant some of Adele's ferns and climbers – much tougher than it sounds with the hard soil, roots and rocks hindering progress.

Leah and Rachel were back shifting soil from a tonne-bag up on the hill down to the new garden space, and created a no-dig flowerbed with newcomer Marta getting the honours of sprinkling over the new wildflower seeds for her ingenious use of a big log as a hammer to get the little border fence into the ground.

We're back in a couple of weeks, hope you can join us!