A year after their last volunteering session at Our Lady of the Visitation Primary School in Greenford, a chance encounter in central Ealing brought Team GoodGym back to find out what had happened to the planned wildlife reserve. Last year a veg patch and the pond were well established, with the rest of the space still needing to be cleared and planted.

Returning today, Rachel and her keen pupils had been busy. They had:

• Completed the woodchip path
• Grown some beautiful sunflowers
• Planted wildflower seeds to create a Nectar Highway
• Created a hedge-y area to attract hedgehogs
• Been studying the lifecycle of hundreds of newts in their pond

Lots of discoveries for curious minds.

Other things hadn't changed from last year. The path through the wildlife reserve had again become a bramble highway. This was not the type of highway the school wanted to encourage. Most of the brambles were rooted in the flowerbeds off the path, so while some of the team got chopping, others dove into the dried out beds to dig out any roots that they could.

Therese, Maria, Kash and Steph chopped and dug their way through the whole session, clearing the space. As the bramble levels dropped off, Amy, Scott and Sevan moved onto task 2, emptying the soil from giant planters. Task owner Rachel saved the plants that had survived the summer, then the planters were dragged across the playground. The soil was dug out and placed in ton bags until they were light enough to lift and tip what was left. Six planters later, they were done.

Everyone enjoyed their session at the school, with some marvelling at how much space the school had available. Rachel was really impressed with what the large team achieved and she still has big plans and projects in the pipeline, so we could be back again, sooner rather than later.

"Thank you so much. Huge difference." - Rachel

Another great night at Masbro Centre and we got stuck straight in.

First up was the front garden — we cleared all the fallen leaves and got it looking tidy again. Then it was onto the small roof area, with Jalal up high doing the hero work and getting stuck in.

Next, back garden takeover! Lillie & Matthew made that sliding door glass absolutely shine 🪟 you could barely see the glass afterwards, while Therese, Jalal and I went full leaf-busters and cleared nearly 5 bags worth 🍁💪

Best moment: Lillie rescued some lovely tomatoes from the garden — saved just in time for Bea’s dinner 🍅

Great job done by all, Masbro is looking fresh front to back!

"Every session is different" is a GoodGym Ealing mantra, even for the same organisation. The changing seasons mean our partners' needs change too. To paraphrase someone or other famous who may have volunteered at Care4Calais with us:

"GoodGym is like a bag of donations. You never know what you're gonna get."

A month since our futile attempts to try and untangle overgrown tomato plants at Feeding Ealing, today we were doing something quite different. Preparing the raised beds for new planting and future crops. A big welcome to Emily, who joined us for her first GoodGym task, walking with the group from Horsenden Farm 🥳🎉. Give her a cheer! 📣

Emily and the others must've wondered what they'd let themselves in for when our task owner, Joseph, asked "are you ready for some graft?". He then led us to a huge pile of manure. From there, we were shown the raised beds that needed to be refreshed before new planting started.

"Where did that [big pile of manure] come from?" - GoodGymer
"From a really big cow" - Joseph

The team tried different ways to organise themselves to:

1. Get manure into wheelbarrows
2. Move the wheelbarrows to the raised beds
3. Tip the manure out and spread it
4. Mix the manure into the existing soil

Joseph wasn't wrong. It was heavy work, from filling the wheelbarrows through to turning the soil. On the upside, it wasn't as stinky as some people feared. Give that giant cow the Nobel prize for Chemistry!

"I've never seen manure that doesn't smell" - Therese

It was a real work out for the team. We managed to fertilise 11 of the raised beds, some of which'll have beans growing in them soon 🫘. Joseph was really impressed, as he always is with what GoodGym achieve with Feeding Ealing.

"You've done more today than 40 people from Tata managed" - Joseph

Big praise for 6 GoodGymers and Therese's husband. 🙌💪

It has been a while since Goodgym Ealing volunteered at Bixley allotment. Therese and Steph Ducat walked to the allotment while Iram cycled. We then met with Jason who was going to give us some tasks for the afternoon. Changes have been done since Jason is looking after the 2 allotments. The green house disappeared with a lot of the rubbish and a polytunnel has made its place. The pond is still there but the parcels were re arranged and loads of plants have made this there home.

Jason gave us a 1st task of filling the empty buckets with water from the tank - the buckets make it easier to water the plants/vegetables. Then 2nd task was to remove weed but also the overgrown amaranth to avoid all the seeds dropping on the ground and take over this space. We then had 2 wheelbarrows at our disposal to move the unwanted greenery, but then Steph Ducat realised that his one was drunk...yes we all now remember that Bixley has always flats tyres on the wheelbarrows!!! We relocated the snails - out of the vegetable parcel but plenty of green stuff for them. We spotted one of the foxes that live here - can you spot it in the photos?Jason harvested some cucumbers and gave them to the Goodgymers.

Yes Goodgym Ealing is back at Bixley - return of the red crew!!We wioll be back next month - Hasta la vista until next time.