"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. 🙌💪