Adam, Chris, JP and Sam turned out for Good Gym’s monthly Richmond Furniture Scheme visit on this sunny Easter weekend.

Supplied with Hoes, spade and choppers we were instructed to tidy up the over growing weeds in the front yard and move the garden furniture that needed disposing of.

Chris and JP both proved dab hands with the hoes, while Sam used his skills with the spade and Adam was able to chop back much of the overgrowing greenery.

All this added up to a job well done!

...midges.

A beautiful April evening, except for the swarms of midges, for GoodGym Richmond’s second Monday of the month Group Run task at our sponsored plots in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond.

But I guess, particularly as this was a WWF/GoodGym ‘Workout for Nature’, we should embrace the midges and the less glamorous animals, insects and wildlife that are all part of the broad biodiversity and healthy ecosystem that we are trying encourage by are gardening work.

So let’s hear it for midges Chironomidae (Diptera): their larvae and pupae are important food for fish and other aquatic organisms such as newts. And the flying midges in their adult stage are eaten by fish, insectivorous birds, bats and flying predatory insects.

Enough of midges and onto our heroic humans Anita, Chris, Jade, Lucy and Suze.

Anita, Chris, Jade and Suze. set about sweeping, weeding and litter picking around all the benches and in the borders. Our weeding focused on weeding out unwanted plants such as ivy and also three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrum) which looks very pretty, like a white bluebell, but is actually a real thug, a non-native invasive plant listed on Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (making it an offence to introduce the plant to the wild in the UK).

Meanwhile Lucy, who had completed 16km of her London marathon training to get to the task, still had the tenacity to prick-out and pot-up a whole tray of salvia ‘blue admiral’ seedlings, before she headed off into the dusk to clock a further 3km.

Fun times helping out this great charity.

A very warm welcome to Mamoud who joined Anita for Task preparation for the Richmond GoodGym second monday Group run task in the evening.

As well as walking through Buccleuch Gardens assessing the most urgent gardening tasks required across our sponsored plots , we also unloaded compost and salvia seedlings and took them down to the Arcade, then went down to the river to wash out plant plots and trays in the river, preparation for pricking out and growing on the salvia.

It was a scorcher of a morning as Vix, Chris and JP joined Sharon and the merry band of Friends of Ham Lands for some light work on an area of brambles choking the progress of a rose bush.

We grabbed loppers and set to work on the brambles, dragging the chopped tendrils out to be chopped up and bagged. They put up quite a fight, managing to scratch us with their thorns (it being too warm for long sleeves and two of us wearing shorts), leading to a chorus of yelps to accompany our work.

Despite our legs and forearms showing numerous signs of the battle it was a very satisfying task and when Sharon called time for teas and coffees we were proud of what we had achieved. So much so that we decided to reward ourselves with a coffee at the Swiss bakery and a natter before heading off for the rest of our sunny Saturday.

Next time on the Ham Lands will be Saturday 10th May - sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/goodgym-richmond-helping-the-happy-ham-landers

A big welcome to Rebecca for the first time at GoodGym, as well as seeing Luis for the first time in a while. The venue this evening was INS in Twickenham and manager Sarah put us all straight to work moving large furniture around in the summer house to prepare for better weather, including a very unwieldy set of lockers that needed to be brought down from upstairs. Team work really does make the dream work and in no time at all everything was in its new home!