The drizzly Saturday morning in February brought GoodGymers their first session of the year with HANGOT - a wonderful organisation whose members plant fruit trees in public green spaces to encourage biodiversity and foraging for food. The volunteers walked through a bit muddy towpath to one of the farther orchards - the Blackberry Corner hidden on the other side of Grand Union Canal. Hint: you can reach it if you cross the canal using Hanwell Lock No 92. On the way there, a cyclist squinted at us, trying to decipher (from a sign we carried) what we were protesting against. Disappointingly, the sign that Clive later stuck to the ground, was only announcing that the orchard trail volunteers were working in the area - no demonstrations planned.

Well, a different type of demonstration happened at the Blackberry Corner. The task owner, Mirjam, and another volunteer, Lydia, both gave the GoodGymers a great explanation of how to do today's task: pruning the trees. Gaby, Simon, Maria, Liuba, Harvey and Kash learned the following rules:

• Cut out the shoots growing inwards
• Cut out the watershoots that are growing straight up
• Cut out the shoots that will rub onto other branches when they grow
• Always spray the tools with Dettol solution between pruning different trees to avoid infections (it's just like between operating different patients)
• Cut the shoots at an angle so that the rainwater does not collect in a horizontal tree wound
• For larger tree wounds (when you need to cut out a thicker branch), rub some soil onto them - you don't need any expensive products to protect the wounded area
• Don't prune the trees in the summer when the trees will produce lots of sap and will bleed too much

According to Mirjam, there were no restrictions on trimming the trees in the winter.

If someone tells you you cannot prune when it's freezing cold - you can. Well, maybe not when it's minus fifteen degrees because you'll freeze off your fingers. That's what Monty Don says, and I trust him.

Lydia and Mirjam, while agreeing on the theory had slightly different approaches to pruning: the former was more careful in choosing which shoots to trim, the latter more bold. The GoodGymers from the school of Lydia appeared more cautious about their choices.

While all the GoodGymers chose the pruning task, Clive's team was installing extra protection around the trees to defend them from rabbits. By the end of the winter, there is no food around and the furry residents of the meadow are desperate enough to go for the bark. HANGOT needed to make sure that rabbits would have to choose the other trees than the orchard ones.

Later in the year, with longer days and more growth in the spring, we will hold more sessions with HANGOT - both on Saturdays and evenings on weekdays - so watch this space for more listings!

"...it is quicker, easier, more seductive" - Yoda

GoodGymers congregated on HANGOT's secret, non-descript base along the Grand Union Canal this morning, to find out what today's task was. They were handed freshly sharpened tools of torture - plant torture, that is - and led onto the canal.

Ahead of the coming destruction, the GoodGymers along with members of HANGOT had an enjoyable walk westward along the sunny canal towpath, carrying their tools for the day. Scythes, slashers and shears were all transported over a lock to the far side of the canal to the chillingly named Blackberry Corner 😱

Once there, tasks were distributed with Kash, Penny and Kane taking shears to clear nettles and grass from under the trees and Sevan raking. The cuttings were being scooped around a large tree's trunk, with care being taken not to drop cut nettles onto bare legs.

The HANGOT members took control of finely honed scythes as they had training, which allowed them to clear large open areas of weeds and grass quickly. While the scythes looked cool, they weren't strong enough to cut through low branches. That was left to Steph, who took control of a large slasher, a tool that he's become quite expert with over recent tasks at other locations and used to make mince meat out of dead plants.

Between the 10 volunteers' slashing, chopping and scything, most of BlackBerry Corner was cleared in 90 minutes, giving the young fruit trees less competition for rain water over the autumn and winter. Dangerous tools were returned and GoodGymers headed back onto the canal to enjoy the unexpected sun and warmth. That's good morning's work! 👏

A couple of months after their last session with HANGOT, GoodGym Ealing were back to help them at their Saturday work day. These can take place anywhere along their canal-side orchard network, from Osterley Lock to Norwood Green. This morning's was at The Piggeries, so named because it used to be a pig farm, which was less than 100m from HANGOT's base on the Grand Union Canal 🐷.

Task owner Mirjam introduced Kash, Steph, Sevan and the other volunteers to the list of tasks for the morning by saying that there were lots of fiddly things to do:

1. Cutting the hedge along the canal
2. Freeing small fruit trees from bindweed
3. Cutting low lying brambles in the grass
4. Picking litter
5. Moving cut grass to the compost pile
6. ⚠️ Not disturbing the ground nesting bumblebees' nest
7. 🚨 Absolutely not going near the bee nest

Mirjam shared her cautionary tale of having discovered a wasps' nest and then running around trying to shake off the angry wasps, escaping with "only" 6 stings. The nest location and exclusion zone was pointed out to all of the volunteers before work started 🐝.

Kash and Steph decided to give the boundary hedge a haircut. It was important to keep sight lines into the orchard clear to discourage any anti-social behaviour and make visitors feel safe. They worked with another volunteer, Alex, on this throughout the session, hanging out on the canal towpath. Together, they created a clear view in from both entrances.

Meanwhile, Sevan took on the fiddly tasks. First he went behind the pond to pull up bindweed roots that had wrapped themselves around the young fruit trees. He also found some litter hiding there as well as some juicy, sweet blackberries. Some of the bindweed leaves were enormous, as big as his hand 😮.

Once the trees were freed of bindweed, Sevan went to clear up the tall grass that the regular volunteers had scythed down, taking it to huge compost pile in the corner of the orchard. Here, he learned a new skill. How to catapult a farmer's fork loaded with grass 4 metres up to the top of the compost pile. It was a lot of fun 😃

The time with HANGOT was over too soon. Together with their own volunteers, the team had had a nice, chilled out morning helping out a passionate, community oriented group to make a big impact!

There was a strong showing of GoodGymers tonight to help HANGOT at one of the closest orchards to their base. The weapon of choice for the GoodGymers today would be a pair of shears, so the team grabbed their tools, then the gardener army strode out towards St Margaret's Orchard.

Sevan's empty wheelbarrow acted as a battle drum as it rode over the bumpy ground. It was meant to collect a rogue dining chair and move it to the nearest bin. Christos decided he could handle the chair by himself, so the drum kept beating all the way to their destination.

When they arrived, the army was split into those that didn't pose a health and safety risk and those who did. The GoodGymers were in the latter category, not because they were particularly clumsy. No, it was because there would be 2 reapers with scythes on the loose in the orchard, chopping down the long grass. The GoodGymers were quite attached to their ankles, so instead they were asked to work outside the orchard wall.

The GoodGymers got stuck into their task for the evening, to trim the top and sides of the boundary hedge. The important thing that everyone had to remember was not to touch the rose bushes 🌹. Mirjam, the task owner, was impressed with how quickly the hedge was cut down to size.

There was still time to pull some weeds before the end of the session and wheel the cuttings to a large and further growing compost pile. As the task wrapped up, the reapers caught up with the team. Thankfully, they appeared satisfied with the grass that they'd sliced through and weren't hungry for any GoodGym limbs.

We'll be back to help HANGOT again soon, so look out for the task listing.

We were back helping HANGOT this morning at their Elthorne Triangle orchard, an area we know well as it's right next to the tool container that we use in Elthorne Park. Kash, Anuj and Sevan ran to the site in shorts and t-shirt as it was another warm, sunny day. They soon saw that the other volunteers were all wearing trousers as today's task was to clear hemlock, burdock and lots of nettles from around the trees.

The GoodGym trio took what they thought was the simplest task, to clear everything from around a heritage fruit tree that HANGOT had adopted and was believed to be over 100 years old! There was no need to decided what to cut, everything had to be cleared in a big ring around the tree.

When the got closer, they saw that there was a huge patch of nettles growing around the tree. Not great if you're in running shorts. The team bravely got stuck in to the task, helped by one of the HANGOT volunteers who cleared the way with a wickedly sharp scythe. They then raked and bagged the waste, adding it to a huge pile of cuttings to decompose.

With such a large group of volunteers, the session finished up early, allowing some to leave and enjoy today's Hanwell Hootie.

We'll have another session with HANGOT scheduled for one of their June events.

HANGOT's first work evening of the year brought Ealing GoodGymers out on Monday, which was unusual, with a quick run along a sunny canal to reach the task. They took a short walk with the HANGOT volunteers to the closest orchard to their base, the Piggeries, so named because pigs used to be reared there.

There were lots of general maintenance tasks to get on with. Kash and Christos started by chopping the weeds growing around the trunks of the fruit trees, preparing them to be mulched in the coming weeks. Sevan meanwhile, as the tallest of the group, chose to lop the tall branches of the back hedge to let the sunlight in, with Kash and Christos soon joining him in trimming the face of the hedge.

Everywhere Kash went, birdsong followed. Unlike the flower planting task in Walpole Park at the weekend, it wasn't a robin following her around. She had squeaky shears, which did a surprisingly good impression of a song bird 🐦

The final jobs of the session involved brambles, which weren't as troublesome as you might think. The brambles running through the back hedge were to be left as they apparently produce very sweet blackberries in the summer. Everyone looked forward to sampling those. The darker side of brambles lay on the ground. The trio were asked to trim any cute baby brambles that they could find. They knew why... like Gremlins, they had to stop the cute leaves from turning into out of control monsters come the summer.

The GoodGymers left the orchard and walked back along the canal as sunset neared, happy with a job well done. Our next session helping HANGOT will be at their Orchard Love day on the 11th of May.