We had the final session of helping prepare the beds at Holgate Community garden ready for planting at the April community gardening together session. Amy and Laura finished weeding the long bed while David dug the compost added on Monday into the raised beds. We were joined by a member of the Community Garden group and a local family. It was great to see the daffodils starting to come out as well as the snowdrops.

It was a tale of two tasks tonight, but also a tale of 2 races as we celebrated the weekends activities, with some runners taking on the High Cup Nick Fell Race and another group tackling the brutal winds at the Snake Lane 10miler. Well done to everyone who took part, especially Amy who scored a new PB 🥳

We numbered off by naming our alternative career choices and it's pretty safe to say we're all eagerly anticipating the release of Rich's debut pop album with Paul Kelly on guitar and Leanne as a backing dancer the live shows! 🎤

We then split off into two groups with Vicky's heading to Holgate Community Garden and Ed's going to the King's Path.

At Holgate Community Garden the majority of the team got stuck into some weeding of the flower beds whilst a few others were tackling compost bins.

After a successful session the group got into pairs for a fitness session which involved one person running up a hill whilst the other completed some exercise, swapping over each time.

Over at the King's Path the group was tasked with digging up some unwanted trees from round the corner and then transported then over to the King's Path area to be replanted Cue an awful lot of innuendo involving holes and wood!

The task was satisfyingly completed on time, and we're all eager to see how the trees get on in their new homes.

The group then headed back to CVS in an indian-file skipping line (who knew how knackering it would be to skip for that long!) before then switching it up to sprints, with Matt in particular exhibiting his speediness to give us all some extra motivation

The two groups then met back up at CVS for some stretches and some lovely lemon cake courtesy of Pete's mummy! 🍰

Holgate Community Garden are working hard to get on top of the weeds and cutting back in the garden ready for the spring so yet again Goodgym joined them for their monthly gardening together session. As Nicky had to get back to Harrogate after coming to York for the morning task, David, Laura and Nicky started the task 45 minutes early and were joined at 2pm by Jane and other people from the local area. We met Hannah, who had heard of GoodGym through a friend, and is hoping to join us at a group run session soon. Nicky cleared the dead leaves from the strawberry bed and weeded around it. Jane cleared the grass roots from one of the other beds ready for planting before helping with the long bed that Laura had been working on with others. David did some clearing and drew a plan of the garden, marking in the trees and bulb locations so the group know where to plant more bulbs in the Autumn. It was great to spot all the bulbs coming up giving a real sense that spring was coming soon and we found and replanted quite a few more bulbs that were just under the surface. In the end, as it was a lovely sunny afternoon, we were down for 2 hours between us rather than the one planned and made great progress.

You definitely know it's January when the bad weather increases numbers on a task due to other commitments being cancelled! As it was a bit snowy to do any gardening most of the group got to work clearing the paths. Leanne and David found some grit and gritted the steps of the pedestrian bridge before bringing some back to the garden where we gritted the cleared paths to stop them icing over. In the meantime Claire ad Alastair had brought a long tool to attempt to rescue some of the 3 half lids that had gone over the wall. They heroically climbed into the compost and rescued all 3 lids before reattaching them and putting them back on the bins. Finally we all enjoyed some brownies that David had brought. Debs continued after the task to do a further good deed by gritting the rest of the foot bridge to the cinder track and steps down the other side!

Three of us helped three other members of the Holgate Community garden group to continue clearing and trimming back ready for planting in the spring. We welcomed Lace Alacia to her first Goodgym session. David continued with the compost while Lace and Laura cut back the trimmed and weeded along the long bed. We spent time cutting back the raspberry canes, sage, rosemary and lavender, taking out the plants that had gone too woody. It was great to see the progress that had been made by the end of the hour.

Holgate Community Garden group are trying to tidy and sort the garden over the winter ready for bringing some new life to the garden with planting in the spring. 5 of us from Goodgym helped out with their gardening session. David, Ed and Paul completely emptied one of the three large compost bins and spread the compost onto the beds. There was lots of healthy compost and worms and a few other interesting items including an item of clothing! The bin was warped and at an angle so we flattened the ground when it was emptied and reset the bin for future use. A large rat poked its head out of the second bin to see what they were doing but decided not to stick around. Cara spread out the compost and sheared around the beds. Laura helped with a range of tasks including moving a tree and removing rubbish out of the compost. The gardening session was very successful and the group were really grateful for our help.