It was good to have a couple of familiar GoodGym faces join us again this week, with Bianca and Nuredin helping out again.

This week, with Chief Tree Supervisor away on holiday, there was a major deviation from the standard watering strategy - tackle the task in reverse order. Nuredin enjoyed the challenge of rolling our trolley of water containers UP the STEEPEST HILL straight to the most thirsty trees. And from there we worked our way round the common in reverse order to our standard route, with a few trips back and forth to the tap to refill.

The world was still spinning on its axis the usual way once the task was complete and the trees were well cared for for another week.

Another week, and another tree watering innovation - the two way hose splitter, allowing two hoses to be attached to the tap at the same time and fill up the water canisters double quick!

Today's priority was watering the slightly older young trees (planted 4 years ago). Although more established, these are showing signs of dehydradtion and struggle against the warm weather.

Next, the team focussed on the very young saplings planted last winter in the more sheltered areas. Although these young trees are more sheltered from the sun, they are also more sheltered from the rain and suffering more than some trees in other parts of the common.

It was lovely to have Nuredin join the team for his first ever GoodGym task.

We'll be back next week for another round of drinks for the trees.

We were back on Stoke Newington Common, giving the young trees their weekly drink - very much needed after the temperatures we've had of late.

With the new Two-Team System in place, the group whipped round the common with their canisters and cart, keeping the little whips and saplings (and some slightly older trees too) alive for another week.

This weeks innovation - using a tree guard to aid the decanting of water from a large (heavy) cannister into smaller (lighter) cannisters.

Three GoodGym volunteers were out with members of the Stoke Newington User Group to water the young trees on Stoke Newington Common. It was great to have Rosie joining us all the way from Cardiff, and to have Bianca join us for the first time too.

This week, the group adopted a new strategy, supplementing the regular water trolley of contrainers with as many watering cans as volunteers could get their hands on. This allowed the Watering-Can Crew to get started watering the saplings nearest the water source, while the Trolley Team wheeled their canisters to the further flung trees.

The two watering teams converged and joined forces to finish the job in record time.

It was great and it felt good to connect with my community and find out about all the work SNUG does! Looking forward to help out in future activities!

We were back at Stoke Newington Common today, this time watering the young trees planted previously in the year and mulched at the weekend. One GoodGymer joined the Stoke Newington Users Group (SNUG) volunteers to get the job done.

The trolley full or containers was filled with water and the group set off to the furthest away trees, which needed 3 containers of water each. After a refill, the next batch of thirsty trees were tended to. Thereafter, it was time to water the youngest of the trees - those planted earlier this year and still in their protective plastic tubing. They needed just 1/3 of a container each but there were about ten times as many, so there were several trips back and forth to the water tap to refill the containers again. And again....

After 1.5, all trees were hydrated and it was time for the group to head home for some refreshments of their own.