We had a triptych of tasks last night at the Marston Community Allotment:

• With warm, dry weather forecast for the next few days eveything needed a good soaking.
  
• One of the raised beds needed clearing of an assortment of weeds, including the dreaded bindweed.
  
• Woodchip and compost needed shovelling and barrowing over from the site entrance.
  

The weeders unearthed parnsips amongst the weeds, the waterers to-d and fro-d around raised beds and polytunnel making sure everything was well hydrated, the woodchip was used to level out the pathway, and compost to earth up potatoes (after they'd been freed from their bindweed and bramble companions). With parakeets in the trees and some warm late-summer sunshine it was almost Costa del Oxford.

Honourable mention for Mark's cameo towards the end of the task - just in time time for plenty of selfies and eating all the fresh veg he could lay his hands on ;-)

While riots rocked the UK we kept well out of the way of any trouble by heading out along the river to clean up a litter-ally enormous amount of trash in Rose Hill.

Rivermead Nature Park and the river path to Sandford have long been litter hot spots, and we usually do a big clean up there each year. This time our main focus was a lot of dumped clothing and rubbish under the ring road bridge, and Trev also brought tools to remove plastic embedded in the ground further along the footpath.

In a return to GG Oxford litterpick tradition we found plenty of underwear - mostly bras rather than pants this time - as well as a plethora of litter pick favs. We would definitely have done well on our litter bingo cards tonight!

We finished our evening with some blackberry foraging, birthday cake, a paddle in the river, and with best wishes to our long-time GoodGymer Sarah who is moving to Costa Rica on Friday. Best of luck Sarah!!

Bayard's Hill Primary School garden is taking shape, and having filled up the raised beds on our last visit, today it was time to sow some seeds. GoodGymers generously brought along some seed donations to add to Lucy's stash. We were able to sow 2 beds of salad (spinach, lettuce, radishes, herbs), a bed of sunflowers, build climbing frames and sow 2 beds of runner beans and one of peas, sweet peas in the small triangular bed, and finally carrots and turnips together in the last raised bed. Finally, we distributed wildflower seeds in the area beyond the raised beds.

We hope there will be signs of things growing (other than thistles!) before the end of the school year and that will get the staff and pupils keen to take ownership of their garden plot next academic year.

Welcome to GoodGym Heidy!

Foxwell Drive's Tiny Forest was planted on 28 January 2021 by local contractors (in line with Covid restrictions). It is a curved shape that follows the road and is adjacent to the A40. It's had a few years to get established now, and many of the trees are thriving. Unfortunately a lot of nettles, brambles and other plants are also thriving and choking/competing with the trees.

We were called in for a two-pronged task - to clear around the trees to give them more chance of continuing to thrive and to uncover the tags needed for monitoring. Once we'd cleared a good area we then pivoted to some of the monitoring surveys - taking measurements of the tagged trees (and each others' ears for some reason!), and then doing a grounddwellers count to finish off.

Our very own Lorenzo is a volunteer with Tiny Forests and so has a monitoring kit, so hopefully we can independently head out for some monintoring surveys another time. We only have 1 more Tiny Forest in Oxford which we haven't visited yet, so let's head to Meadow Lane soon!

Congratulations to Anna on completing her 50th Good Deed!

With Boundary Brook Nature Park Open Afternoon this coming Saturday GoodGym were called in this week to make sure all the paths were clear and wide enough for wheelchairs and buggies. We took a 'divide and conquer' approach, with teams heading to different zones of the nature park to ensure that the paths were fully accessible. The site is now ready for visitors this weekend. In two weeks time we will return to replenish the gravel along the paths to help them stay dry and usable year round.

THANK GOODNESS FOR AN INSIDE TASK!!

This evening we gathered at Oxfordshire County Hall to box up trainers that we've been collection through the week and make bunting for the Children's Book Project.

Armed with tape, templates, string, worn out books and discarded trainers we set to work. The end result was six VERY jolly strings of bunting, 48 pairs of trainers boxed up to be sent to JogOn, and plans to repeat the activities in February.

A group of hardy Goodgymers then donned all their layers and ran a chilly 5k whilst everyone else (with any sense) scuttled on home to the warm.

Great work everyone!!