We ran over 7km to fill a raised bed and plant bulbs for a community garden in Thornton Heath

A bit drizzly tonight but not enough to put off 8 brave runners meeting up and heading off on one of our longer runs towards Thornton Heath to help Pamela from Unique Roots in the Mayfield allotments. Off we headed in two groups with Amatare leading the advance party while I brought up the rear with my chattier group. Even at 7pm the streets were full of shoppers and commuters returning home so the beginning of the run was a bit stop start as we dodged and weaved around everybody.

There was a little confusion once we arrived at the venue as we couldn’t find Pamela but after a quick call we spotted her and she led us to our final destination – we definitely couldn’t have found it on our own. The path to the allotment was very muddy and to start we tried to walk on the drier bits of the path but I think we all gave up quite soon and accepted the inevitable muddy trainers.

Once we arrived at the allotment Pamela explained more about its purpose and how she is trying to bring gardening and growing to parts of the community who have never had the opportunity or space to garden. The allotments are owned and managed by Croydon Council and they very kindly fenced off her allotment to keep it more secure and safer for the school children who will be visiting and they also helped with the material for the raised beds. Pamela has big plans and knowing how determined she is I think she will achieve them.

So the task was to fill the largest raised bed with soil dug from another part of the allotment so we donned our gardening gloves and dug, moved and levelled what seemed like many tonnes of soil and then planted some bulbs – I forgot to ask what they were but we will find out when we return in a couple of months.

When it was time to head back Pamela took us by another route through bushes, along a well hidden path and finally out by Gonville School where we said our goodbyes and headed back shaking the mud off our trainers as we went. All in all a very satisfying tasks and enough calories burned to justify the consumption of pancakes later in the evening!

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading to White Horse Road Park for a turf war with prizes for the team who dig the most turf.