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!