Emma Cooper

Way back at the end of 2003 I attended the first meeting about setting up a local branch of the Green Gym. The Green Gym concept is very simple – run by BTCV (the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers), the idea is that you spend a couple of hours working outside and improving your local environment – with the aim of getting fit without going to the gym.

When the local scheme started up, I couldn’t go – I was still working and the first dates were all in the afternoon. It wasn’t until the end of January 2004 that they started working on Saturday mornings, and I had the chance to go along. But it may not have been the best time to start – all I remember is being routinely cold and wet (on the days when the atrocious weather didn’t put me off going) and doing a lot of weeding.

The reason I mention this is that on Saturday Pete and I went to our local eco fair and I picked up a leaflet for the Green Gym scheme, which is still going strong and is now run entirely by local volunteers. Their display stand showed an interesting way to use natural materials to protect coppiced stumps from grazing animals while they regenerate, but when I downloaded the program of forthcoming events, the local team appear to be concentrating mainly on weeding, litter picking and and renewing wood chips paths. It’s all useful and important work, but it’s not stuff that’s catching my eye when I have so much that needs doing in the garden at home.

They also need to know at least two days in advance if you’re going to show up, so that they provide the right number of tools, tea and cake. Which is fine, but my life is much smoother at the moment if I keep to a spontaneous schedule, so that doesn’t work for me.

So, although I support the Green Gym concept, it’s not right for me at the moment. I have come up with my own, home-grown and low carbon (no driving!) alternative: The Garden Gym. The idea is that I put together a list of tasks that need doing in the garden, and once or twice a week I will make a concerted effort to get out there and spend a couple of hours doing some work. The nice thing about this is that if I cancel on myself (due to work commitments, weather or general malaise) then I can reschedule for another day. And I can mix-and-match heavy work and easier things as necessary.

I came up with the following list for this month:

• Clear courgettes


• Rescue soggy cardboard (long story)


• Plant out the remaining scorzonera, leaf beet and brassicas


• Plant out onions and garlic


• Finish bringing tender plants inside


• Clean out chickens*


• Attack goji berries


• Apply grease bands to fruit trees


• Clear around jostaberry

In my first two sessions (5 hours, in total) for some reason I decided to start with ‘attack gojis’. I have two goji plants (the third died) planted in front of the Grow Dome. They are underplanted with strawberries, but unfortunately have grown into a fairly impenetrable thicket that makes harvesting the strawberries nigh on impossible. They’re also scratchy, and not overly attractive or fruitful. They’re lovely vigorous plants, and would make a great addition to a fedge or an intruder-deterring hedge, but they’re in the wrong place and they have to move.

It also turns out that they’ve been hiding a bit of a bramble re-infestation. So I have spent 5 hours pruning back the gojis and digging out the brambles. The plan is now to dig out the gojis; it’s possible they will survive this rough treatment and be transplantable. If they die then I have a new plant I created by layering a branch, and I will find a suitable home elsewhere for that.

The post degojification landscape looks like this:

Once the gojis are gone then I’m going to replant this area with my autumn fruiting raspberry canes, which are currently in containers and rather crowded. I’m hoping they will play nicely with the strawberries and be happier in the ground. I’m going to try Alys’ trick of pruning half of the canes in February (as the gardening books suggest) and leaving half unpruned, with the aim of spreading the harvest. In the following year you reverse the half you prune. I think that’s how she did it, I will check.

There are other ideas floating around my head – moving the compost bins, planting out the rhubarb, putting the gojis in that space by the fence to deter cat access, making frames of wire to cover the beds and keep the cats out…. There’s a lot of stuff I could do if I had the time in the garden, so hopefully the Garden Gym will continue through the autumn and winter and be fit and energetic for the new season when spring arrives :)