Page 36 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2022/23

Letters
for the first time at a National myself,
purely because falling numbers in recent years convinced me it would be an ‘easy ticket’ I now know they are anything but.
I’ll probably be having another go but at the same time will have no great desire
to do so should I be struggling with time constraints come sowing time. A reduction to 3 would undoubtedly help convince me to persevere with them. 5 entries of 3 is surely better than 3 entries of 5? Entries
at the National in long beet have been falling steadily for years, despite a sudden increase in 2022, so something needs to be done if we’re not to consider eliminating the class altogether surely?
I only did one show in 2022, the National at Malvern. I looked forward to it all season, my preparations were extensive, and I
was totally geared up for once. But by
the Thursday morning halfway through cleaning my parsnips, awkwardly leaning over a bath with my arms constantly in cold water I was properly fed up and knackered. My phone was regularly pinging with messages from showing pals in varying stages of despondency and tiredness,
so I knew I wasn’t alone. The thrill of subsequently doing well helped lighten
my mood, but I reckon it was the following midweek before I started to feel fit and healthy again, and I’m one of the younger ones and I only did one show! My heart goes out to really old growers, like Dave Thornton (I am not sure David is that old! Ed). At Malvern I heard a few growers say they’re thinking of giving up, and social media pages are full of growers thinking of giving up onions and leeks because they won’t be able to afford to heat their growing areas due to the ongoing energy crisis, so we simply must think about what we can do to help them out.
It was suggested on my poll that not growing the requisite number was down
to a lack of commitment, which I felt was an unnecessary simplification. All show growers are committed to their hobby, but they all have different commitments in their private lives. I’d love to be able to devote
24 hours a day to growing for show and enter several shows but working full-time and having 4 grandkids to enjoy means the extent of my commitment is limited. Factor
in that 3 of our branch shows and (usually) our National Championships now require a Monday to Friday working person to dip into their annual leave, often on several successive weeks which isn’t something
a lot of line managers would be willing to sanction, then it’s little wonder that we are not seeing many younger growers coming through. It’s a daunting prospect entering our top shows for the first couple of times, made unnecessarily hard by the number
of specimens you need to find in certain classes. I propose therefore, that blanch leeks and long beet are reduced to three
at our annual National Championships, but that we monitor entries in other classes, in particular celery, parsnips, and long carrots, over the next few years and act in good time before they too suffer embarrassingly small entry numbers.
Simon raises a few issues in his letter and puts forward some well set out arguments. What are the opinions of other members or more importantly other exhibitors? I would be very pleased to receive some letters for the April magazine, the address is on page 3. Ed
From feeding the body to feeding the brain
In the last century many large schools and colleges in Ireland had generous gardens attached.
This Photograph appeared in The Evening Herald newspaper in 1956. It shows the magnificent yield of Onions grown by William Holmes of Ballina,
Co. Mayo. The caption describes his occupation as steward rather than gardener. The original meaning of steward was a person responsible for supplies of food to a college or institution, which illustrates the importance attached to the position. Mr Holmes, (who died in 1974) loved his job and was a frequent prize winner at the local Ballina Show. The national newspapers at the time often featured stories about high yielding or heavier than usual garden crops. (TV was still a rarity here).
St. Muredach’s College at that time was a boarding school and they were
no doubt very pleased that their school garden made the national newspapers, it would have been a great advertisement for the school, as not only could it boast of academic excellence, but also that
the boarders were getting top quality
food grown on the grounds! Boarding ceased at the school in 1987 and the garden, which is owned in trust by the Bishop of Killala – hence the name
‘The Bishop’s Garden,’ fell into a state
of neglect. In the new millennium the garden slowly returned to productivity
for educational purposes. First a small section was reclaimed and cultivated by the Leaving Cert Applied class as part of their course. As a teacher, I also used it in connection with City and Guilds certified Horticulture courses organised by the Adult Education officer at the College Francis Walsh. In more recent years it has been used to educate and integrate a group of asylum seekers and as of 2022 it is a community garden maintained
by volunteers. It’s great to see that this fertile piece of ground in an urban area still producing food and not built over
or converted to a car park. Pictured are St. Muredach’s students Conor Bohan, Patrick Carr and Kenzie McKee helping in the garden May 2022. Sincere gratitude to Noreen Holmes, Coventry for her help researching this article.
Michael Gordon FNVS
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