Page 54 - Simply Vegetables Autumn 2024

West Midlands DA at Gardeners World Live event
On Tuesday morning, 11th June, Graham and Wendy Brickstock, David Barber, John Boswell, Betty Garbutt, Sandra Hall, Graham Link, John Lloyd, and Albert Walker arrived at the NEC, Birmingham to set up our stand for the Gardeners World Live event. We had booked a
9m x 3m stand so a lot of space to fill. The next day and a half were taken
up building the display for judging on Wednesday afternoon. Sandra Hall organised the display with plants and materials she’d supplied along with the other members present and we also set up the information section plus competition and plant sales area. It was a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun with plenty of laughs along the way.
Thursday morning dawned with the award of a GOLD MEDAL!! So absolutely delighted. Our best result to date!
The next 4 days Hardeep Kaur joined the above team, and we manned the stand on a rota basis.
During the course of the event, we attracted a lot of interest from the public. Many questions were asked and answered. Perhaps the most common information
requested was why is it so slow growing this year, and what to do about slugs.
It was very cold in the floral marquee
this year, in contrast to unbearable temperatures last year. This in part was the answer to so many questions as the night temperatures had been falling recently to 4 degrees, 10 degrees below average for time of year
As well as the main plant display, we focused on educating the public about vegetable growing, as well as competitions for both the children and adults. Children had to match the vegetable with the growing plant as well as a demo of potatoes growing in see through pots. Adults had to name a variety of seeds.
In addition to the display, information and competitions, we sold over 700 plants which went towards D.A. funds. Again, a lot of hard work by our members in a very difficult year.
Again, many thanks to all who took part in making the show such a success.
Now all we have to do is to start planning for next year’s show!!
Graham Brickstock FNVS
54 Simply Vegetables