Page 64 - SV 3 2024

Welsh Branch
MEMBERS 40000 TO 49999
Since the last edition of Simply Vegetables, we have fixed a date and venue for our Welsh Branch show. It will be held at Oswestry Show Ground, Sat 31st August & Sun 1st September SY11 4AS. The social evening will be held at, Weston Pools Village, Weston, Oswestry, SY10 9ER. at 7pm on Saturday evening. There is a list of hotels on the NVS website, including a Premier Inn and a Travelodge.
We have one new class for a plant of Chilli Pepper Tudor’s Fire. This is in memory of Roy Tudor. This was a seedling of Prairie Fire that Roy found a decade ago, I have been selecting it ever since. The plant must be in a pot that doesn’t exceeds 3 litres. Medwyn is stocking seed of this chilli, it is quite hot and a nice compact plant.
We are planning to hold a judging exam, the practical is most likely being held the first Saturday in October, but the written exam can be held before this and one could be held in north Wales and one in South Wales. All those people who have already shown interest will be contacted as soon as we know who all the candidates are. Feel free to contact me if you are interested, my email and phone number are in the front of this edition.
Our next event is the plant day at Bridgend College, Pencoed Campus, Saturday 8th June. We will have a vegetable display at the Royal Welsh show on Monday 22nd July- Thursday 25th July.
My own personal gardening has been delayed due to the almost continual rainfall we have had since Christmas. My garden is situated at the top of the Rhondda Valley in the little village of Ynyswen, (White Island in English) about 700 ft above sea level. Although its on a steep south facing slope and not in a frost pocket, it’s still a cold garden in the spring. We’ve been here since 1966, and I’ve learned that if I plant potatoes before 25th April I run a serious risk of getting the young plants frosted. This year I got my digging done in December but due to the rain it was Saturday 20th April before I could get the rotavator on the garden to spin in the manure and fertiliser. Several years ago I dressed the piece of ground where I intended to grow my brassicas with Perlka, as a club root suppressor and nitrogen supplier. As it happened this was next to the ground where
I was going to grow potatoes. The last row of potatoes actually was grown on the ground that had been dressed with Perlka. When the crop was harvested it had almost double the crop of the other rows. Since then I have used an ounce per square yard of Perlka and 4 ounces of Blood Fish and Bone on my potato patch.
When I got my first gardening job at our local hospital in 1966 as an 18-year-old, there was no soilless potting composts and very few garden centres. We had an 18 ft greenhouse and an acre of vegetable garden and lawns and flower beds. I collected leaf mould and mixed it with new soil, some John Innes base fertiliser, and used this for potting, after 5 years I transferred to our much larger general hospital in the village of Llwynypia (what a wonderful name) in English it means the grove of the Magpies. By then I was attending horticultural college.
Of course, in those days potting composts were made up to the John Inness formula, and this included sterilised loam. Back at the hospital our head engineer’s wife loved cut flowers. So, I gave him bunches of flowers to such an extent that he couldn’t refuse to put in a sterilising bunker with live steam like they used in those days to sterilise surgical instruments for operations. I modified the John Innes formula of 7 parts loam, 3 parts peat and 2 parts grit to equal parts loam/peat as I found the 7-3-2 too dense and impeded drainage and air penetration.
Well after a decade with the health authority I moved to the local authority’s central nursery. There we had a large Camplex soil steriliser, and again I mixed all the potting compost for the nurseries needs. A decade later I moved to Pencoed Horticultural College, and although by then soilless composts were well established, I had already had 20 years of mixing my own potting compost and I wanted to continue doing so.
They had a 90-acre farm there and also an equine dept. There were some fine fields with beautiful loam. At that time, I came in for quite a bit of criticism for using loam off fields when there were peat bogs doing nothing that I should be using instead. Oh, how it’s come full circle. Now we should be leaving the peat to capture carbon and use more loam. I have a Camplex soil steriliser, I’m paranoid that one day it will break down. Camplex and Thermaforce both manufactured electric soil sterilisers, both no longer exist. I think I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew I could replace my soil steriliser if I ever needed to.
When I look back on my 60 years of gardening, I’ve seen a lot of changes and none most than potting composts.
Ivor Mace
64 Simply Vegetables
Irish News
RAYMOND HIGGINS FNVS
At the time of writing (Early April) we are looking forward to our trip to Irish Seed Savers in Clare on May 24th.
It also won’t be long until we will be attending and exhibiting our fruit and vegetables and meeting up with friends
at the various shows around the country.
It was a very slow start to the season
with wet weather and multiple weather warnings which heavily impacted the sowing of seeds and the preparation of soil. As you read this, I hope the weather has dramatically improved and you are now busy watering. A warm welcome to our new members, we wish you every success this growing season and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, as we are always happy to help.
We have been allocated a space in
the horticulture marquees at both Cork Summer Show and Tullamore show, where members will be on hand and available
to answer questions and promote the society. Tullamore Show also hosts the All-Ireland Championships finals along with a large selection of classes. We wish all our members and the show every success.
Our next meeting and AGM will be at