Page 6 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2022

Lady Chair’s Report
SANDRA HALL FNVS, NATIONAL LADY CHAIR
Since my last report, I’m happy to
say that the Society has seen all five Branches being able to hold face to face AGMs. The Branch officers have very few changes, however there was one that affected a change at the Trustee’s board. Rob Holmes resigned as a Welsh Branch representative, and I would like to thank Rob for his time and involvement as Trustee. Further to the Welsh Branch AGM, Lesley Stone, a new Welsh branch Committee member, volunteered, thank you and welcome on-board Lesley.
With Covid declining, I am happy to report the Branch and DA (District Associations) meetings and talks continue and are back on track, with most DAs having full calendars. I was invited to the Bucks DAs, AGM, which included an enjoyable talk ‘Growing in raised beds’ by Barry Newman FNVS. The AGM saw Dave Ridgway become the new Bucks DA Chair, taking over from the long serving John Branham who formed the Bucks DA back in 2010. It was well attended and nice to meet up with members again.
so after the first one, therefore Simon Smith on ‘Growing Parsnips’ is the one missing, sorry Simon!! They are now available to download and watch on the website and
I am pleased to say Simon has said he is willing to do his talk again to be recorded and added to the website.
On to seed trials, from the vast number of volunteers, we were able to select
30 members for each
I hope this issue of your Simply Veg magazine will be full of the news and events from your local Branch and DAs telling you what they have been up to and what they are planning over the next few months, and I hope that some of our newer members, especially those, who joined during times of lockdown, will now start to benefit even more by going along to some of the events and talks.
Thank you to all the volunteers that came forward to help our partners with seed trials
company, Marshalls and
DT Brown which is very encouraging. Thank you to all the volunteers that came forward to help our partners with seed trials, we look forward to hearing about your progress through the growing season.
To give you an update
on my own gardening, my handyman, i.e., husband Mark, has finally got up to speed with the digging and I have moved everything off
peas, beetroot, and turnips plus I have got some nice new salad potatoes and plenty of “Winter Density” lettuce. This morning I also noticed a courgette forming on one of plants in the tunnel. Have you sown your pickling onions you received from D.T.Brown in your last magazine? It would be nice to hear how they turned out?
Looking ahead, between writing this report and the next magazine, I am looking forward to moving more activity’s forward with the trustee team, however I am very sad to be losing my right-hand man,
our Vice Chair, Ian Stocks who has just stepped down whilst he goes through his cancer treatment and we wish him well, also secondly our Sponsorship Manager, Gareth Cameron who has also just stepped down. I would like thank Ian and Gareth
for the immense amount of work they have done and continue to do for the NVS, it is sincerely appreciated.
Hopefully, I can catch up with everyone at the National Championships in Malvern. Until then, good growing.
Branches, DA’s, gardening
clubs and societies please note that to enable members and non-members alike to know what, when and where things
are happening within your area, the NVS website event page is there to help. Please note, this can include any gardening club or society’s event. I want you to benefit from advertising your events, garden visits, shows etc. via the NVS web site. Currently contact Fiona Shenfield (details page 3) and if you have a photo to go with it, all the better (landscape rather than portrait fits best) and if you have a show schedule that we can add, even better.
Our winter zoom talks were once again a great success and with a lot of members asking if they were being recorded, we did
the conservatory floor into the greenhouse and been able to start planting out in the tunnel. In fact, everything has really started to take off. We thought we were late putting our potatoes in until Emily Plumb posted on Facebook when they were putting theirs in, which just happened to be the same weekend, so we didn’t feel too bad.
A lot of the plants I had grown were
for the Malvern Spring Show which I was doing to support my Branch, the Midlands. I was quite pleased with how they turned out. After loading loads into my campervan for the show, Mark was glad to finally see the greenhouse empty to give him space to start putting his seeds in.
At the time of writing, I have been picking
6 Simply Vegetables