Page 61 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2022

Barbara, Nigel, Ted and Stan with Joe Swift
The Working Garden
down to bare bones. They were all fantastic and my lovely “bestie” Beth who doesn’t garden at all, was a real trooper to come along and help us; Ted marvelled how well she coped with her steep learning curve.
The team were rewarded with a visit from Joe Swift on Saturday. It looked like he was great fun and spent some time with the gang having a laugh and a chat and a good look at everyone’s hard work.
The weather had been fantastic, but Sunday was a slightly grey and drizzly
day. Undaunted the wonderful Yoga / Veg Club Massiv brought much needed fun
and colour to the stand. Adorned with
floral headdresses hand crafted at the show, Debs, Jacqui, Lucy, Mary and Beth really brightened up the NVS area as well as getting stuck in, turning their hand to whatever was required. To be fair, Nigel also looked on point in his floral headdress.
At the end of the show, an announcement goes out over the loudspeaker that the great sell off can begin. At that point and not a moment before, we are allowed to start selling off the veg from the allotment. It is a bit of
a scrum, fast paced and not for the faint hearted, but lots of fun. When I asked the volunteers for suggestion how to improve things for next year, the allotment sale was the hot topic. We had tried to improve on it from last year, but we clearly need to give it some more thought. Inevitably it will remain a frenetic part of the show, as we are not allowed to dismantle the allotment before the allocated sell-off time. This allows late- comers to still enjoy the full display garden experience but means we have to hit the ground running when the sell-off starts.
Nigel
I would just like to wholeheartedly thank