Page 60 - Simply Veg 4 2022

Southern Branch
Chairman’s Report
Hants DA
Just a short report for Hants DA this time.
I was away on holiday when we held our plant sale at Wellow in May. The sale was well supported and although we had a plant sale at Beaulieu only a few weeks earlier, the Wellow sale still works well to raise much needed funds for Hants DA. The money raised enables us to provide free talks for our members and guests. The team would like
to thank those who either grew or bought plants and donated cakes etc for refreshments.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel our open garden at the beginning of July due to illness. As we gardeners say, “There is always next year.”
At the end of July, Hants DA become very busy with the New Forest Show and the NVS Southern Branch Championships. See the separate report on this, but I am most grateful to all those who helped bring the show to life. As Show Secretary, I can plan and organise it, but without a team to bring it to fruition and the exhibitors who support it, there would be no show.
We look forward to seeing you at our future meetings.
Venue: Sherfield English Village Hall, Salisbury Road, Sherfield English, Romsey SO51 6FL
Meetings
11 Oct – “Italy from seed to plate” by Paolo Arrigo from Franchi Seeds UK
8 Nov – “Growing for the Millennium Class” by Mark Hall
13 Dec – AGM
The weather down here in Lewes remains dry with no appreciable amount of rainfall recorded over the past four
to five weeks and none or very little forecast for the rest of August, which is when I am writing this article, sitting on the patio in the shade and enjoying a good cup of tea.
Continuing the weather theme, I fear that exhibits for some of the Shows scheduled for late August and September may very well be down, not as a result
of growers reluctant to attend shows but
as the result of the hot dry weather that
we have experienced here in the South causing crop failure or reduced quality of the vegetables. It would appear that we
may need to change the way that we grow vegetables in the future with the uncertainty of climatic change. It is here that I have to confess to being somewhat of a climate sceptic. The planet over the millennia has undergone climate change on a massive scale with periods of ice age and extreme heat, and only a couple of hundred year around the 1700’s we experienced a mini ice age causing the River Thames to ice over, however the last time it froze was during the Big Freeze of 1962/63, which I remember well, struggling to get to school (these days school would have been cancelled) I am not saying that we are not the cause of climate change but I do not believe that it is entirely down to human activity and that there are other factors at play. Anyway, enough of that and I will just enjoy the warm weather for as long as it lasts.
The Southern Branch Championships and New Forest Open Show was held in Brockenhurst as part of the New Forest and Hampshire County Show at the end of July and I am sure that Ali Clarke will
be providing her usual excellent report on the event. On the subject of recent Shows, the South of England Show was held at
the Ardingly Showground on the 10th to 12th June. Owing to the change in format for Horticulture, the Sussex DA did not have a stand there this year. Unfortunately, due to clutch failure on my car I was unable to attend, having been selected
to Steward the Horticultural Section. For the same reason, I had to cry off from volunteering on the Marshall’s stand at Gardeners World Live the following week, but more importantly the car is now back on the road, and I am once again mobile. By the time that you read this, the South
of England Autumn Show will have just finished where the Sussex DA will have organised the Horticultural Show on
behalf of SEAS and hopefully, we get a reasonable entry. In an attempt to improve the quality of staging of exhibits we have included with the Schedule and Entry
Form a “Tips for Showing Guide” as some entrants will never have heard of either the RHS Handbook or the NVS Judges and Exhibitors Guide, both of which go some way to explain how to prepare exhibits for staging. Maybe this is something that we should be passing on to local village shows, I will most certainly be passing it on to my local ones. Entries for the Southern Branch Virtual Show continue to come in and
the results will be published in the Winter 2022/23 edition.
In closing, congratulations go to Chris Passey F.N.V.S. of the Kent DA for being awarded his NVS Fellowship for his hard work and commitment at DA level, so well done and well-deserved Chris. On a more personal note, thank you to the Southern Branch Committee for putting me forward for the NVS Fellowship Award, which was approved at the June Awards Meeting, and I am honoured to receive it.
Norman Dickinson FNVS Southern Branch Chairman
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