Page 10 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2021/22

Kelvin’s Comments
KELVIN MASON, NATIONAL MAGAZINE EDITOR
I am writing these in the middle of the COP 26 conference at Glasgow and regular readers (I am assuming there is more than one!) will be expecting one of my rambling rants which I have to admit I was building up to; but luckily, I have had a large influx
of articles so there is little space available. Hopefully by the time you read this in January some progress on climate change has been made.
I was very pleased to receive an article from Michael Gordon on recycling a subject close to my heart and despite what Boris says recycling is well worthwhile. It may not save large amounts of carbon, but it
saves some and also save resources including oil and it saves some energy in that melting recycled materials uses far less energy than melting ores for aluminium or silica for glass. So please continue to recycle as it also saves landfill and methane production which is a worse gas than carbon dioxide for climate change. If you have any ideas on recycling, please send an email or letter and any photographs if you have them.
Emily Plumb has updated us on their successes and failures last year and the use of their newly erected greenhouse. Gerry Edwards is looking at a slightly more exotic fruit this time with apricots which are well worth a try outdoors in the southern half of the UK and undercover in the north. Up until a fortnight ago I had a large apricot tree in my front garden, but it was blown over in the recent gales and just missed the car! It was surprising how poor the root system was which
may be why it had produced hardly any fruit, although it looked healthy and produce plenty of foliage. It has now become logs!
Those of you with good memories will recall that in the last magazine we had a free packet of onion seed kindly donated by Medwyn’s of Anglesey; I have received two articles on growing the seed so there is no excuse for not having a go and also entering the National Championships at Malvern in September.
Raymond Higgins has kindly produced another puzzle page to
test your brains after the Christmas excesses, he has also written an article on the Irish Virtual Show and as he says these could be a possible future method of showing if
energy costs continue
to increase which looks
likely and also has a very
low carbon footprint.
chair lady and written a report for the magazine he has also produced reports on the membership and national championships – thank you Norman for all your work.
The Jersey DA have been busy as usual and there is an
There is also a brief
article on Catfacing of
tomatoes which is a
physiological disorder of
tomatoes, my apologies
to the author but I am
not sure of their name
other than I think its
Martin as the article came via one of the sub-editors.
Ron Nutall gives some tips on strawberry growing, an easy fruit to grow for the summer and these days it is possible to have strawberries from May to October with the right cultivars and growing methods.
Elizabeth Maunder asks us to consider the effect of growing vegetables for exhibition could have on the environment and how this could be reduced. She raises some good points that we should think about and do what we can to reduce our carbon footprint. David Miles FNVS writes about his experience at the Melplash Show which he seems to have enjoyed.
Norman Dickinson the southern branch chairman has been extremely busy not only has he visited Mr Fothergill’s seed trails with our
Gerry Edwards is looking at a slightly more exotic fruit this time with apricots
article on their recent efforts, for a small island I am always amazed what they do to keep vegetable growing prominent in the public’s eye.
Finally, but not least are Fiona Shenfield’s updates and articles including the What’s on pages, if you have any events coming up in
the future, please email the details to Fiona (address on page 3) so that she can ensure you get maximum publicity in the mag and on the website.
It is very pleasing to have received an influx of articles for this edition, so many in fact that we have increased the number of pages to 72 making this a bumper edition. Please keep your articles coming in to add interest and variety to the magazine. If you are not sure what is involved and how to set out your article just email me, and I can advise.
In the next issue I will try to include some of the requests from the recent survey, if you have any further requests again, please email.
As I am running out of both time and space, I will close my comments now and wish you a Happy New Year and Good Growing for 2022.
10 Simply Vegetables