Page 56 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2022

North Yorks
and South
Durham DA
Another year is underway, we held our Annual General Meeting on the 26thJanuaryatournew‘home’,The Billingham Constitutional Club.
There was a good turn-out and the Committee was re-elected plus one addition Derek Forrest. 2022 is set
to be a good year and although only our second meeting since February 2021 this new venue looks set to boost our numbers. Our schedule of events for the year is published on the NVS website, I just hope the spectre of COVID has passed and we can get on with our lives and there are no hiccups with events or shows. We will be still exhibiting and selling tomatoes etc at the Harrogate Spring Show and as far as we know at the moment there are no restrictions, but I guess time will tell.
One other note I will mention here is that the Northern Branch usually stage a display at the Great Yorkshire Show held at Harrogate in July, however, the format for the display has changed and the displays have been moved outside which is not ideal for our display particularly with the vagaries of the British weather, especially when you are trying to present a quality vegetable display. The show has also been extended to four days, albeit with restricted visitor numbers, and to man this with volunteers for 12 hrs a day
is at best a challenge. So, with much trepidation the decision was made not to attend this year. This doesn’t mean that it has gone for good we just have to look for a solution to resolving the issues.
Geoff Wilson FNVS
Secretary North Yorkshire and South Durham and Northern Branch
56 Simply Vegetables
Westmorland and North Lancashire DA
Welcome to a growing new year, although things are a bit quiet and steady on the gardening front, we have held our first DA meeting for two years and even though attendance was well down on usual numbers, it was nice to get together again and let’s hope we can build the numbers up through the next meetings from February, March and April.
Our first speaker was Pete High of Ulverston who was giving his first ever talk on 30 years of growing fruit and vegetables, whilst trying to be organic, it was an enjoyable talk and many questions were asked, what I personally found most informing, was the section on rejuvenating old fruit trees and the techniques used to graft and propagate them, not something I have ever done, but I might have a try this spring. Pete has his own YouTube channel at the “Cumbrian Homestead” if you want to watch any of his videos.
Next year’s programme is in the planning stage so if anyone fancy’s a long weekend Thursday to Sunday in the Lake District pop along you would be most welcome, our meetings are held in the Club Inn Endmoor 7:30pm start every third Thursday, October through to April.
On the gardening side it’s been a time of doing some redesigning the layout of my veg plot. I have made two raised beds out of concrete blocks that were surplus to building works that were going on in the neighbourhood, so I was able to get most of them for free. The beds are 3 blocks high and 26’ by 4’ wide it was handy to make them that way, as the ground is on
a steep slope, and it is now terraced and there should be less bending. I still have my original beds so will compare how they grow
It has been a mild and fairly dry January and somethings are just showing a bit of growth, like my snowdrops and rhubarb and my early broad beans are coming on nicely in the cold frame in the pots I make from plastic milk cartons. I use them as it allows a good deep root run or maybe I’m just too tight to buy proper pots, I must have some Yorkshire / Scottish blood in my background! I hope to get them planted out at end of February / early March, let’s just hope we don’t get a spell of severe cold weather and knock everything back first.
Pete High, guest speaker
On a different note, on the farm where I help out there were about 20 trees blown down in storm Arwen, mainly Oak and Ash, in-fact one of the Oaks was inspected by an arborist who by measuring the trunks diameter at a certain height he calculated it to be 350 years old, give or take 25
years. Amazing to think it was probably an acorn when the pilgrim fathers set off to America and just a young tree at the time of the battle of Waterloo it must have stood through many a storm but finally met its match.
What a difference a couple of
months make by the time you read this, greenhouses will be filling up fast, but
at the moment, 1st February, I’ve not a
lot going on. Shallots are in 3.5” pots in the greenhouse and are a bit slow to get going this year though they’re all rooting well. I also have a few David Metcalfe strain onions under a T5 light which I
will probably grow on for the 1 to 1.5 kg classes and I’ve just sown some Tasco and Medwyn’s trial red onion seeds for the not over 250g classes, though most will probably end up in the kitchen as usual.