Page 50 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2024

Scottish Branch
In my previous Chairman’s report, I said we were in the final stages of planning for our Annual Seminar which was to be held in the Aytoun Hall in Auchterarder for the first time. I finished by saying
“A new venue can bring a new set of problems, but we are hopeful all will go well.” Thankfully all did go well, and we have since had tremendous feedback which makes us all feel that the effort which went into planning and staging the event was so worthwhile.
Thanks, are of course due to our speakers and to all our members who worked so hard leading up to and on the day. Huge thanks are also due to all our commercial partners who contributed massively by providing goodie bags for all our attendees, superb prizes for the raffle and throughout the day made themselves available to our attendees to answer their queries and otherwise give them an insight into their products.
We have booked the Aytoun Hall again for 16th November 2024 and are actively trying to finalise the program.
Horrible weather at this time of year seems to be becoming the new normal. We have had a succession of storms with huge amounts of rainfall causing flooding in my area, gales, snowstorms, and frost and as a result I’ve been unable to get into
my allotment. I’m sure there are others in the same predicament. I must thank Jim Williams and Jim Pearson for each giving an NVS Zoom talk on Greenhouses and Cauliflowers respectively during January to inspire us during this bad weather.
Aberdeen where we are helping the Royal Horticultural Society of Aberdeen (RHSA) celebrate their Bi-Centennial. I’m happy to be able to confirm that 4 classes in RHSA’s show – standard tomatoes, courgettes, globe beetroot and broad beans are to have the prize money supplemented thanks to sponsorship provided by Select Seeds. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prize
At time of writing, we are well ahead with planning for the rest of the year and our AGM is scheduled for 16th March, which will have not long
happened when you are
reading this. We shall
once again be having a
presence at Scone Palace
Garden Fair on 31st May
and 1st June, and we
are looking forward to
once again being able
to provide the public
with growing advice and
of course selling them
our renowned leek transplants and many other vegetable seedlings grown by our members. We all have our fingers crossed for fine weather. Our annual garden visit/ get together will follow in July – venue and dates and timings to be announced later.
In August and September many of our members will be engaged preparing for and exhibiting and judging at shows both north and south of the border and this year our Branch Championships will be held in
winners for these classes will receive Vouchers for £5, £3 and £2 respectively, redeemable against purchases from Select Seeds. Thanks to David Thornton for making this possible.
At this point we don’t yet know whether we will have a Judges exam in October. Last year,
instead, we held a judging workshop, and our committee will no doubt discuss the possibility of repeating this if an exam isn’t held in our Branch this time around.
Hopefully there will shortly be an improvement in the weather and by
the time you are reading this article our members gardens and allotments will be flourishing.
Frank Taylor FNVS
Chairman, Scottish Branch
Horrible weather at this time of year seems to be becoming the new normal
MEMBERS 30000 TO 39999
North of Scotland DA update
As I write this update in January to
meet the SV deadline, we in the North have just come out of the grip of a very cold spell with members reporting temperatures down to minus 11°C in some areas, that, coupled with heavy falls of snow. If that was not enough, we then had to endure the wrath of Storm Isha and Storm Jocelyn, which has resulted in glass out of greenhouses and at least one poly tunnel cover ripped to shreds.
I would just like to take this opportunity of apologising for a couple of omissions from my last SV up-date.
Both Melvin Millar and John MacKay had been busy in 2023 judging at several local shows, and Melvin had been successful again with a lovely potato board at The Black Isle Show. Melvin has been particularly hard to beat in this class over the last few years and it has been a bit of
a “shoot out” between himself, Charles Scott and Bruce Begg with Melvin coming out on top on more than one occasion. Charles himself had a particularly good day at Alness pretty much sweeping the
board with his Veg although pushed hard by Bruce Begg.
With the Scottish Branch Championships being held in Aberdeen this year it is hoped that all members of NoSDA will
be aiming to have several entries at that Championship.
At our Members Meeting on Sunday 26 November at the Chieftain Hotel, Inverness with a follow-up to her talk to us last year, Helen Fitch gave us her new talk “Surplus Veg: Off at A Tangent” and provided us with interesting and unusual cooked bites she had prepared earlier with various vegetables.
At time of writing, our next meeting will be our DA 2023 AGM on 28 January 2024 at the Chieftain Hotel, Inverness. We had hoped that our own John Mackay would be giving us his usual “Round the Shows” illustrated talk and thoughtful comments, unfortunately John will not be able to come this year; so, Hoss Martin will show and discuss his photos/slides of the 2023 Scottish Branch Championships and National Championships.
Peter, our secretary has continued with
the production of our DA “newsletter” which provides an update on our meetings and a collection of useful (or otherwise) articles that he has come across during his meanderings through various magazines and web sites. I have listed a couple of the recent offerings below.
‘A Shortage of Apple Crumble’ – some thoughts on this year’s apple crop which applied to my own apple crop this year and the gist of which also applied to my carrots and turnips but certainly not my tatties
and tomatoes (acknowledgements to The Spectator)
‘Every Trick in the Bokashi’ – some ideas on composting (acknowledgements to Garden Organic.org.uk)
As always, I hope I have not missed anyone of our members out and by the time you read this hopefully the weather will have picked up and we will be getting on with the gardening jobs in hand.
Happy & Successful Growing
John (Hoss) Martin NoSDA Chair
50 Simply Vegetables