Page 60 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2025

Midland Branch
MEMBERS 10000 TO 19999
From the chair
I hope your new gardening year has
started well for you and your vegetables
are beginning to take fruition, especially
with the ground having been so wet
from heavy rain and then snow which
eventually thawed, bringing on the
floods. How climates all over the world
are changing. Hopefully by the time
you read this, we are having some nice
spring weather.
Our AGM was held in
March and a list of the
committee for 2025/26
will appear in the next
edition of Simply Veg.
We try and change our
venues each year now,
to try and accommodate
our members from
our very widespread
membership area and
hold it in places of
interest so that other
venues may be visited at the same time.
This year we held it in the lovely village of
Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire, which was two
miles from the town of Witney (lovely shops
We try and change
our venues each
year now, to try and
accommodate our
members from our
very widespread
membership area
and plenty of free parking all day), and
about four miles in the other direction from
the Burford Garden Centre, which is large
and well worth a visit.
Members of the Branch are very busy
organising events for this year. The two
DA’s, Bucks and the West Midlands,
continue to meet monthly. Sandra Hall and
Betty Garbutt are organising a stand at
the Countrytastic event
at the Three Counties
Showground, Malvern
in April, as well as at the
Royal Three Counties
Show in June. The West
Midlands DA will also
be organising their usual
stand at BBC Gardeners’
World Live in June, and
the Bucks DA will be at
the Bucks County Show
in August. Aways keep
an eye on the website for
details of events.
The Midlands Branch Committee
members are in the process of growing for
the stand at the Malvern Spring Festival,
8th – 11th May and, of course, plans are well
under way for our Branch Championships
at Malvern, 26th – 28th September.
Schedules can be downloaded from the
website or if you prefer a hard copy, please
contact me and I will send you one. Help
is always needed at any of these events.
If you would like to come along to lend a
hand, please do not hesitate to contact me
and I will put you in touch with one of the
organisers.
Reluctantly, due to lack of resources, it
has been decided we cannot support the
Shrewsbury Flower Show again this year. If
anyone who lives in the area would like to
represent the Midlands Branch and put on
a small stand or information table to fly the
flag for the NVS at the show, please get in
touch and we will see what we can arrange.
I end this report by wishing you all a
happy gardening year and look forward
to meeting up with friends old and new
around the shows.
June Davies, FNVS
WEST MIDLANDS DA
At our recent meeting we were given
a lecture by Robin Pearce a well-
known RHS judge and former owner
of a Worcester nursery, and currently
secretary of the Worcester Dahlia and
Chrysanthemum society.
Robins talk was about the many
varieties you can grow of winter and
spring hardy perennials with a very
revealing colourful slide show. The
small number of members present
proved very appreciative of the talk. The
next meeting was our Annual General
Meeting held on the 27th February 2025
which was followed by a short talk on
the lifecycle of bumble bees by a local
beekeeper.
We are finding it difficult to find local
lecturers so on the 29th May I will give
a talk on the history of peppers and
my unique way of growing both sweet
peppers and chilli peppers with a
display of plants I am growing for 2025.
This will be followed by a plant sale of
members surplus plants so please come
along and support us.
Graham Brickstock FNVS
Simply Vegetables Binder
Store your magazines away. Each binder holds 12 magazines.
(3 years worth)
£5.00+ £3.75 P&P
To purchase contact: Mr Jim Styles, Midlands Branch.
Tel 01296 655457 or email jstyles@hotmail.co.uk
60 Simply Vegetables