Page 60 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

Hants DA at BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair at Beaulieu
What a fantastic time Hants DA had at the end of April at BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair at Beaulieu. It is a fantastic event, with a garden show set within
the beautiful grounds of Beaulieu motor museum. This is the third year that Hants DA have been invited to participate, to promote the NVS, sell plants and be custodians of a vegetable display garden which we help to build.
In previous years, the display garden has been an allotment, with vegetables grown by Terry Porter and Jon Wheatley who grow for Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows. Those who have seen their vegetables never forget the rows of almost other-worldly cabbages, kale, leeks and chard.
This year, Paul Stone designed the display garden, called “The Theatre of Greens”. He commissioned the vegetables and really had to twist the grower’s arm
to get them to do it. It would be fair to say, these vegetables were far more relatable to the average grower; Paul even had to dig the cauliflowers out of
a farmer’s field. The veg
that did not make it onto
the display garden, did
not make it to Hants DA’s
plant sale either.
While Paul was
concerned after two
days of construction and
waiting for compost, that
none of the 200 plants
were in the ground
on Thursday morning; we were more concerned there were not enough plants to fill the garden.
It must have seemed like the cavalry arriving when my build team turned up and got stuck in. Paul “The Farmer” Shadwell and Jacqui have “prior”, while Sue and Helen were new to the build team. They were all worth their weight in gold.
Paul Stone left me, Sue and Jacqui to
choose plants, decide on positioning and plant up the lower level. It initially blew our minds as in previous years, our job was merely to back-fill once the hallowed veg was planted. We loved creating the “stalls”. Finding ourselves short of a row of veg, Ted’s beautiful runner beans for the plant sale caught our eye. We knew he would not mind, and besides, what kudos to have your vegetables make it onto a display garden!
This freed up Paul Stone to focus on
the “dress circle”, with Paul “ The Farmer ” and Helen doing the planting. Paul “The Farmer” shuns the concept of “no dig”, so he was in his element – digging! It was lucky Helen does not suffer from vertigo as she was planting up the sweet peas in “the gods.
After borrowing terracotta pots from Patrick’s Patch and four beautiful pots of wild garlic from Sparsholt College, the garden was complete. We had started off in the dry and luckily got everything in the ground, then the rain came as we were
working on the finishing touches and titivating.
As water slowly worked its way up my trousers, I decided once it reached my bra, I was going home. By the time we left, the water level was pretty much there.
We arrived the next daytofindwehadwona Gold for our garden. We
were all delighted.
Over the three days of the show, my
show teams congregated. Barbara, Nigel, Ted, Ros, Paul, Harry, Mary, Ian, Lucy, Debs, Jacqui, Kelvin, Sue, John, Rebecca and the Brown family were already highly valued members of the team from previous years. David loved joining the gang for the first time, in his new position as Hants DA Chair and drew in Malvin and Lynne too. Sarah
Paul Stone and The Theatre of Greens
and Helen, new NVS members, were new to the Beaulieu crew too, they were great fun to work with and slotted right in. It was also great to have Keith Hine from Surrey DA visit the show and spend time helping out on the stand.
We had so many plants for our plant sale, they filled our double marquee, and we
had bread trays spread out all around our section too. Many thanks to everyone who contributed plants for our sale. Particular thanks to Donald Chester and Brenda Hope, our great friends from Midlands DA who visited the show and donated a mass of pelargoniums and geraniums. Barbara and Nigel normally grow a phenomenal amount for our Beaulieu sale but went
on a cruise at sowing time instead. Well done you two, you deserved it. To make up the shortfall, David launched “Operation Cultivation” and roped in Malvin and Lynne Ward to grow a whole raft of plants. They came to the show every day to ferry things backwards and forwards in their van and Rebecca Fredericks also went out of her way to pick up a load of plants from David. John Trim as usual delivered an array of plants. Amongst other things, Ted brought fuchsias and geraniums, David contributed spray chrysanthemums, Bob Marsh
sent onions, the Brown family arrived on Saturday with more trays of veg and of course the “Veggies” from Redlynch Veg Club contributed plants as well as helping at the show. Everyone’s plants make a significant contribution to Hants DA funds,
Nigel’s seed planting zone
Kelvin writing SV
View from the stalls
60 Simply Vegetables
We arrived the next day to find we had won a Gold for our garden. We were all delighted.