Page 55 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2020/21

West Yorkshire DA
Like everyone owing to Covid 19 life has been strange to say the least. Obviously we have not had our monthly meetings or any show which we could report on. However, on a positive note, not everyone has not been showing!!
Our treasurer John Smiles has every week thorough the growing season been displaying exhibits of vegetables on his wheelie bin or in his greenhouse, with a pointless purpose of trying to teach me (Olive) how to become an NVS judge!! He has been going to great lengths explaining what faults to look for, what condition the vegetables should be in and the amount of points awarded to each vegetable
or fruit. David who is an NVS judge, like John has also been judging said exhibits to compare notes with me!! However poor John who displayed six lovely strawberries in October was somewhat distraught at only being awarded ten points when he himself was hoping for fifteen!! As you can imagine John did think this judging was rather harsh and caused quite a debate!!! However it didn’t stop David eating them, having the cheek to say they were lovely. I think that score of ten may have kept John awake at night!! All of this has been done when we could see John in his garden with social distancing. It’s kept us going and we’ve had some fun along the way.
One of our newer members, Tom Chilton has been sharing some exhibits on social media and here we show him with some of his exhibition parsnips. Like everyone Tom is looking forward to the shows when they return.
Andrew Cunningham, our Chairman has also been busy raising money for the Covid Ward/Ward 31 at Bradford Royal Infirmary. Sadly Andrew lost a friend Malcolm Gornall to Covid who was a
plot holder on the same allotment site to Andrew. Since his death Andrew decided to cut, bunch and sell his dahlias for several weeks to raise the money and in the end with the sales and donations he raised a total of £840. I am quite sure that the ward at the BRI are very grateful for this. In these dark times we are humbled by kind people like Andrew. Stay safe everyone and look forward to the next growing season.
David and Olive
John Smiles
John Smiles teaching Olive to be an NVS judge
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Tom Chilton sharing exhibits on social media
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