Page 50 - ALG Issue 4 2021

West Midlands
Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Warwickshire
REPRESENTATIVE
Mr Tom Terrence
17 Stonefield Close, Walsgrave Keep, Walsgrave, Warks CV2 2PZ 02476 621350 tterrence@btinternet.com
MENTOR
Colin Bedford
West Midlands
0845 261 3672 cbedford.nas@gmail.com
“Vegetable Self-sufficiency in a Changing Climate”
The West Midlands meeting for the third quarter of 2021 was again held via Zoom. The speaker for this meeting, Maike Windhorst, hails from Essex, a particularly dry county
in the summer months, and it was a subject which attracted a considerable audience.
Maike, having described the London clay that made up her allotment, gave her reasons
for cultivation of the soil, saving food miles, packaging, and waste. There was a need to create microclimates, adapting to changing weather patterns. The benefits to families’ health could not be denied, as well as selecting varieties for their taste. She discussed crop rotation and, following the advice of garden writer John Seymour, she urged us never to tread on the beds, which should be no more than three feet wide to enable access simply
by reaching across them. For her, rather than having four large beds, each devoted to one plant family i.e., potatoes, carrots, cabbages and then pulses, she simply had four three-foot wide beds followed by another four three-foot wide beds. Each set of four beds followed the crop rotation principle. That way she had room for expansion and could not run out of space when one of the large beds was full. Another
very interesting feature was that, following the advice of another garden writer Gertrude Franck, she used spinach to mark the lines between the rows of crops, ultimately using the leaves as a much-needed mulch as well as using the plants to provide shade for other vegetable crops.
In a comprehensive run-through of allotmenting, she covered seed viability, the best growing period (four to six weeks before and after midsummer), the growing year
and the need to diversify, widening the range
of varieties and families. In between each three-foot-wide bed she had a ‘compost box’; two vertical planks held together by u-shaped brackets. These acted as compost paths, as
a place to put all the weeds and unwanted vegetation. She walked on these and at the end of the season the boxes could be lifted out of the way and the decomposing vegetation then dug into the edge of the adjacent bed to aid fertility and water-retention. She concluded by urging the viewers to use watering and shade to aid germination.
After a short break, we returned to the business section of the meeting. The Regional
Representative reported that the regional shows were back in business, with between
20 and 30 volunteers taking part in Gardeners’ World Live, all being provided with appropriate Personal Protective Equipment for the exercise. The other big show, the Malvern Autumn
Show, is not being attended by the National Allotment Society this year owing to insufficient time being available for the preparation. Colin Bedford, the Regional Mentor, described
how local authorities were looking to self- management as the way forward once suitable training had been given to site association officers. In anticipation of this, the Region
had purchased a projector and screen in the expectation that they would have an increased training workload. Finally, much effort had been spent in finding a suitable location for the next meeting, the AGM, which was going to be a hybrid meeting; a mixture of a Zoom meeting and a face-to-face meeting at King’s Heath House in King’s Heath Park, Birmingham in November.
John McNab,
WM Regional Secretary
Calls to 0845 numbers cost 3p (ex VAT) per minute plus your telephone company’s access charge
Reflections on first time exhibiting
anything having grown for eating and not for showing. A further bonus was the donation of many of the entries
to a local food bank that we support; these were collected from the show and within days were distributed to those in need. Best of all is the knowledge we have learnt, which will be put to good use for next year’s show, and we hope to encourage others who perhaps think their produce isn’t good enough, or that you need a special set up or years of experience to grow show produce. You don’t! All you need is a love of growing and it’s a great opportunity to show others what you are growing and to meet new, like-minded friends.
Having an allotment has opened up so many exciting and new avenues for us and we couldn’t be doing it all without the help of those at the BDAC.
Nicole & Natalie Macfarlane
Having taken part in this year’s BDAC show, I was pleased to be asked to write about my experience.
Initially, I took on a plot at Wyrley Birch Allotments to grow flowers but ended up with two plots, and so encouraged my mum to take on one and help me grow fruit and vegetables. We decided on a no dig approach due to my mum’s disabilities and we grow organically, which is a challenge, but worthwhile.
On hearing about the BDAC show, I immediately knew I wanted to enter some of my flowers, and persuaded my mum to also take part. Having never shown before, we reached out to previous participants and the support and encouragement received from other growers and members of the
BDAC was amazing. We learnt so much and had great fun, though never expected to actually win anything. On the day of the show, we stood at the boot of our car, cleaning the roots
of cabbages, as we weren’t sure in advance how to prepare them, but it was all very relaxed, and everybody was lovely and helpful.
In the show hall there were BDAC members on hand to offer advice and answer our questions, so really, we needn’t have felt as nervous as we did. The following day you return to see the results of the judging and to say we were shocked is an understatement! We had several 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and came 4th overall (which we were delighted with). We were genuinely surprised, as we did not expect to win
We learnt so much and had great fun, though never expected to actually win anything
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