Good grief! It has been quite a year hasn’t it? One minute we were trundling along moaning about the odd shower of rain, and then... well, we all know that things haven’t quite gone to plan for any of us.
Back in January/February many of you were eagerly collecting your potato orders and some of you were signing up, cheerfully, for our annual bucket load of potatoes competition. One or two of you might even have fallen for the persuasive charms of Kevin and his “last bucket” trick. So, September already and this is your call to weigh in your booty. (I have a vague sense that that might be interpreted in more than one way, but I am, of course, referring to your harvest of potatoes.)
From Sunday, we will commence the weigh in. Unharvested buckets should be brought to the hut, and we will work with you to social distance and register your total weight. As usual, you get to keep the potatoes, bucket and compost, and we will arrange a carefully spaced out audience to oooh and aaah, or to point and laugh. We still don’t get out much. 10am til 12 noon, and the same again next week. If you can’t make it, and want to, let us know.
Moving on, we have now taken delivery of our autumn planting items. Radar onions (yellow), thermidrome garlic and golden gourmet shallots. Please note. We have reduced the quantities that we have ordered, owing to falling sales over the past few years, so, in order to avoid disappointment, we strongly advise that you come to make any purchases as soon as possible, from 10am on Sunday. We will not be taking any online orders, and sales will be first come, first served.
The delivery also came with a consignment of compost: Clover and Growell multipurpose, Growell potting and Clover peat free.
We would appreciate it if you could wear a face covering when visiting the hut, if possible.
And with spring just around the distant corner, we are pleased to announce that we are going to trial the Kings Seeds Kings Allotment scheme for the next season. We will be obtaining 20 seed catalogues from the company, which members can take away and peruse. By a given date, not yet decided, we will collate any orders and proceed from there. If you want a preview, the Kings website is informative. We will only be doing seeds (vegetables, flowers and herbs). We obviously hope that this will be useful to members, and, in the absence of plant sales, we hope that this may be a bit of a fund raiser also.
At this time of year I inevitably recall the harvest festival hymns of my school days and have to say that, recently, we have been more than usually blessed with “the breezes and the sunshine (really?) and soft refreshing rain”... On leaving the allotment this afternoon, a passing motorist kindly blasted me in the face with some of that soft, refreshing rain, and my runner beans and sunflowers have not entirely appreciated the breezes. But, we have enjoyed mostly good harvests, and good health. We cant complain!
Warmest wishes to you and your families, and hope to see you some time soon.
Debbie , on behalf of Eric, Steve and Kevin, and the wider volunteer team
