July 2017 Newsletter
Madam Chairman’s Piece
Hope your summer is going well and everything is growing, Much veg was all late in but is trying to catch up; only mistake this year is that one of the cucumbers growing between the tomatoes in the greenhouse has decided it is in fact a courgette. I will let you know in the next newsletter, how successful a courgette is growing in the heat of a greenhouse!
Thank you to those of you who came and supported the Spring plant sale, and a special thank you to those who grew plants to donate, and Richard and Colin who looked after the bedding. Please do remember to return the bedding trays so we will have something to grow next year’s plants in (you don’t have to wash them!).
It would have been nice to see a few more members coming to the sale, as we did have quite a lot of bedding and tomato plants left over. As you know the money we make goes towards helping run WAGS, and in particular to cover some of the costs of staging the Autumn Show. We raised almost £300 this year, similar to last year.
Sandra Halstead
Hope your summer is going well and everything is growing, Much veg was all late in but is trying to catch up; only mistake this year is that one of the cucumbers growing between the tomatoes in the greenhouse has decided it is in fact a courgette. I will let you know in the next newsletter, how successful a courgette is growing in the heat of a greenhouse!
Thank you to those of you who came and supported the Spring plant sale, and a special thank you to those who grew plants to donate, and Richard and Colin who looked after the bedding. Please do remember to return the bedding trays so we will have something to grow next year’s plants in (you don’t have to wash them!).
It would have been nice to see a few more members coming to the sale, as we did have quite a lot of bedding and tomato plants left over. As you know the money we make goes towards helping run WAGS, and in particular to cover some of the costs of staging the Autumn Show. We raised almost £300 this year, similar to last year.
Sandra Halstead
Store Report
Over the last few months our most popular stocked items have been the multi-purpose compost, grow-bags, canes and supports, lawn weed & feed, tomato feed, maxi crop and blood fish & bone. We have lots more in stock and always happy to help if we can.
Good news - the signage on the outside wall of our store is having a make-over in the next few months. HUGE thanks to Giles and Flick for taking this on.
We now have a store rota in place that ensures we are open every Saturday 11am–12 noon until the end of November. If you can spare an hour once a month to help run the store please come along to the store or make contact with Sandra our Chairman - volunteers are still needed for 2018 and we would be most grateful.
Thank you for your continued support and do please keep coming along on Saturdays 11am–12 noon, it is good to meet so many of you.
Happy Gardening!
Jayne Page (your new Store Manager)
[email protected]
Over the last few months our most popular stocked items have been the multi-purpose compost, grow-bags, canes and supports, lawn weed & feed, tomato feed, maxi crop and blood fish & bone. We have lots more in stock and always happy to help if we can.
Good news - the signage on the outside wall of our store is having a make-over in the next few months. HUGE thanks to Giles and Flick for taking this on.
We now have a store rota in place that ensures we are open every Saturday 11am–12 noon until the end of November. If you can spare an hour once a month to help run the store please come along to the store or make contact with Sandra our Chairman - volunteers are still needed for 2018 and we would be most grateful.
Thank you for your continued support and do please keep coming along on Saturdays 11am–12 noon, it is good to meet so many of you.
Happy Gardening!
Jayne Page (your new Store Manager)
[email protected]
Show Time
The show schedule comes out with this newsletter and is also on the website, please do take a look at it and consider entering. Remember if you are a first timer, we have our new Class 94 for anyone who has never entered the show before, so take a look – this class is free to enter!
The show gives WAGS members a chance to see how good the growing season has been and see both our great successes and quiet failures. As always, I would love it if you could all enter something, it demonstrates that you think the show is worth continuing with, despite all the hard work it involves.
But if you can’t enter then the next best thing is to please come along to see the exhibits and support the day, doors open from 2pm and we are lucky to again have the Roke and Benson brass band entertaining us.
There are no changes to the schedule this year, except those classes that change every year like the children’s classes, photography and floral art – celebrating 50 years of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was my idea, which our judges have turned into a great challenge for floral art.
If you won a trophy last year, please return it to the store by latest Saturday 15th July. Remember the store is closed all of August, so please don’t miss the deadline.
See you on show day if not before. If you can bring us a cake to sell with the teas, that would be much appreciated as well.
Sandra Halstead & Toni Littledale Show Secretary & Deputy
P.S. Help the weary: The hall has to be cleared away at the end of the day, so please offer to stay and help for 10 minutes, it would be much appreciated by a very tired show team.
The show schedule comes out with this newsletter and is also on the website, please do take a look at it and consider entering. Remember if you are a first timer, we have our new Class 94 for anyone who has never entered the show before, so take a look – this class is free to enter!
The show gives WAGS members a chance to see how good the growing season has been and see both our great successes and quiet failures. As always, I would love it if you could all enter something, it demonstrates that you think the show is worth continuing with, despite all the hard work it involves.
But if you can’t enter then the next best thing is to please come along to see the exhibits and support the day, doors open from 2pm and we are lucky to again have the Roke and Benson brass band entertaining us.
There are no changes to the schedule this year, except those classes that change every year like the children’s classes, photography and floral art – celebrating 50 years of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was my idea, which our judges have turned into a great challenge for floral art.
If you won a trophy last year, please return it to the store by latest Saturday 15th July. Remember the store is closed all of August, so please don’t miss the deadline.
See you on show day if not before. If you can bring us a cake to sell with the teas, that would be much appreciated as well.
Sandra Halstead & Toni Littledale Show Secretary & Deputy
P.S. Help the weary: The hall has to be cleared away at the end of the day, so please offer to stay and help for 10 minutes, it would be much appreciated by a very tired show team.
WAGS Gardener’s Question Time
The society has a good mixture of members from the keen-inexperienced to the more experienced experts, and this means that we happily share advice and encouragement when it is most needed. In July we are running a WAGS Gardener’s Question Time where members can ask the group for answers to burning horticultural questions or advice for what to plant where. At the AGM members said they wanted more events, so please do support this one and come along.
Date: 11th July, 7.30pm, free entry to members and £2.50 for visitors. Location: Centre 70, Kine Croft (where the store is located)
The society has a good mixture of members from the keen-inexperienced to the more experienced experts, and this means that we happily share advice and encouragement when it is most needed. In July we are running a WAGS Gardener’s Question Time where members can ask the group for answers to burning horticultural questions or advice for what to plant where. At the AGM members said they wanted more events, so please do support this one and come along.
Date: 11th July, 7.30pm, free entry to members and £2.50 for visitors. Location: Centre 70, Kine Croft (where the store is located)
WAGS Garden Visit
The sheet to sign up for the Saturday 19th August coach trip to Coton Manor Gardens is available in store. These Gardens are north of Banbury and just northwest of Northampton and are reputedly amongst the finest in the country. Tickets are £18.50 and include transport and entrance to the gardens. Pick up will be in Wallingford at 10.15am and return at 6pm approx.
If you can’t get to the store, please contact Barbara Caistor on 01491 835117 or email [email protected] to reserve a place – all welcome.
The sheet to sign up for the Saturday 19th August coach trip to Coton Manor Gardens is available in store. These Gardens are north of Banbury and just northwest of Northampton and are reputedly amongst the finest in the country. Tickets are £18.50 and include transport and entrance to the gardens. Pick up will be in Wallingford at 10.15am and return at 6pm approx.
If you can’t get to the store, please contact Barbara Caistor on 01491 835117 or email [email protected] to reserve a place – all welcome.
Wallingford Gardening Club's Garden Visit
The Gardening Club’s summer garden programme begins with a visit to The Filberts in North Moreton in mid-July, followed by a visit to Chalkhouse Green Farm in early August. The visit to The Filberts (High Street, North Moreton, OX11 9AT) will be held at 6.30pm on Thursday 13th July. Filberts is a one-acre garden demonstrating many different styles including a formal colour-themed garden with lily and fish ponds, island beds for old roses, architectural foliage, and grasses. There is a large informal pond, colourful mixed borders, secluded Japanese area and over 100 varieties of clematis, and also a formal parterre with roses and herbs, vegetable garden, fruit cage and orchard.
Cost is £4 for both members and non-members of the Gardening Club, which will include tea and biscuits. Our host, Janet Prescott (horticultural lecturer) will be in attendance.
Then on Thursday 3rd August at 6.30pm, we visit Chalkhouse Green Farm (RG4 9AL, near Kidmore End. Take the A4074 from Wallingford towards Reading; turn left at The Fox at Cane End; then first right into Wood Lane, and follow road to Chalkhouse Green). This is a one-acre garden and open traditional farmstead, with herbaceous borders, herb garden, shrubs, old-fashioned roses, trees including medlar, quince and mulberries, and a walled ornamental kitchen garden, and new cherry orchard. Rare breed farm animals including British White cattle, Suffolk Punch horses, donkeys, Berkshire pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys. Cost is £8 which will include refreshments.
Visitors are very welcome at both these events.
Isabelle Darby (01491-836867)
The Gardening Club’s summer garden programme begins with a visit to The Filberts in North Moreton in mid-July, followed by a visit to Chalkhouse Green Farm in early August. The visit to The Filberts (High Street, North Moreton, OX11 9AT) will be held at 6.30pm on Thursday 13th July. Filberts is a one-acre garden demonstrating many different styles including a formal colour-themed garden with lily and fish ponds, island beds for old roses, architectural foliage, and grasses. There is a large informal pond, colourful mixed borders, secluded Japanese area and over 100 varieties of clematis, and also a formal parterre with roses and herbs, vegetable garden, fruit cage and orchard.
Cost is £4 for both members and non-members of the Gardening Club, which will include tea and biscuits. Our host, Janet Prescott (horticultural lecturer) will be in attendance.
Then on Thursday 3rd August at 6.30pm, we visit Chalkhouse Green Farm (RG4 9AL, near Kidmore End. Take the A4074 from Wallingford towards Reading; turn left at The Fox at Cane End; then first right into Wood Lane, and follow road to Chalkhouse Green). This is a one-acre garden and open traditional farmstead, with herbaceous borders, herb garden, shrubs, old-fashioned roses, trees including medlar, quince and mulberries, and a walled ornamental kitchen garden, and new cherry orchard. Rare breed farm animals including British White cattle, Suffolk Punch horses, donkeys, Berkshire pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys. Cost is £8 which will include refreshments.
Visitors are very welcome at both these events.
Isabelle Darby (01491-836867)
Membership
WAGS membership is £4.00 per household and valid for one year. To renew for 2017, please complete the form below and bring to the store with your payment. Newsletters are distributed by email – news is generally posted at the website too.
A few printed copies will be available in Store for those don’t have Internet.
WAGS membership is £4.00 per household and valid for one year. To renew for 2017, please complete the form below and bring to the store with your payment. Newsletters are distributed by email – news is generally posted at the website too.
A few printed copies will be available in Store for those don’t have Internet.