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Are you able to help us out?

Urgent Appeal for Committee Members

The Gardening Club is a popular group of like-minded people of various ages, that has been running for over 80 years.  Currently, we have a healthy bank balance and provide 7 talks, 2 shows with social events each year: all are well attended. We are only able to achieve this by having the support of a full committee and our members.

Over the past 2 years, very sadly, 3 local gardening clubs: Curridge, Hermitage and Shaw-cum-Donnington have had to close, due to lack of support and/or being unable to find committee members. This year our committee is smaller for various reasons and without a full committee we will struggle to run smoothly. Our fear is that we go the same way as these other clubs. To avoid this, we are seeking more people to join the committee. In particular, we urgently need to fill the offices of chairman and secretary.

If you can help us, we ask you to attend 4 committee meetings each year: these are held in the Acland Hall on a Tuesday evening at 7.45 and usually last about an hour. In December we have an AGM with a social gathering.

See the Job Descriptions for current vacant roles we need to fill, if you can assist in any way, we would love to hear from you.  You can email us at info@cahs.org.uk or speak with any of the committee.

PLEASE DO NOT LET OUR CLUB GO THE WAY OF OTHERS.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Chairman: 

Chairs committee meetings, welcomes and thanks speakers, announces prizes at the shows and acts as an ambassador for the Society. He/she is listed with phone number in the parish magazine as the society’s contact.

Secretary:       

Prepares agenda, records committee minutes at the 4 meetings during the year. He/she prepares materials for the AGM and records minutes.  

Committee Members:

Attend committee meetings throughout the year and the schedule meeting (if arranged). Help the officers with the organisation of events, for instance with catering, door-keeping and stewarding, as they are able.

We desparately need someone to take over the website. It isn’t too onerous a position with a monthly update. If you can help us, please contact Chris Jones by phone (01635 865816) or email membershipsecretary@cahs.org.uk.

Next Event

October Tuesday 1st

A Guide to Pruning – Chris Bird

SEASONAL WREATH MAKING

Our November meeting was a workshop to make a natural seasonal wreath from leaves and dried flowers. The intention was that each wreath could be refreshed with  suitable additions to keep it attractive over the festive period. As last year, the workshop was led by Natasha Wilton, who runs Speckled Hen Interiors from her home in Westrop Green. Natasha has an ‘organic approach’ to flower arranging using items foraged from the garden and hedgerows rather than using imported flowers or plastic items. There were 13 participants and each started with a ring made from natural materials bound with wire.  By adding various evergreen branches, dried flowers, pinecones and some dried fruits, supplied by Natasha and Jane, some delightful decorations were created. The participants found the evening creative, informative and interesting, so thanks to Natasha and Jane for organising the event. The end results looked extremely professional and were carried home with pride. Look out for them on front doors about the village!

Cold Ash Gardening Club Summer Show

Cold Ash Gardening Club Summer Show was held on Saturday 9th September in the Acland Hall. The sun shone and Saturday was recorded as the hottest day of the year, which was a fitting end to a very unusual growing season.

 The committee had been concerned that, after a very hot June, the cooler and wetter months of July and August, fewer exhibits would be entered for the show. However, these worries proved to be unwarranted for there was an excellent display of flowers, fruit and vegetables on day.

Chairwoman, Rhona Tucker, commented that: ‘Overall the show provided an excellent example of what villagers produce in their gardens.’ 2023 proved to be an excellent year for growing dahlias and visitors were greeted by a spectacle of from the deepest shades of purple, a riot of reds and oranges, all mixed with a variety of sedate pastel Shades

E Smith won first prize for his exquisite deep purple pom-pom dahlias, whilst Ken Elms took first prize for his large, ostentatious cactus-type dahlias of apricot tinged with deep red. All the dahlias on display in the various classes were stunning and a pleasure to behold.

There were some magnificent specimens in the vegetable classes and stiff competition to win first prize among those entering: squashes, runner beans, French beans, carrots, potatoes and onions. There was a good selection of tomatoes on display: it is always difficult for the average amateur grower to find five tomato fruits that are identical in both shape, size and maturity.

A wide selection of fruits were on display despite that fact that this year fruit growers have been plagued with wasps and hornets. As evidence of global warming there were ripe grapes and figs in the ‘Any other fruit’ category.  The judge commented that the fruit and vegetable exhibits were of a high quality and as good as he had seen in any show this year.

The photography competition produced some excellent and charming images. In the ‘Single Flower’ category a delicate pale-yellow and white iris against a drab grey background won a first prize and the winner of the ‘Wildlife’ subject was an image of a shy frog. An image of allowed the ‘Garden Tools’ allowed the competitors to use their imagination and of three well-used and pretty ancient shovels and spades leaning against an old shed was most evocative and won first prize.

The Junior competition to construct a monster from fruit and vegetables allowed the entrants to use their imagination and come with some very scary-looking creatures. Children from Cold Ash Pre-School took

part and let their imaginations run riot with some very spiny specimens you would not like to meet.

Gardening Club chairwoman, Rhona Tucker, commented on the day: ‘Overall the show provided an excellent example of what villagers produce in their gardens.’

FRANCHI SEEDS OF ITALY

It is always a treat to have an engaging speaker who has an enthusiasm for his subject and can talk knowledgeably about it. This was the case at our September meeting when Paolo Arrigo gave a talk ‘Italy from seed to plate’. Paolo was “2019 Slow Food Person of the year”. The Slow Food Movement promotes local food and traditional cooking. It encourages farming of plants, seeds and livestock from the local ecosystem and encourages sustainable foods and local businesses. Slow Food is concerned with quality rather than quantity and you can think of it as the opposite of fast food. The audience was tested on their general knowledge. Do you know how many of the major British seed brands are produced in Britain? The audience opined 3 or 4. Well, apart from Suttons Seeds, who produce sweet pea seeds in this country, the answer is none. Most seeds we buy at garden centres are produced in: China, Israel or The Netherlands. In Britain we have lost most of our local vegetable varieties, so the seeds we sow in our gardens are not necessarily the best adapted to our climate.  By contrast in Italy, Franchi Seeds, begun in 1793, has preserved many local varieties of vegetables and these are suited to the varied climates in different regions around Italy. Paolo’s argument was that you succeed best by growing vegetable varieties using seeds that come from places with similar environmental conditions.

We learned lots of interesting things. Did you know that vegetables seeds were introduced to Britain by the Romans? Fennel growing beside the Hadrian’s Wall probably originates from seeds spat out by Roman soldiers, who chewed fennel seeds to stave off hunger and reduce wind! The Emperor Tiberius introduced the British to parsnips and we are the only Europeans who eat parsnips as a vegetable. When Signor Franchi was asked to include parsnip seeds in his collection, his response was ‘What are these white carrots that the British eat?’ We had fascinating tour of Italy and its various vegetables and cuisine with lots of advice on which vegetable varieties grow best in a British climate. All in all, an enlightening and entertaining evening. We hope he comes again.

BENS BEES

June’s talk on bees was a fascinating introduction to the world of bees and beekeeping. Ben, the Head Beekeeper of Ben’s Berkshire Bees, drew in a large audience. He started beekeeping in 2014 and after getting his first hive Ben was hooked and has gradually increased the number of hives which now runs to over 100, mainly based between Cold Ash Hill and Ashmore Green Road.
Ben has worked towards the British Bee Keeping Association (BBKA) qualification and is registered as a bee farmer, which has set him on a professional basis. He now breeds queen bees, which is a more profitable operation, and sells them across the country.
He told us that there over a hundred types of bees in the UK but only honeybees (Apis mellifera) produce honey. They are not endangered. In London there is an over density of hives which has resulted in a drop in honey yield.
Ben focussed on three different groups of bees which fall into two categories, solitary and sociable.
Solitary bees – live on their own. They can make burrows underground, or live in quarry faces, old wood, and even masonry. A female solitary bee builds her nest and provides food for her young without the help of any worker bees. Despite this some solitary bees may appear to live in colonies, with many bees making their nests close to each other in a suitable piece of habitat. There are over 250 kinds of solitary bee.

Social bees
As their name suggests, social bees live in groups. Honeybees are particularly sociable and can live in groups of up to 50,000 together in a single hive. Bumblebees are also sociable but live in smaller groups of 50-500. Both types depend on queen bees who lay all the eggs for the group.
A honeybee colony typically consists of three kinds of adults: workers, drones and a queen. Several thousand worker bees cooperate in nest building, food collection, and brood rearing. Each member has a definite task to perform, related to

its adult age but surviving and reproducing take the combined efforts of the entire colony. Individual bees (workers, drones or queens) cannot survive without the support of the colony. A queen bee can lay about 1500 eggs per day but can be killed by the colony if production falls.
Drones do not sting and their sole purpose is to mate, they will be disposed of at the end of the season to save resources. Workers are essential members of the colony. They forage for pollen and nectar, tend to queens and drones, feed larvae, ventilate the hive, defend the nest and perform other tasks to preserve the survival of the colony. The average life span of worker bees is approximately six weeks. A lone queen early in the season can produce her own colony by laying worker bees and progressing from there but sometimes a colony will split and take up residence in another area.
Bumblebees are distinctive for their fuzzy, pile-covered bodies and bold colours, which helps them ward off predators. Unlike honeybees, they don’t make honey, as they don’t need to store food for winter – they typically live for one year, at most. Bumblebees are among the most important pollinators.
To help the bees in our gardens we were advised to avoid pruning at the beginning and the end of the season, grow spring bulbs for a supply pollen and nectar and ivy for later in the year, when there aren’t so many flowers around. A bee hotel for solitary bees made from hollow stems, facing south provides a good habitat. Ones with cardboard tubes that can be replaced are particularly good.

ACTION FOR THE RIVER KENNET Report by Fred Davison

May’s talk by Anna Forbes from ARK provided a fascinating description of conservation work to protect the rivers Kennet and Pang. The Kennet is some 45 miles long and a most important tributary for the River Thames, contributing up to half its flow in summer months. In contrast the River Pang is a mere 14 miles long, with a source a few miles to the west of Compton. Both these waterways are precious chalk streams and havens for plants and wildlife which, increasingly, need our protection. Animals such as water voles, grass snakes, reed bunting, brown trout, and brook lamprey flourish in the River Kennet. Crayfish are also common in some places, although these are American invaders that have escaped from crayfish farms and replaced our native species. Ark has tried to reintroduce eels into the Kennet by rearing and releasing freshwater elvers. Hopefully, these will grow to adulthood and one day return across the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea to breed. We met ‘Margaret’, an eel who had been reared as part of this project but has been kept as a ‘pet’ and yet to be released into the wild.

ARK volunteers carry out an amazing amount of work to keep our local rivers and their banks clean and in good condition. Volunteers do litter picking, removing all manner of things such as supermarket trolleys and even old mattresses from the riverbed. They also carry out important survey work: checking numbers of fish and invertebrates such as caddis flies in the river to monitor the health of the river.

They look out for vole latrines to assess the population of the very shy water voles. Most important of all, and we can all contribute here, volunteers take walks along the same sections of riverbank at regular intervals to check for foreign invaders such as mink and to look out for any signs of pollution. Since the Government has drastically cut back on funds for The Environment Agency to carry out regular monitoring, it has become the responsibility of volunteer groups, such as ARK, to provide early warnings by sounding the alarm when sewerage pollution is released from storm overflows.

Volunteers take all shapes and forms and schoolchildren get a great deal of fun and satisfaction from conservation work. There are also plenty of opportunities for retirees to don a set of waders and enjoy the benefits of fresh air and teamwork. If you are interested in volunteering to work with a group on the Pang or the Kennet you can get more information from www.riverkennet.org. 

Gardeners can make an important contribution to keep our local rivers and streams healthy. Advice to them includes:

  • If you garden near a river or stream, don’t mow right up to the edge – leave a buffer zone between the water and mown land.
  • A buffer of vegetation slows down surface water
  • run-off.
  • Always leave watercress in the river.
  • Keep your compost heap well away from a river or stream.
  • Never throw garden waste into the river.
  • If you have a septic tank, make sure it is well maintained.
  • Slow the flow – look for ways to catch and slow the flow of water through your garden.
  • Install a water butt and avoid the hose pipe, which can use up to 1000 litres per hour.
  • Use water wisely as our water supply relies on aquifers that also feed the river.

Finally, high levels of phosphorus in rivers cause algal blooms. Phosphorus enters waterways from treated sewage, septic tanks and sewage spills. Dishwasher and laundry detergents can account for 16% of the phosphate content of sewage in treatment works and septic tanks. So, if everyone used zero phosphate products, sewage effluent would be much less polluting and our local rivers cleaner. Choose phosphate-free, eco-friendly detergents.

Spring Show 25th March, 2023 CUP WINNERS

Denis Hardwicke Cup ……… E Smith

Hillman Cup ………. ……….. C Jones

MacDonnell Cup ……… …… J Cox

Mann Cup ………. …………. Molly Davison and Jane Geater