SOMERSET ORGANIC GARDENERS
AUTUMN
NEWSLETTER 2006
Autumn Programme
Global
Warming. . Why is this happening?
How shall we be affected? What can we do about it? A talk and slides with the
meteorologist Alex Morrice.
Tuesday October 10th at 7.30pm
The
Organic Garden at Rosemary Cottage. Ted
Pitman is a vegan and he grows his flowers and crops of vegetables without
using animal manures. A talk and slides.
Tuesday
November 14th at 7.30pm
Wildlife Without Nettles.
Plantswoman Viv Fairbrother talks about her garden at
Parbrook, where she has developed a wonderful herbaceous garden as well as
having vegetables, hens and an orchard.
Our Christmas Bring and Share Supper. We always have a wonderful range of organic goodies so bring along one of your specialities, savoury or sweet, or bring a fruit drink. We will provide tea & coffee.
Should we be watering or relying on mulches?
Viv Fairbrother gave us
a talk on Cobbett and Seymour, the two gurus of organic gardening. They both
argued against a lot of watering, stating that the best place to store water
is in the ground. Seymour said that in the drought of 1976 he did not need to
water his vegetables because he had incorporated large amounts of organic
matter into his soil over the years and he then used mulches.
Try
mulches of leaf mould, grass clippings and weathered straw.
-
cover bare soil between herbaceous plants with rocks
-
close spacing of plants avoids bare spaces
-
select crops and varieties that will tolerate dry conditions
- be grateful that even slugs don’t like dry soil
Julie Elkin was great at finding speakers and interesting places for us to visit and
it was through her efforts that we visited Highgrove. She is a loss to SOG and
we miss her, but I am sure it won’t be long before some garden club will be
delighted to welcome her as a member. She has now settled in her new home in
North Devon.
She writes, ‘To all SOG members. Thanks for your
friendship and support over the last few years. I haven’t found the local
organic gardeners yet but the village garden club isn’t ‘anti green’ and
they run a composting scheme. We are beginning to get everything
organised
here and am anxious to get the vegetable garden prepared. I
have filled containers with beans, squashes etc. for this summer. Bob and I
will be pleased to see any of you who are in the area - just ring us. We are
not far from the cycle route and there are some wonderful gardens in this
area.