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WGA News and Updates
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We are now open for the 2024 Season!
Newsletter – February 2024
Potatoes and Onions – Onions and shallots have arrived but we are still waiting on the potatoes. We will email everyone who has preordered when they do arrive.
We had very good take up through preordering and the list of what we are selling this year and amounts left is below.
You are still welcome to order online and pay when you collect if you want to secure a particular variety.
New Product Lines
Hessian potato bags – every year a number of members ask us for large hessian potato sacks, so we have sourced some this year. They
are reasonably thick and 50 x 80cm – £2 each. They should hold around 25Kg of potatoes or can be used for growing in.
Wondermesh Crop Protection
We have stocked Enviromesh for some years and it has proven a popular product. When the roll ran out, we looked at alternatives and have
now purchased a roll Wondermesh. This is a very similar product but has a finer mesh at a similar price. The roll we have is also 2.4m wide rather than the 1.8 of the Enviromesh.
We will sell it for £3 a meter, this may seem a little expensive but it is expected to last around 10 years with normal use and will protect against pretty much everything that is after you precious crops.
RocketGro Products – after the success of the peat free compost products from RocketGro we have re-stocked with their multipurpose
compost and (huge) growbags at the same prices as last year.
Melcourt Composts – as we let you know last year, Melcourt have now reduced their compost bag size to 40l. To maintain price as
far as possible we collected this years’ order and so the price increase to be passed on is much less than the increase Melcourt had advised.
Our range of peat free composts for this year is thus:
We have had lots of comments about using peat free compost and as it becomes mandatory rather than an option there is a lot of information
about how to get the most out of the various products available.
There is also a lot of information on the dedicated RHS web page at https://www.rhs.org.uk/soil-composts-mulches/peat-free.
Much of the advice is to think about blending the right materials to get what you want, several members are taking this approach with the Melcourt and Rocketgro products which give a good compromise of water retention and open structure.
We will have some samples for you to compare when selecting what best to buy for your needs.
No-Dig Masterclass and Garden Organic Membership
At the AGM we discussed supporting no-dig vegetable growing and Alan offered to pass on the benefit of his experience using this method,
including attending a Charles Dowding course. We will arrange a ‘Masterclass’ at the Kings Head probably on the 21st March with a follow up visit
to see the system in action at Alans allotment.
If you would like to see what its all about and can’t wait until March, you could watch one of the Youtube videos Charles D puts out. The
process is aimed at maximising soil fertility and minimising effort by eliminating digging and other inputs such as additional fertilizers – sounds
amazing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laBXwOdbOlw&t=19s
It will be free and we will look at offering it on line too for members who can’t easily attend in person. To gauge interest, could you let
us know if you would like to attend by replying to events@wantagegardeners.org.uk.
On a similar theme, we have taken out group membership of Garden Organic. We felt this is a worthwhile organisation to support but by
joining as a group WGA members will also get:
Free entry to their Ryton (near Coventry) model garden site
Discounted entry to a range of partner gardens
Discounts on their wide range of online and practical courses
A monthly gardening email
Resources to help experienced and novice gardeners improve their skills and productivity.
We have only just joined and will send out more details when we have them. If you are interested to take a look at what they are about have
a browse around their web site at https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/.
More traditional gardeners don’t need to worry about the Association however – we still have plenty of ‘full-fat’, non-organic products.
We are just trying to cater for all of out members preferences!