Your friendly local Gardening supplies cooperative
WGA News and Updates
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We are now open for the 2024 Season!
Newsletter – August 24
We have had a bit of a gap in newsletters but this one has a lot in it so may make up!
Apsley Farms Mulch / Compost
We have had several members asking about the supply of larger quantities of compost, we also have several members who have bought for Apsley Farms who offer a relatively attractive price as they are based around 30 miles around and have their own delivery vehicles.
We had discussed bulk orders with them where they offered us a price of £55 per bag when we filled a truck with 16 bags for delivery to Wantage.
We were about to offer this to members, but we now see that they are offering the same price for 2 or more bags as a Summer offer. This is a much simpler solution for us as you can order for the same price and have it delivered at your convenince.
So, of you are interested, go to https://mulch.apsleyfarms.com/product/apsley-mulch-soil-improver/ and use the discount code they give there.
We have a sample in the shop if you would like to take a look.
If they hold this price and then offer us a better price for bulk ordering, we will look at putting together an Association order if there is enough interest later this year or next.
Potato and Onion Pre-orders (Already!)
As you might expect, prices have gone up again and by quite a margin this year. We are able to offer the same deal as we did last year however where we will hold this years’ prices for preorders (placed before October) and then add a 50p increase for sales from the shop from February.
Some of the varieties have been withdrawn but the favourites are still on the list. Pricing will be as below.
Please place your pre-orders via the shop as usual and pay on collection in February. They will be added to the shop shortly.
Prices are all for 2Kg bags.
Next year we will look at how we can sell smaller quantities than the full 2Kg bags as many members only want a few tubers – watch this space.
We also have some very nice, large hessian sacks in the shop to let you store this years’ crop in ideal conditions – only £2 each with limited stocks.
Strulch – Back in Stock
The Strulch we trialled this year has been very popular, particularly the very attractive price we have been able to offer the larger bags at. We had sold out but have now had another pallet delivered and the price is the same at £10.50p for a 13.5Kg bag.
Composts Left in Stock
We have sold out of Melcourt Multipurpose and have not restocked as we still have a good stock of RocketGro which is comparable.
We have restocked with Meclourt with JI as this is the more popular product at this time of year (for use with pots etc.).
We also have lots of RocketGro vegetable planters (£7 / 60l) which is our cheapest compost and can be used as a mulch / improver as well as a growbag.
Plant sales
Thanks to everyone who donated / helped with and bought plants at the sales – we raised well over £500 for the charities and hopefully have filled a few borders.
Newsletter – April 2024
Following the success of our recent no-dig presentation we thought we would try another event with the perennial how to produce your own compost.
Colin will give the talk on Thursday 25th April at 7:30, upstairs in the King Alfreds Head (off the town square).
Our attempts to set up a Teams call to allow you to dial in didn’t work very well last time but will try again – please use the link in our newsletter to join us on-line.
New Products
We now have large pots for growing potatoes (amongst many other things) in stock – we have large (30L) and very large!(43l). See the web page for details.
We also still have a couple of dozen bags of seed potatoes left, please come along and give them a home as planting time rapidly approaches.
We have also been given a few kilos of Cherie very early potatoes for distribution to our members. These are a much sought after French variety that have become difficult to obtain. If you know them, you will be very keen to plant a few for an early crop. As there are only a few kilos available we will sell them for charity donations at £1 for 5 tubers, first come first served (they will be in the shop on 20th April). More details here.
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!