Whetstone Stray Allotments Newsletter September 2017
September Newsletter
Annual Show
Absolutely the last reminder that entry forms must be received by noon on Wednesday 6th September. No late entries will be accepted. Please enter produce, come along, buy raffle tickets, bring refreshments and raffle prizes, help set up and clear up and, most of all, have fun.
Entry Forms online here Show Electronic Entry Form, or in the folder on the wall of the hut.
More fruit than you know what to do with?
Age UK would like your unwanted fruit, particularly apples and soft fruit, in the first two weeks of September, to be used by local elders in their Jam Making Workshops at the end of September. Profits from your donated fruit and jam jars will go to Age UK.
You can you either drop the fruit off at the Ann Owens Centre, Oak Lane N2 8LT. Contact Karen on 020 8150 0967 or eatwell@ageukbarnet.org.uk
We will also arrange a day for collection on site. If you don’t have time to pick the fruit, the Community Plot Group can do it for you. To arrange this, please get in touch by email or call 07957 388033.
Save the Date: Apple Day
Saturday 21st October is Apple Day, when we celebrate to joys of Braeburn, Cox, Red Jonagold and all the other delicious fruit in this family. More details in our October newsletter.
Save the Date: AGM
Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held on 19th November. Please try and come as it a chance to discuss, and vote on, important decisions that affect us all. Look out for the agenda in your inbox in October.
Toilets
Les and Crispin have fixed the Field 1 toilet door after it was damaged and the padlock was stuck. The damage may have happened as a result of someone trying to force it. If anyone on Holden Road Field, Field 1 or the first path of Field 2, wants to use this toilet, please get in touch to find out the code and to get an induction (as compost toilets are very different from regular ones). There is a second toilet on Field 2, which is for the other half of the site, from the second path on Field 2 to the end of the site on Field 3. This toilet is fully managed by the users. If you want to know how to access and use use either toilet please get in touch on whetstoneallotments@yahoo.co.uk
Community Plot
Congratulations to everyone who has been involved in creating the Community Plot which has won the Ted Green Memorial Award from Barnett Allotments Federation (BAF) for an Outstanding Community Initiative.
The Community Plot group has been invited to take part in the London Harvest Festival at Capel Manor, Enfield on Saturday 30th September (10am-5pm). Everybody is welcome to this event for community gardens and farms – it includes livestock displays and prizes. We need to produce a poster showing our progress on the Community Plot in its first year. If you have the creative skills to help or advise us on how to make an eye-catching poster or display, please get in touch with Les on 07957 388033.
Thank You…
Marie, for mowing the grass next to the Trading Hut.
The kind person (who wishes to remain anonymous) who removed the graffiti on the Field 1 toilet (the graffiti was reported to the police and they will be supplying a graffiti removal kit).
The two Joannas (on Fields 1 and 3) and Ian, who have all kindly donated produce to the Community Plot volunteers.
Too many courgettes?
Look here for inspiration:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/top-10-things-do-courgettes.
Top Tasks for September
Harvest remaining Summer vegetables and the first of your Autumn crops
Pick late plums, mid-season apples and pears, and autumn- fruiting raspberries
Sow the last of your Oriental and salad leaves of the year
Plant spring cabbages and Japanese onion sets to overwinter for next year
Clear away dead foliage
Add everything you can to your compost heap as long as it’s not diseased or has seeds
Check apples, pears and plums for brown rot and discard infected fruit
Plant strawberries, spring cabbages, onion sets.
From Allotment Month by Month by Alan Buckingham. DK