@skgas summer/autumn 2012

Summer/Autumn 2012

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@SKGASThe Seven Kings and Goodmayes Allotment Society newsletter

Summer/Autumn 2012

From the chairmanI am quite sure you are tired of hacking back at the grasses and weeds that are growing like triffids in this environment that offers them just the right amount of moisture and heat. And then of course there’s the blight. I haven’t spoken to one person yet who has managed to salvage their tomatoes from the dreaded disease. Some have even lost their potatoes. It seems the weather has conspired to discourage us from gardening, but I hope you can enjoy what is left of the summer on your plot.

You may remember in my last letter to you, I warned that unless we began to receive more assistance from our members, we would have to put up our rents. It’s simple numbers. We have more members than ever, but fewer people are volunteering to help keep the society and our sites running. This is unsustainable. For the past two years, your rent renewals have included a form to indicate how you can help the society. We have had people come forward and to them we are grateful, believe me. But it’s not enough. We can’t run the society on good intentions and fresh air and without a pool of resource to draw upon, we will have to start engaging outside contractors to do jobs for us.

To be a member of SKGAS is to be part of a club. Part of the benefit you receive is cheap rents. We didn’t put them up this year, but if we don’t get more assistance from our members – that’s you, you’re a member, remember? – then rents will go up.

Let me give you an idea. Sites run by the council in Redbridge have rents that range between £73.50 and £90.50 a year (see the website if you don’t believe me). If we matched theirs, the rent for a half plot would almost treble and a full plot almost double.

Of course, many people are happy they have a nice plot in a nice friendly community that has people looking after their basic needs. But I also get people complaining we don’t have enough skips, security isn’t good enough, the toilet paper has run out in the toilets, etc. Well, the simple reason is there are too few volunteers trying to cover too much ground.

We have had a spate of thefts and fly tipping committed at Benton Road recently. The former conducted by a member and the latter aided by one, because if the gate had been locked, they couldn’t have got in. Those two incidents alone are going to cost the society a considerable amount of money to put right, which will leave less for the rest.

But it has come to the point for members to stop asking what their society can do for them and ask what they can do for their society.

If you think we’d be mad to put up rents because people would leave, think again. I don’t want to lose a single member, but there are waiting lists at every single allotment site in the borough and each of the neighbouring ones.

My apologies to Churchill, but his words are apposite: Never was so much owed by so many to so few. With your help, we can keep our rents low and ensure everyone benefits from what is already a brilliant society.

The most important job is help for the festival, so if you can give us a couple of hours before, during or after, let Sue Cunningham know – see page 4 for details.

Until next time, enjoy your allotment.Pádraig Floyd

The Seven Kings and Goodmayes Allotment Society newsletter

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Redbridge Green FairThe allotment society was represented on a stall at this event at Melbourne Field, Valentines Park, on a somewhat chilly Jubilee Bank Holiday Monday, 4th June.

We sold our entire stock of vegetable plants

along with some seed potatoes, onion sets and other stock from our trading huts.

Leaflets with information about our sites and the society were handed out to members of the public. We also ran a vegetable seedling production line, where attendees could make a paper pot, fill it with compost and prick out a free seedling to take home. Hopefully all this has raised the profile of the allotment society and helped encourage people to have a go at growing their own veg. Perhaps some of the youngsters who took home a seedling will be among the plot-holders of the future.

Many thanks to all those who donated plants or helped on the day, especially Paul Dye, Padraig Floyd, Laurie and Monica Croll, and to Ros Southern for providing the idea and pot-making kits for the vegetable production line.

Coach trip to Audley End, 7th July 2012

John Barber writes:Thirty-five people booked places on this year’s coach outing to Audley End, which was quite a few less than the fifty-five people last year. However, when we divided into two parties for the garden tours being in a smaller group was a definite advantage and future outings may aim for the lower number.

Unfortunately the weather was not kind to us and it rained, not as heavily as it might have done but rain it certainly did. Nevertheless, there was no audible grumbling so presumably everyone enjoyed themselves. Many thanks to Gemma Sturges for taking us round the formal gardens and for making all the arrangements

with English Heritage at Audley End. Letters of thanks have been sent to the head gardener, Mike Thurlow, and to English Heritage.

During the day, this year’s annual apple festival on 20–21 October at Brogdale was discussed and interest was expressed in a possible group visit. We would need a minimum of nine people for a self-drive minibus at a cost of around £20, or £15 for a seventeen-seater. Anyone interested should ring John Barber on 020 8590 6792.

Summer/Autumn 2012

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Seven Kings and Goodmayes Allotment Society

Allotment Garden Festival

Goodmayes Lane allotments (behind Poole’s Court flats)

Sunday 2nd September, 1pm–5pmAdmission £1 – children free

See the hidden gardens of GoodmayesRelax and have fun with family and friends

Local parking – Goodmayes train station – Bus 387

EastburyConcert Band

HopefieldAnimal Sanctuary

Cooking from the plot - cookery demonstration

Facepainting

Goodmayes Residents Association

Fresh produce, jam and plants

UpstreetMorris Dancers

Home-made cakesand ice cream

Bee keepingand honey

Nature conservationteam

Corn grindingdemonstration

Recycle foryour community

Ilford HorticulturalSociety

English apple tastingand sales

www.skgas.org

HedgehogRescue

South ParkUsers Group

IG3 9PN

Fox-a-Gon

Woodford Horticultural Society - Spring bulb sales

Becontree Horticultural &Allotment Association


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Festival vegetable competition 2012

We are holding another society festival at the Goodmayes site on Sunday 2nd September. We have 300 members in SKGAS and as a society we rely on our members to offer support. We need people to help with the door to door distribution of the advertising flyers, volunteers to help set up on the Saturday and Sunday. Tents and marquees need to be constructed, tables and chairs set out, the refreshment and produce stalls need to be set up and staffed throughout the festival. Importantly we need volunteers to clear all this equipment away at the end of the event. The festival is seen as a great community event promoting allotments to so many people. Are you willing to help with any of these jobs? Please contact Sue on 020 8597 6685. Do come along and enjoy the afternoon.

We plan to have produce and refreshment stalls which have, in the past, raised so much money for our society.

Are you able to donate any of the following?

• Homemade cakes for the refreshments (no fresh cream due to lack of refrigeration)

• Excess produce – fruit or vegetables• Plants – herbs, fruit bushes, perennials and

plants from home• Lavender – for lavender gift bags• Home made jam/chutney• Unwanted gardening books and maga-

zines• Unwanted gardening equipment or tools

(no electrical goods)

Ideally these can be delivered on Saturday (with the exception of the cakes) or between 10 and 11 on Sunday).

For further information please call Sue 020 8597 6685.

The society vegetable competition will be held at the allotment festival on Sunday 2nd September. Entries need to be on the tables by 12 noon sharp, when judging will start before the festival opens at 1.oopm. There is no fee, just bring your entry along.

Categories are broadly the same as previous years:Class A: one large single vegetableClass B: five of the same vegetable or salad itemClass C: three or more different varieties of fuit, vegetable or salad items (This can be a basket of produce).

Entries should be labelled with the appropriate

class category (A, B or C) and your site and plot number. We encourage entries from members on all our sites so that we can make an impressive display for our visitors as this is quite a popular attraction to the event.

Entrants should remember that presentation is considered by the judges as well as the quality of the produce.

Your entry can either be sold by auction towards the end of the afternoon, or you may take it home yourself.

To add to the pleasure of simply taking part, small prizes and certificates will be awarded to successful competitors at the next Annual General Meeting in 2013.

Allotment festival 2012

Summer/Autumn 2012

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Society businessPaths and plotsThis year we have had cases where members have roped off paths by their plots, and others have surrounded their plot with pallets. Both are against Society rules and could be a safety hazard, so please do not copy these actions. Paths should also be looked after with the grass cut as necessary – although the weather has not made this easy this year.

Area 5 CommitteeFollowing the article on the new water supply at the Goodmayes site in our last newsletter, we can report that society treasurer Mike Fitzmaurice has obtained from Redbridge’s Area 5 Committee a grant of £6,000 towards the cost of the works. This involved considerable effort, so the society is delighted to congratulate and thank Mike for his work on our behalf, which has given such a boost to society finances.

New website for SKGASMany thanks to member John Yu who has supervised a group of IT students from Guildhall University, while they produced a new website for the allotment society as a student project. The new site is up and running at www.skgas.org

Please note the slightly shorter web address, this came about as we changed service provider, as John was able to find internet space at a much lower cost than we had previously. There is a forum on the new website, which we encourage you to use for sharing news, growing tips and of course feedback on the new site, some of which is still to be developed further.

SKGAS Facebook groupFacebook users might like to join the Society’s group at http://on.fb.me/SKGASonFB, or search for ‘The SKGAS Facebook page’.

Roger Backhouse responsible for incessant rain? Rumours that the expense and effort of the Goodmayes water works were the cause of the subsequent prolonged rainfall have been found to be untrue, it was in fact caused by Vicarage Lane South plot-holder Roger Backhouse having an article entitled ‘Beat the Drought’ published in the June issue of ‘Grow It’ magazine (available from WH Smith). Copies for reference are in the trading huts, doubtless they will be invaluable next summer! But seriously, many congratulations to Roger on this well-written and illustrated article.

Summer/Autumn 2012

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Plot judging results

Alderman Clark Cup 2012(best allotment)

Plot Name Score (%)

46 BR Takis Procopiou (Joint winner) 8174 BR Karnal Banwait (Joint winner) 8144 Gm Pat & Laurie Clarke (3rd) 8023 VLS Bernard Crowe (Runner-up) 7968,69 Gm John Mackin (Runner-up) 7816a, 15b, 32 VLS Roger Backhouse (Highly commended) 7592 Gm Carl Welch (Highly commended) 7527 VLS Peter Southern (Highly commended) 7421 VLS Herbie Pursue (Highly commended) 7486 BR Sancha Noronha 7336 Gm Susan Cunningham 715b WRS A N Other 716 VLS Laurence Croll 6967 Gm Ed Oliver 666, 7 WRS Paul Mifsud 66140 Gm Sheila Nisbet 665b VLS Lisa Hearson 6498 BR Mr Singh 63160 Gm John Hale 605a VLS Matthew Bailey (Chatting cup winner 57 for best newcomer)

Plots were judged on Tuesday 17th July, with the results as above. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all those who entered. The system we tried this year where members applied for their plot to be judged seemed to work quite well and produced a manageable number of entries allowing judging to be completed in one day. Special thanks to Paul Dye and Alan Hooker for putting in a long

day of hard work to judge the plots. Scores were perhaps a little lower than normal but growing conditions had been difficult due to the long spell of poor weather.

Presentations will be made at the 2013 Annual General Meeting, so if your plot was highly commended or above, it would be great to see you at the AGM to collect your prize.


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Thank you cornerMany thanks to:

• Don Cawley for further voluntary plumbing work,

• John Barber for running the coach trip to Audley End,

• John Yu for overseeing the production of the new website,

• all the helpers on the society stall at the Redbridge Green Fair,

Courgette tea bread Makes one 23 x 13cm/ 9 x 5in loaf

50gm/2oz butter 5ml/1tsp baking powder3 eggs 5ml/1tsp salt250ml/8fl oz vegetable oil 5ml/1tsp ground cinnamon285gm/10 1/2 oz sugar 5ml/1tsp grated nutmeg2 unpeeled courgettes, grated 1.5ml/1/4tsp ground cloves275gm/10oz plain flour 115gm/4oz chopped walnuts10ml/2tsp bicarbonate of soda

1. Preheat oven to 180oc/Gas Mark 4. Line the base and sides of the tin with greaseproof paper and grease the paper.

2. Melt the butter and set aside till needed

3. With an electric mixer, beat the eggs and oil together until thick. Beat in the sugar, then stir in the melted butter and the courgettes.

4. In another bowl sift all the dry ingredients together three times. Carefully fold in the courgette mixture. Fold in the chopped walnuts.

5. Pour into the tin and bake until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. About

60-70 minutes. Leave to stand for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool

I drain the courgettes before use to remove some of the moisture. Cooking time is approximate but check after one hour.

Courgette and potato bakeThis is a lovely bake recipe that I have from a friend in Boston. It goes well with most meats and fish and it is great on its own.

Prepare: Freshly dug potatoes, any variety, washed and sliced thin (about 1/8 inch)Courgetttes, yellow or green (or both), sliced about 1/4-1/2 inch thick

Layer into a baking dish: potato slices, squash slices, salt and pepper, butter slices. Repeat layers until all vegetables are used (or dish is full...)

Top with: A good layer of grated mild cheese that is good for melting, cheddar, gouda or mozzarella, fresh bread crumbs (a good thick layer), grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper

Add: Milk (I use skimmed). Pour this into the side of the casserole dish until it reaches half way up the side of the mixture.

Bake at 375, 190 or gas 5 until its done. About 30 to 40 minutes. You can microwave it a bit first to speed up the cooking if you like.

Seasonal eating from the plot - some recipes using courgettes

• all the volunteers who helped on the working party to prepare the Goodmayes site for the festival.

The Society is run by volunteers and help from all members is welcomed as it helps things to run smoothly and keeps down the cost of our plots.

@skgas summer/autumn 2012

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