Online garden shows will allow us to share successes
Flower shows big and small have been cancelled for this year. For years I’ve enjoyed Gardening Scotland – a three day show on the Highland Show ground near Edinburgh. Visiting the National Vegetable Society’s stand was always a must with their stunning displays of improbably long carrots, huge leeks and pyramids of tomatoes. Many people relied on buying bundles of quality leek plants from their stall in preference to growing from seed. I’ll particularly miss Gardening Scotland’s Living Garden area too for the opportunity to meet representatives from various environmental organisations with an interest in sustainable gardening. Many allotment sites have introduced wildlife-friendly features such as ponds and bug hotels after discussing the possibilities with experts on the stalls.
Local flower and produce shows are always good fun too and I’ll miss them this year. Communities always rally round in impressive numbers to stage these shows. Quite apart from admiring all that’s best from allotments and gardens, I always look forward to ancillary attractions such as cake and plant stalls.
Gardening organisations big and small have embraced the possibilities of various online tools to add a welcome new dimension to the current situation. The National Vegetable Society recognise that many of their members will be missing entering their best produce in a show. They’ve just announced their Virtual Show 2020. The schedule is on their website www. nvsuk.org.uk
Members can choose the classes they want to enter, stage the exhibits as if they were at a show, photograph them and submit their entries by email. The closing date is Thursday 3 September.
My local horticultural society is asking members to keep in touch and enjoy each other’s lockdown horticultural efforts by sharing photos of their gardens, plants and vegetables. The most popular photographs will be displayed at a later stage with the possibility of winning a prize.
An increasing number of allotments have opened their gardens
The National Vegetable Society has announced their Virtual Show 2020
under Scotland’s Gardens Scheme (SGS), sometimes as part of a wider village scheme. Inevitably open days have been cancelled this year. The shout has gone out for images from gardens and allotments which would have been open under SGS. There’s a really useful article full of handy tips on their website by professional garden photographer, Sheila Sim. She recommends keeping a photobook as a great way of keeping a visual record of your garden or allotment and says most phone cameras are quite suitable for the purpose. ■