Season 2010/2011

GARDEN DAY

We hope you can come along to our second annual garden day. A chance for young and old to come together, have some fun and learn something about the garden.

Adult Entry £1, Children Free

Why not join the Horticultural Society for only £10 (£18 for couples) and this covers entry to the Garden day and all the talks over the coming season

We would like people of all ages to create their own pot person. Turn a garden pot into a person or animal. You can change the colour of your pot and stick things onto it too (it's really up to you). We'd also like you to give your pot person a name.

We thought we should bring some competitive elements for adults and so ask for entries into three groups of

home produce

Jam,

Pickle and Drink.

These will all be judged for unusualness, ingredients and taste (we know these are not the standard criteria but hope this encourages everyone to enter!) For all the above, entries should be delivered to the Williamson Hall on Garden Day between 10.00.a.m.-11.30 a.m. where you will need to fill out the entry form.

On the day we hope you will take part in some of the events. For the kids there will be a variety of activities to keep them entertained including Bulb Planting and other green fingered things. This will allow them to plant up spring bulbs and take home and create a bit of colour in the early spring

We have been loaned a giant Apple Press and this is an ideal way for people with spare apples (or pears) to turn windfalls or excess fruit into excellent juice or if you have the patience some cider. Just bring your fruit and something to take the juice home in. We hopefully will have some spare apples so if you don’t have your own tree you may still get to sample the juice

Teas and Coffees and Cakes will be available for all on the day and will provide a great break from all that is going on and a good place to discuss your garden with others As well as all this we will have useful information for gardeners and information on what the society has been up to. Also we will have help for those looking to set up a wildlife garden and some stalls with garden equipment.

And a Garden Day would not be complete without a Plant Bring and Buy sale. Please do pot up some spare plants or collect some seeds to share with other gardeners in the village. On the day you will be able to buy plants from the stall and improve your garden.

We hope you can make it along on the day but if not the talks restart on Wednesday the 13th October.

December 2010

The Abernethy Horticultural Society is now well into its season of talks for 2010/11 . We have talks on the second Wednesday of the month in the Masons Hall from 7.30pm. The next talk will be in January, so look out for the poster for details.

We would like to use The Crier to thank everyone who helped with the Garden Day at the start of Autumn. Again it wouldn't have been such a success without so many folk giving up time, plants and baking products. The level of entries this year was amazing both in quality and in quantity and it looks like we have started something with the jam and jelly contest. Thanks also to Jamesfield Garden Centre for providing the prizes for the kids’ entries which were enthusiastically received.

We have in the past mentioned the idea of a community orchard and wondered if anyone could think of some land for this project. We are still in search of the land but have been generously offered the funds so we could potentially buy a small patch. Anyone with space who would be interested, or anyone with ideas, please do get in touch. If we get a community orchard going, the land would be open to the whole community to use and enjoy

March 2011

It's hard to believe that we are already half way through our series of talks for 2010/11. Our first talk was to be given by the RSPB but, owing to illness, our speaker was unavailable so Keir kindly stepped in to use the notes provided by the RSPB. An informative talk, combined with an impromptu home-made sloe gin tasting, got the winter talk season off to a flying start. Our second talk was given by John Marshall of WCF Potatoes. John told us everything we needed to know about potatoes while showing us his fascinating collection of slides and potato memorabilia. During December, some of the hardier members of the Society braved the elements for a festive drink in the Cree's. Our last talk was given by our own Les McIntosh who told us the do's and don'ts of pruning. I think we're all more confident about when to prune and when it's best to leave well alone!

We still have these further talks to look forward to:

09/02/11 Garden Design by Adrian Miles

09/03/11 Herbs by Margaret Lear

13/04/11 Alpines at Rumbling Bridge Nursery by Graeme Butler

New members are always welcome or non-members can come along for each individual talk at a cost of £2.50. Talks start at 7.30pm in the Masonic Hall and are usually followed by a trip to the Cree's.

This year we are also planning a day bus trip to visit a garden on Saturday 14/05/11. We are looking for any suggestions of gardens to visit. Please email abernethyhorticultural@googlemail.com or phone Keir (850676) with suggestions or any other queries.

JUNE 2011

The Horticultural Society year is drawing to a close, in some respects, but this year the society is going to be working on projects through the summer. We've had a great season of talks over the winter and these ended last month with a fascinating talk on alpines.

The Society had continued its involvement with the school. Liz and Rachel have been in helping there, planting vegetables and salad crops and also doing some tubs for some colour. All of this helps the school maintain its Green Flag Status.

In mid May the Society is taking its first bus trip and we are off to Pitmuies Gardens near Forfar for a day trip. Places are already fully booked but anyone wishing to make their own way, is more than welcome to join us.

Over the summer, we're going to try to work on the Nurse Peattie Memorial garden to try to tidy it up and add some colour to it. The first planned meet is on the 18th of May and non-members are welcome to join us. Please bring your own gloves and small tools (and a Pimms if you wish (other drinks are acceptable)).

We will restart in the autumn with our annual garden day event at the Williamson Hall. This will be a great family day. Last year we were very surprised by the number of entries into the jams, jellies, drinks and pickles competition given the short notice we gave people. So now is the time to get planning your entries as prizes are given for originality of ingredients as well as for flavour!

Following on from this we will have talks and trips over the winter period starting in the 2nd week of October. Already lined up is a talk on wild mushrooms and other exciting talks too.