By Victoria Plum 
By Victoria Plum
There’s nothing like live entertainment. The projection screen wouldn’t work, the high-tech projector wouldn’t work, the sound system wouldn’t work. And someone nearly forgot the raffle!
However, the Reepham & District Gardening Club committee and speaker strove to overcome these small problems and I certainly enjoyed the June talk by Rosemary Ward on “A year in the market garden” in Reepham Town Hall.
Although retiring soon, she described for us AJ Ward’s impressive market garden, 45 acres, based at Spixworth. All the garden’s more than 30 sorts of veg were grown from seed, on site, from January.
We saw pictures of this huge, partly automated system operation, completed under glass – but with no heat.
Hardening off, planting out, covering or protecting against carrot fly, pigeons and rabbits – all carefully done to ensure a successful crop.
With some cauliflower seed costing five pence each you need to do everything you can to ensure the success of that plant. But such backbreaking, hard work.
I know half an hour in the garden can be very tiring, but to work all day with your living depending on it? What a test, and all success depending on the weather.
Long-term employees have become like family. Vegetables were sold to Roys of Wroxham (one of my favourite shops) and over the years farmers’ markets and Norwich city shops have been supplied, and even a box scheme delivered.
Well-flavoured varieties were always chosen to give the customer the best, but what a fickle bunch we are, since Rosemary said that sales of carrots go down by 90% when not bunched with their greenery intact.
Because I believe we need to encourage a resurgence of market gardening expertise and know-how, I asked about apprenticeships but apparently the apprentices they had didn’t like working in the rain!
Rosemary sees beauty in her cabbages as we saw from her lovely photographs, and she just can’t stop growing plants, and now as retirement looms, she specialises in growing unusual perennials, some of which she brought along for us to buy.
Cawston used to have at least one market garden; the Oakes family gave it to the village when they retired in 2000 to be made into the magnificent playing field which we now have behind the village hall.
I know of market gardens that were at Saxthorpe and Little London, and Norwich was once ringed with market gardens and seed growers.
If you look at old photographs of Norwich or Yarmouth markets, or in fact any towns, you will see a mass of small stalls. These were the outlet for the many market gardens in each area along with eggs, meat and bread, so fresh, locally grown produce was always available. We would now be calling them artisan producers.
The next meeting of Reepham & District Gardening Club meeting is on Tuesday 19 July at 7.45 pm in the Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham. Bryan Thurlow will entertain us with the diverting tale of a small boy evacuated to a small farm near Bury St Edmunds.
Pictured are the answers to last month’s photo closeup “what is it?” competition. Top: a tea towel for drying the Reepham & District Gardening Club cups and saucers. Below: garden string – a lucky win at the gardening club raffle in June. Bottom: a surreal seedpod from the nigella self-sown seedlings I showed you a couple of months ago. Photos: Tina Sutton
Geoff Fisher