Hello!

Fish and Chips

Our thanks to Vicky for organising the Fish and Chips evening It was lovely to see so many members enjoying fish and chips, and cake!.

Getting ready for the earlier Flower Show – 12th July 2026

At the Fish and Chips evening, we distributed the new Horticultural sections, now tailored for the Flower Show on 12th July 2026 – see here – along with some advice on what to sow when – see Getting ready for the 12th July 2026 Flower Show. If you’d like to grow some aubergines, tomatoes, cucumbers and chillies for the show, you’ll either need to sow them now or buy plug-plants in a couple of months. There are several companies that provide vegetable plugs. My preference is a relatively local supplier close to Longleat – Simpsons seeds https://www.simpsonsseeds.co.uk. Place your order NOW to ensure plug-plants from early sowings. Either place it directly with Simpsons, or, if you want to save on postage, through me.

Along side this we had a display of seed-suppliers who sell open-pollinated seeds (ie not F1), most of which are grown/saved relatively locally see here . Here are my favourites :

Name	Location	Good things about them
Winnow Farmhttps://www.winnowfarmseeds.co.uk	DorsetDT6 5NR	Prize-winning Maravilla de Verano lettuce.
Vital Seedshttps://vitalseeds.co.uk/	DevonTQ13 7NF	Locally adapted seeds, support a sustainable, diverse food system
She Grows Veghttps://shegrowsveg.com/	EssexCO7 6UP	Vibrant colour in everything, and (unusual) heirloom seeds.
Walws Seed Hubhttps://www.seedhub.wales	All over Wales	A co-operative of growers in Wales, diverse range of plants.
Beans and Herbshttps://www.beansandherbs.co.uk	WiltshireBA12 7LU	Longstanding company, they also have many other flowers and vegetables. She is so local that she has a stand at the “Seedy Saturday” on Sat 14th March 2026 10am – 2pm, Congyre Hall, North Road, Timsbury,
Real Seedshttps://realseeds.co.uk	WalesSA42 0TS	Longstanding company, and the bolt-resistant Mantovano Fennel, suitable for harvesting in mid July! Brilliant sowing and harvesting calendar.

Wassailing  2pm on Sunday 1st February.

Come to bless the apples trees in the orchard for a good harvest, and celebrate with apple juice, music and noise!

Please keep your dogs on leads at all times. Bring a cup if you’d like a drink of apple juice/cider. 

Quiz night 28th Feb

We’re planning a quiz, with questions loosely based on gardening topics. More details to follow. Put the date into your diary!

More events are in the pipeline – see https://hortsoc.wellow.org/index.php/events-2026/

Membership – changed bank account

Please join us and become a member! Our membership year runs 1st January to 31st December. Our membership fee hasn’t changed for over a decade!. See the benefits of membership here, including discounts at local gardening centres and on seeds from Suttons and Kings.  To help with our administration, please would you set up a standing order on the 10th January for your membership. 

We changed our bank account in 2025. For those who have already set up a standing order, please CHANGE YOUR STANDING ORDER to the bank account on our membership page here.

Affiliations

We recently affiliated with Tendershoots

See https://tendershoots.uk for what this means – watch the short video clip. There is a long list of benefits – see https://tendershoots.uk/benefits/ and contact me if you’d like more information.

We’ve long been affiliated with the RHS

The RHS has tremendous amount of advice https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice,

including useful memory-jogging suggestions for gardening jobs each month. https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/in-month/january 

Best wishes

Hugh

Hugh Prentice

Secretary

Wellow and District Horticultural Society

Affiliated with the Royal Horticultural Society