CRiB July Jottings

Judging Days July will be a really busy month for CRiB and the village.

We have two judging days this month Monday 22nd & Monday 29th July. The first will be the South West in Bloom judging and the second the National Finals of Britain in Bloom.
Both days will be on a bin collection day! so if you possibly can please could you collect your bin from the roadside as early as possible when emptied! Judging starts at 10am and finishes at 12.00. The judging will finish with a lunch at 12.15 in the village hall to which anyone who has helped or supported CRiB in any way is very welcome to come. Front garden entrants, waterers, people who have helped dig and plant etc. Please come and meet the judges!
If you can, please weed and sweep any frontage with the road and pavement, cut the grass, put out some pretty pots! CRiB will be tackling main areas but we can't cover it all! Marks are deducted for weeds Thank you!

Granny's Garden
The rose garden in memory of Madelaine King- Oakley is now finished. Thank you to everyone who helped especially to Geoff Higson who had to dig out an old yard! It turned out that we had discovered the edge of a building and had to move the planned area slightly. A local resident who was passing told us that it had been stables and a coal yard! The garden will be officially opened by the judges in July.

Plant Sale
Our plant sale on Saturday 1st June at the war memorial was another successful event and £130 was raised towards funding planting around the village. Thank you to all who came to support us.
Front Garden Competition 2019 & Curry Rivel Young Gardener of the Year Award
We have had several entries for these competitions so far, as this goes to print the judging has not yet taken place and so the results will be in the August edition of the magazine. Thank you to everyone who has entered.

Open Gardens 9th June 2019
We had a very successful Open Gardens Day. The weather was almost fine apart for some rain towards the end of the day and people turned up for the Big Breakfast and carried on to visit some of the beautiful gardens that were open and to enjoy a cream tea. The money is still coming in and being counted so we will have a result next month. A huge thank you to everyone who helped in any way, especially to the garden owners who put on a tremendous amount of work to prepare for the day.

Can you HELP US? CRiB could always use more help.

The summer is the best time to help water, weed and deadhead plants all over the village. If you can help with grass cutting at Granny's Garden that would be very welcome. You don't need to be a gardener, for example we need to treat the fence at the back of the war memorial garden, so any help with that would be great. Woodworkers can help make raised beds and recycle old pallets into all sorts of useful things.
Contact Gina cribsomerset@gmail.com. 762292
An hour of your time would really make a difference.

Our next committee meeting is on Monday 1st July in the Firehouse at 7.30pm, please come and join us and share your ideas.

Gardening Tips for July
-When flowers have faded and are dying back, dead head but wait till they have made seed that you can keep for next year or sprinkle on the ground to make other plants
-Foxgloves are biennials and need to have seed to create next years plants. Cut off the seed head and lay it at the back of a border or where you would like new plants to grow. Delphiniums can be cut back, keep the seed, and you may get a second flush of flowers later in the year.
-Use copper tape around pots to deter slugs and snails rather than using chemicals.
-Continue to take off side shoots from tomatoes and feed. Damp down the green house on hot days to reduce the temperature by watering the floor !
-Take cutting from your favourite plants now to over winter for next year.

In stead of our recycling article this month we want to inform you about the Blue Campaign BLUE CAMPAIGN

You many have noticed that in the spring we left the grass in Granny's Garden grow long before it was cut in May.
This was to let the spring bulbs that have naturalised there die back and also to leave the dandelions and buttercups grow as they are the first food for bumble bees and other insects.
This is the idea behind the BLUE Campaign which the RHS are promoting around the country . The idea is to leave an area of grass uncut to allow wildlife to thrive.
You can put up a Blue Heart Preferably made from recycled materials to show that this area is being deliberately left for wild life.
A lawn as a mono culture is one of the most difficult things to maintain with out using chemicals. Chemicals that will get into our ground water and eventually effect wild life and humans. Use a pointed knife to weed out ragwort and unwanted weeds, rake out moss, but try leaving an area uncut and you will be surprised by what will grow !
An amazing example occurred in our own garden this year, we had left an uncut area and to our surprise a Bee Orchid grew ! if we had cut the grass we would never have seen it. This will now be protected and not cut again.

Yes, you may think that long grass and weeds look untidy, but nature is untidy!
We should be encouraging bees, butterflies and other insects who pollinate our flowers and crops, not killing them off by using chemicals. Birds feed on insects too so by killing off insects we are also reducing our bird population.
It was also noticed that many of the open gardens this year had already created ares of uncut grass which were teeming with wild flowers and wild life.
The BLUE CAMPAIGN suggests keeping at least 10% of your lawn uncut through summer, letting a variety of native plant species grow through. These 'weeds' are the food plants for a variety of caterpillar species, and therefore as well as increasing the number of moths and butterflies that will emerge, also provide a vital source of food for small birds.
Be creative: many people are cutting a path (each week) through the middle of the lawn, so that they can look and enjoy their own wildlife reserve on either side.
Cut and rake the long grass in September.
Keep a corner of your garden completely UNDISTURBED at all times, letting native flora such as bramble or hawthorn provide impenetrateable cover for small birds and snails.
Please do not use slug pellets. They kill snails and go up through the food chain to kill hedgehogs.
Please keep any 'garden waste', as this makes perfect wildlife habitat and should not be removed. Heap up the hedge clippings from an Autumn cut and put leaves on top. This is ideal habitat for hedgehogs and costs nothing.
Go to bluecampaignhub.com for more information.

Gina Beauchamp
For more details contact Gina. cribsomerset@gmail.com tel 762296.