For our first WI meeting after the summer break, a fascinating insight into the growth and culture of the English asparagus crop, with our guest speaker, Julia Colegrave, describing her successful, local area farming, of this wonderful vegetable, from her beginning first two and a half acres to the farm’s present successful, 50 acreage crop. Julia’s in-depth tale of the constant attention to detail, so necessary for the initial grounding of the plants, leading to the happy expectation of a ten to fifteen year’s good productivity from this first planting, was highly detailed. Of the picking, sorting, grading, packing and marketing stages, we learned all about the hard work Julia and her assistant, have endured over the years. Her burgeoning crop needed much more hands-on assistance than could be garnered from their nearby catchment area, so the farm found recourse to the employment of European workers its best and most worthwhile manner of providing the essential labour demanded by her successful asparagus production. With just one exception, all of her European workers have proved themselves to be more than worthy of being employed.
A successful alternative farm crop, conjured out of a childhood memory of her mother’s dinner party asparagus rolls, Julia’s research interest created a life-long viability for a favourite gourmet veg and a highly successful business model for their family farm.
Caroline’s vote of thanks for a most interesting talk included her reminiscences of a week spent at Julia’s asparagus fields, assisting with the harvesting, grading and packing and the resultant aches and pains associated with the highly intensive necessity of asparagus farming.
The business content of the meeting concluded with a raffle prize draw with a first-prize, for just £1.00, of the £200.00 Denman Dip prize won earlier in the year by member, who sadly decided she could not take up the opportunity of a Denman course. After coffee and biscuits, the Denman Dip prize-winning ticket was excitedly won by Sally Babij with three other raffle prizes going to Jane Curness, our Treasurer Pauline and Caroline our President.
A very interesting meeting and highly fascinating talk by Julia Colegrave provided a flying start to our autumn season of WI meetings, evenings and events.