Blueskin Garden Club

After a few years' absence, club members were back with tents, displays and competitions at Blueskin on Show Day on Saturday 13 April.

The day was perfect and we were very pleased with the numbers of entries received.

Firstly, the Spud in a Container Competition – in early December there were spuds available for purchase and growing from Blueskin Nurseries. Fifty-seven were purchased and taken home to be grown and nurtured. Forty were brought along for weighing-in. Results were many and varied. The joint heaviest spud winners were Emily Clements and Murray Hastie, with Susan Hellyer third. The heaviest crop: first, Murray Hastie; second, Eunice Hoogsteden; third, Mike Fitzgerald.

A big thank you to the staff at Blueskin Nurseries for stocking the spuds and especially to Mark Brown. We hope to repeat this again for next year's show so look out for info later in the year.

Scarecrow making was very popular and it was great to use up all sorts of pre-loved clothes, shoes, wigs etc. The results will look pretty impressive in local gardens.

Our plant stall was also popular with bargains galore. The ODT marquee was a very busy spot. We had a total of 246 entries which included flowers, eggs, baking, vegetables and baskets, pickles and jams, fruit and, of course, the specialty section which attracted 36 entries – five biggest roots, 18 longest beans, eight fattest rhubarb stalks and five character carrots. A big thank you to everyone who took the time to bring along their goods. We hope to continue taking part in the show in years to come. Thank you to the hard working A&P Committee members for organising such a great community day.

April saw 20 of us at the Carey's Bay Hotel dressed in jeans and bling. The "diamonds" were all on display as well as lots of colour and sparkles. Over a meal and drinks we held our AGM, a game to name 60 plants and voted for the best dressed member.

The committee met recently and has lots of ideas for the coming season. June's meeting will be held on Thursday 13, 7pm at the Blueskin Cafe. Sally Brown will be the speaker and will talk about her landscaping jobs and gardening philosophy. Please reply to Daphne's email or phone her on 482 2428 so we can give the cafe an idea of numbers.

Our club was 20 years old on April 1 this year. To celebrate, we intend to have a good old get together for past and present members. On Saturday October 12 we will host a lunch at the Warrington Hall (which is where the first meeting was held). We hope lots of you will come along and catch up with old friends and reminisce about past meetings, outings, workshops etc. We will be sending out invites to those we can track down but if you would like to attend please let us know asap. So far we have a list of about 100 former members as well as about 22 deceased. Notices will be put in the ODT and Blueskin news regularly until closer to the event's date. If you have photos of past garden club events we would love to have them to copy so we can put up a display. Please contact Daphne 482 2428 or Lyn 482 2896 for further information.

Anyone interested in joining us is welcome to come along to our next meeting in June at the café.