Hi all,

Just a short reminder of our next monthly general meeting at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley on the 10th November at 7.30pm,

We will have a short update on Allotment Business items followed by a talk from a Tony Luck who is the Learning & Development Officer for the WDBKA – a local beekeeper association. Tony will talk to us about Bees, their habits and biology and their management. He will touch on the differences between Bees, wasps and Hornets (including the invasive Yellow Legged Hornet) and between Honey bees and Bumblebees.

He will look at the way bees live in synchronicity with plants and trees and with the changing of the seasons. Tony is also a Wokingham Beekeeper who has been keeping bees for over 5 years manages around 15 Honey Bee colonies in various apiaries in the Wokingham area.

The talk will last for about 45 minutes. Looking forward to seeing you at the meeting.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee

Our next WATA General meeting will be held on Monday 13th October at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley, this time starting at 7pm. As with previous meetings, we will start with a general Allotment Associating update on a number of items, followed by a guest speaker.

This meeting’s guest speaker will be Jonny Furze, who is a Compost Scaling Engineer from Soil Ecology Laboratory/Soil Smiths. They are a research company that looks at the best ways to enhance soil quality.

In terms of the evening talk, it will be a general outline of the microbiological life (soil food web) within the soil, introducing people to how the web of life within the soil functions, and how various parts of the web interact with plants to bring nutrition to the plants. There will also be a review on composting, which we think will be of interest to all tenants, along with a few tips.

One interesting aspect of this talk is that they ask you to bring along a soil/compost sample from your plot to have it analysed under microscopes so you can see exactly what is in it.

Their talk will be about 45 minutes long and they encourage people to come along with questions. Once the talk has finished, people can continue questioning them as they start to look through their samples. Hence, the earlier start of this meeting.

Soil Smiths are a commercial company that manufactures and sells products related to the topic of this talk, which they will being along and offer a 20% discount on any purchased on the night. Just so everyone is aware, the Committee have no financial interest in or any connection with Soil Ecology Laboratory/Soil Smiths, we however think it will be an interesting talk for all that attend.

Please let us know by responding to this post as soon as possible or via readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk, so that we can get an idea of how many people may want to attend.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee