There really cannot be many people in Tarvin village who were unaware of the Tarvin Community Woodland Trust Plant Sale last Saturday morning. For the first time, Trustees relied on Trust members and the village folk who classed themselves as friends of the Woodland to bring in the plants, a dozen each being the suggested number. At lunchtime on Thursday, the tables were up and ready in the Chapel and Heather & Jacqui were ready for the onslaught – and at 2pm it began. The plants arrived so thick and fast that they just had to be put into any available space and the sorting out and pricing could only really begin once everyone went home!
It took Jacqui & Heather the remainder of Thursday and all day on Friday to get everything organised and, in the event, we needed more tables out than we have ever had before. On Saturday morning, the Woodland Trustees arrived to carry out the tables and arrange them on the Chapel front, and such was the pressure on space that we (temporarily) had five tables on the pavement. Even then, not all the plants would fit onto table tops, with some spending a short time in baskets beneath tables before being brought up to fill spaces. By 10am, the front of Tarvin Methodist Church was an absolute picture, filled with more plants than we've ever had before. The variety of plants was amazing. Quite often, we might have half a dozen tomato plants and a handful of herbs, but, this year, we had a whole table of herbs and over 100 tomato plants, in colours from black and chocolate brown, through red to white and in sizes from tiny cherry tomatoes through to beefsteak!
Tarvin villagers always support the plant sale well, but this year, the attendance was phenomenal and we seemed busier than we ever have before. The takings on plants amounted to £1,760 on the morning and it is thought that, once everything is tallied up, this might reach two thousand pounds – an amazing figure. The raffle took £169, with the £25 Okells voucher being won by Rachael Thorp. There were also some significant donations to the Trust. All in all, it was probably the most successful plant sale we have ever held.
When we asked each of our members and all of our friends and supporters to contribute 12 plants each for the sale, we didn't know if the sale in this format would be viable. It turned out that our members and our friends in Tarvin decided that the cause is well worth the effort, and the sale was a great success. This bodes well for future years.
A very sincere "thank you" is deserved by all of you who brought plants for our Plant Sale, and to everyone who came along and bought the plants afterwards. The Community Woodland Trust is very grateful to you all.
Ed: Click on the photographs to enlarge them.
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