Cornel y Siaradwyr yng Ngŵyl Wanwyn y Sioe Frenhinol
Attentive listeners at Speakers’ Corner at the
Royal Welsh Smallholder and Garden Festival.
Smallholders and gardeners visiting this year’s Royal Welsh Spring Festival can look forward to a range of interesting subjects for discussion in the event’s popular ‘Speakers Corner’ programme. Located in the Royal Welsh showground’s South Glamorgan Exhibition Hall, Speakers Corner is a favoured stopping place for those with a passion for growing their own garden produce or living the good life as smallholders or keepers of small livestock such as goats, pigs or poultry.
Among the speakers at this year’s Festival will be:
Catherine Hale, a former lecturer who is just completing a PhD in animal nutrition at Aberystwyth University. Her talk will be on feeding poultry.
Mrs Mary Thomas who will be giving a talk and demonstration on preserving fruit and vegetables. A retired home economics teacher she enjoys gardening and cooking and is an active member of the National Vegetable Society and is a qualified judge.
David Burridge has 30 years experience of growing organic fruit and vegetables and has taught organic horticulture for 10 years. He also ran a research project into growing oriental vegetables and vegetables suitable for winter storage. He is chairman of Radnorshire Enterprise for Nature, Education and Wellbeing (RENEW), a not-for-profit association promoting sustainable living. His talk will be on growing for a year-round supply of vegetables and fruits.
Pygmy goats are one of the popular attractions at the Festival and Peter Mercer, who is chairman of the Pygmy Goat Club, will give a talk on an introduction to Pygmy goat keeping.
Liz Shankland will speak on ‘starting with pigs’ and Wally Shaw will be giving a talk on both days on the art of beekeeping.
“My wife and I have been keeping bees for 26 years and we have some 50 colonies in six apiaries,” he said. “I am looking forward to attending the Festival again this year and hope I can encourage people to take up beekeeping. It’s a fascinating and absorbing interest.”
There will also be a ‘Good Life’ question time and a panel of experts will be on hand ready to answer queries on the good life and self sufficiency.
This year’s two-day Spring Festival takes place on the Royal Welsh showground at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, on Saturday and Sunday, May 21 and 22.
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