We’re very busy here as the Dig for Victory book is finally on our shelf. It’s all hands to the pumps, time.
When the wagon backed up the drive – and that was a brilliant bit of driving with only inches to spare on either side – we had a reception committee waiting. My neighbours came down the hill and son-in-law came over to help.
Three pallets, with 200 boxes stacked on them, were duly unloaded and then the heavy work began of getting them undercover. Being Wales the skies were darkening and as the last of them was passed indoors to safety, the heavens opened. A just in time delivery!
Now we’re living in a warehouse come packing station. The local post office stores are beginning to look a little pained when we arrive. More sacks of books and we take up the counter with the parcels to be weighed.
To get it out there and reward those who showed faith in the project I put together a fantastic introductory offer. With Suttons Seeds, we put together a selection of vegetable seeds that would have been available in the war. Subject to enemy action, of course!
On top of that I had the crop planning charts for a full plot and a half plot digitally enhanced and printed on heavy gloss paper – perfect for the garden shed wall.
You can read all the details here: Dig for Victory Book
New Book Shop Online
Before the book arrived we decided that our online ordering system was creaking at the seams and wouldn’t cope. The plan was to put a proper online shop in and run it for a few weeks to get any kinks ironed out before the new book started selling. Well we had it running for 6 hours before the tsunami of orders arrived.
Lucky for me, it’s nigh on perfect for us. A better system at the back end which saves us a lot of time and a lot easier for customers which is great. Of course, nothing is perfect. I’ve made a few mistakes with it but nothing we couldn’t fix easily enough. Quite how we managed to send out an order for 3 copies twice to Ireland is a mystery though. We hadn’t been on the potcheen, honest!
Wales Firebreak Lockdown
As of Friday, 23rd October, all of Wales is in lockdown for two weeks. For us, it makes trading more difficult but not impossible. It will slow down our order processing. Generally we coped in the first lockdown so we should be OK in this one.
We’re keeping a close eye on the situation. The current virus rates in our local area are very low but it’s scary how quickly this thing gets out of control. Regardless of rules, we all need to be careful.
Dear John, thanks very much for your new book, not only is it very informative and interesting, it is still very relevant. For me it also brought back memories of my grandad who had an allotment as long as I knew him, and from whom I inherited a sheaf of wartime leaflets, not just gardening, but recipes and make do mend as well. I was very interested in the history of Gromore, my earliest gardening memory was putting a single grain of gromore into the each hole that grandad had dibbed while planting out leeks. Less pleasant was the bucket of soaking dog-ends that was permanently in place to spray over pests. Thanks again for a great book. Regards Tony
My “Dig forVictory” book arrived today along with the wartime posters and seeds. I love the styling of the book, the illustrations are wonderful and though I only glanced through it I‘m going to really enjoy reading and learning lots from it. A great deal of thought and care has gone in to producing this. A great gift.