IS there a world record for a potato yield from one plant? Could that winner come from Portesham?!

Mandy King, Chair of the Portesham Allotment Society, contacted me recently to tell me about a single potato plant, grown by Ron Burt, yielding a staggering 30lb of potatoes!

Apparently, Ron had a spare plant which he planted on its own and it kept growing larger and larger. A competition was started to guess the yield from this plant which ended up being 30lb and was correctly guessed by Ian Pritchard. Ian won £5 and Ron donated the rest of the money back into the allotment fund.

All the allotments are taken at the moment, but if you’d like to go on the waiting list for one contact Mandy on 871355.

MY family and I spent a very pleasant Saturday evening at the St Peter’s Harvest supper recently. For the very reasonable sum of £6.50 we dined on an array of homemade casseroles including beef, pork in cider, lamb hot pot, chicken, sausages and pheasant followed by an equally amazing range of desserts – trifles, crumbles and chocolate cake to name but a few.

We were entertained by the Mill Street Jazz Band and then provided our own with the now traditional community singing rendition of “We plough the fields and scatter” followed by “A Farmer’s Boy”.

The bar was kept busy, as was the raffle which contained a number of high quality food and drink prizes.

Profits from the evening, which amounted to an amazing £750, are being donated to ShelterBox, which, when added to the £250 collection from the Harvest Festival church service gives a grand total of £1000 – a fantastic achievement.

This means that we will definitely be able to purchase one Shelter Box – each costs £590 delivered – although we are just £180 short of the amount needed for two.

On hearing this from Ada, our vicar, the ladies from Portesham Women’s Fellowship at the Methodist church offered to donate the proceeds from their forthcoming Cream Tea afternoon to try and make up the difference.

It would be an outstanding achievement if two boxes could be sent from Portesham so please come along and support the Cream tea which will take place on Tuesday, 1 November from 3 pm to 4.30 pm at the Methodist Church hall where I understand there will also be other stalls available.

VILLAGE cafes are continuing at the village hall with the Royal British Legion hosting jointly with the Women's section on Saturday, 29 October in aid of the RBL Poppy Appeal. Usual time of 10 am to 12 noon.

THIS year, the Remembrance services at St Peter’s Portesham will begin with a Communion service at 9am on Sunday, 13 November, followed by a wreath laying at the War memorial in the churchyard at 1015 am.

There will be no Communion service at St Peter’s on Tuesday, 1 November as a special All Souls service will be held at St Nicholas Abbotsbury on that day.

Details of all the Christmas services will follow at a later date.