Frank Mercer FNVS

I had a phone call this morning from Miles Mercer to say that his father had passed away last Friday. Frank was 84 and lived on the Wirral. He was a brilliant vegetable grower with an allotment that many would be proud to have as a front garden. Frank was one of the few early members of the NVS with a very low membership number. His wife is still alive but suffering with Alzheimer’s to such an extent that she doesn’t even know that Frank has passed away.

I had a new onion on trial this year for the under 250 gram classes, Chico F1, I have to say that it has potential for the show bench with excellent storage quality and will be in my catalogue this Autumn. Unfortunately the seed never arrived until late February and I’ve only just started to harvest them. It has a lovely globe shape but I have yet to see what the skin colour is going to be like. It’s an early Maincrop variety with strong upright foliage together with a high level of sprouting tolerance. It will be on my display at Malvern.