GREEN-fingered residents are being urged to join one of the largest gardeners’ association in the north west as its 500 members prepare for an annual show.

Newton-le-Willows Flower and Vegetable Show, which has been running for almost a century, is being held on Saturday, September 9, from 2pm.

On the day there will be competitive classes for flowers, pot plants, vegetables, fruit, art, photography, baking, jam and chutney, as well as classes for children to enter.

Organised by Newton-le-Willows Gardeners' Association, the show and contest is open to everyone.

Chairman Malcolm Greenhalgh, from Lowton, said: “Although some folk who enter the competitive side of the show are dedicated show men and women, most of us grow what we like and just before the show see what we are happy to put out there.

“Anybody can enter, whether an association member or not.”

It is Malcolm’s first year as chairman after being a member of the association for around 25 years.

Among his goals are attracting gardeners from a wider area and encouraging more young people to become green-fingered.

Malcolm added: “We changed our sales hut in Rob Lane into a sales and advice hut, where young families can come for cheap compost and we give them tips sheets about growing things and copies of the book The Vegetable Expert, which is the easiest book for the beginner.

“It seems to be working. After a little decline in membership, this year that decline has been reversed.

“Young folk would not be the snowflakes we hear they are if they had a plot of ground in which they could get their hands dirty and grow things.

“The other day, having already put 26 1lb bags of ratatouille – using my own tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, courgettes, onions and garlic – in the freezer for the coming months I made a pint of tomato ketchup.

“It tastes so much better than the bought stuff, and I grew it and cooked it. That is what’s special about gardening and growing your own.”

Malcolm has been a keen gardener since he was 13.

He added: “My parents bought a house with a big garden, and my grandfather – a great amateur and later a semi-professional – taught me how to make a compost heap and plant and sow.

"When I came to choose a career I thought hard about horticulture and my first job was in gardening.

“The gardener at Ribbleton Isolation Hospital died just as my summer holiday from school started in 1964.

“They needed a temp and my mother – who worked in the health service – got me the job.

“I got paid £7 17s 6d for a 42-hour week and I loved it.”

After that Malcolm studied biology at university before becoming a lecturer.

The 71-year-old's last job was head of biology at Leigh College.

Malcolm said: “Gardening is something that allowed me to relax as a boy, escaping after doing the nightly homework or preparing for examinations, as well as when I was a PhD student with brain cluttered with statistics and when I was a lecturer getting home having avoided too much admin and having been frustrated by idle students.”

Malcolm made the headlines when he retired at the age of 40 to pursue his three passions, gardening, fly-fishing and wildlife.

He said: “BBC’s Look North West heard about this idiot giving up a good job and did a feature in which I caught a few fish for them in the Ribble, showed them my garden and sent the crew home with some produce.

“I was asked why I gave up the job. I told them I enjoyed the lecturing but that the increases of irrelevant paperwork seemed to be a waste of good time.

“The crux came when a new mass of forms arrived and I handed them out to my six colleagues. One shredded his.

"Mine went in the compost heap and later they got dug into my potato patch.”

All are welcome at Newton Flower and Vegetable Show on Saturday, September 9, at Penkford School, Wharf Road, Newton.

For more information about the association drop by the sales and advice hut in Rob Lane, Newton, on Saturday or Sunday morning.

Malcolm added: “We offer a thriving hub of gardening with people there who can advise on most gardening problems. Such expertise is not so readily available elsewhere, and it is great fun.”