Smithyveg!

Interlude

2012-01-27T09:34:00.001Z

Sorry folks but i'm going to be giving this a miss for a while as I'm finding my free time is being squeezed at the moment, and probably for the foreseeable future. If anyone needs help or information then please feel free to email me and I'll do my best to advise as much as I can.

Date change

2012-01-26T11:54:00.001Z

Just heard that the RHS Westminster Autumn Show date has changed to 23rd/24th October.

Rhubarb rhubarb!

2012-01-24T11:07:00.001Z

MAKE A DATE IN YOUR DIARY

AN EVENING NOT TO BE MISSED

2012 ANNUAL LECTURE

John Smiles

‘Revealing What Goes on Behind Closed Doors in the Rhubarb Triangle’

John has worked in the ‘triangle’ for all his life and nobody is better qualified to tell us all about this intriguing early vegetable.His talk will be informative and spiced throughout with humour.

Rhubarb themed refreshments will be available on the night.

TO BE HELD ON MONDAY 12th MARCH 2012 7.30 p.m.

EVERGREEN HALL, CORNHILL,
ALLESTREE, DE22 2FT

TICKETS £5

CONTACT: Peter Cooke for Tickets (01332 553429)
www.derbyshirehortassoc.co.uk

Wenger winger wanger

2012-01-23T17:32:00.000Z

I had a good old tidy up in the garage (my potting shed) at the weekend and started emptying the sand barrels so I feel at last as if I've made a start on things in the garden now. It was a good weekend, but then it always is when Man U win and the Racists (Liverpool FC) lose, although it was a good job the Arsenal manager has suddenly become unable to spot a good player at 10 paces. Taking off Oxlade-Chamberlain made no sense at all.

If you haven't ordered your seed spuds then you need to get on and do it quickly, but order from a reputable Scottish supplier such as JBA or (at the risk of making him even richer) my facially impaired pal Dave T at Exhibition Seed Potatoes (ESP). The garden centres are now stocking bags of the common kitchen varieties as well as a few of the usual showbench favourites but don't think that just because it says 'certified' on the label you're getting the best. 'Certified' is actually one of the lowest ratings and basically the dross that the scots send down to us sassenachs. However, If you order direct from such as JBA's online shop you'll be guaranteed basic or pre-basic seed which are actually the best grades. Oh how I bet they laughed their tits off dreaming up those names whilst roasting their haggis round their campfires one night to try and confuse us! At the risk of giving my friend Iain Barbour of JBA palpitations at what i'm about to say, I saved a tray of Kestrel and NVS Amour for this season's seed rather than buying in new. In theory the offspring can be kept going for 7 or 8 years as I understand it, as long as the resultant crop remains virus-free. I shall probably not risk that, but get new stock in a couple of seasons time to be on the safe side. I'm only growing the two varieties for show this season as I only need a single plate of 5 for Malvern and both these varieties performed great for me last season. At my wife's insistence i'm also growing a few Maris Piper for kitchen use only, probably in the ground rather than bags.

My 'seed' spuds are now laid out in trays with an old towel over them on the coldest of nights which also stops them chitting. In late Feb I'll remove the covers and allow chitting to start, although I won't start planting until mid to late April. I saved a variety of sizes, as you can get a good crop from even a marble sized tuber. Many growers insist on hen's egg sized seed but it makes no difference to the size of showable tubers, it's all down to how you grow them. But I did make sure all saved tubers were disease free and had good splashes of colour around the eyes as Kestrel in particular has been prone to losing its colouring. Very often you think you've unearthed a tuber that is totally colour free but be careful as there are very often the tiniest of lilac specks that the judge will surely spot if you're cheeky enough to try some Kestrel in a white class.

The last of my seed order arrived last week from Shelley's. I like Shelley's. I've never had a bad batch of seed from them in 15 years and you always get a personal, hand-written letter from James Shelley wishing you all the best for the next season. Never met the fella but i'm sure he's a top bloke. So now I have all my packets of seed to hand apart from one. I realised last weekend that I haven't ordered any long carrot seed from anyone so I need to get some sorted pretty damn quickly. I may have to be nice to Dave T but that's a proposition I don't want to entertain just yet.

Back to the suture

2012-01-22T18:44:00.001Z

About 12 years ago I used to cut up my stock shallots so that each little bulblet was extricated for individual planting. This was on Medwyn's recommendation at the time, the idea being that you don't have to thin them out later in the season and hopefully you got perfectly round bulbs come harvest time.

I cetainly used to get well shaped bulbs, although quite small, and at the time I won a lot of local shows. Therefore, I decided today to try cutting up a couple of the stonkers that Dave T gave me, and I suddenly remembered why I stopped doing it....it's a right fiddlefuck of a job. You need to peel away the outer skins and carefully part the separate bulblets with a sharp knife, exercising all the skills of a surgeon to cut through the base plate so that each thinning has some rootplate attached.

The two bulbs gave me 8 tiny thinnings which I planted up in 3" pots tonight and I shall mark them through the season to monitor how they fare.

First potting

2012-01-21T17:35:00.001Z

I finally got to pot on my Pendle Improved blanch leeks today, preferring not to do it last weekend as it was so cold and I didn't want to risk the roots suffering a chill. There are various ways of doing but this is the way that works for me.

The plants are knocked out of the tray they were in, trying not to disturb the root ball too much. I transplanted into 9cm square pots into multi-purpose compost with a smidgeon of added Q4.

A thin cane is pushed into the root ball, about 1/2" from the plant, and a 2" section of 3/4" bore pipe lagging is pushed over the plant and secured to the cane. I position the lagging so that the growing point is halfway down inside it. This is to encourage the growing point upwards.

With other leek varieties the leek is pushed upwards in relation to the girth, but Pendle Improved needs stretching as quickly as possible, and can mean they look drastically out of proportion but they seem to fill out. Because I only use short sections of lagging the lower part of the barrel will turn green but will soon blanch after planting in May when I cover it with DPC. I never seem to experience a problem doing it this way. Perhaps the extra chlorophyl helps as you are covering quite a bit of the upper leaf area in an effort to lengthen the plants.

Finally a green clip near the top of the cane keeps the foliage upright and also helps to keep the plant growing upwards.

Happy (38th) birthday grandaaaaaad!

2012-01-18T21:01:00.001Z

Now they're proper presents!

It happened on this day

2012-01-18T10:17:00.000Z

1644 First recorded UFO sighting in America by Pilgrims
1778 Captain Cook discovers Hawaii
1788 First fleet of convicts arrive in Botany Bay, Australia
1882 AA Milne is born
1892 Oliver Hardy (Laurel & Hardy) born
1904 Cary Grant born
1912 Captain Scott reaches the South Pole
1919 Post WW1 Peace Conference begins in Paris
1943 Nazi siege of Leningrad broken
1948 Gandhi breaks a 121-hour fast to halt muslim-hindu riots
1951 Lie detector first used in Holland
1955 Kevin Costner born
1963 Hugh Gaitskell dies
1964 World's most handsome veg grower born
1967 Boston Strangler sentenced to life
1975 'Mandy' becomes Barry Manilow's first no. 1 hit
1991 Iraq fires first scud missiles at Israel
1996 Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce from Michael Jackson in New York

Slumber and Clumber

2012-01-17T17:13:00.001Z

There's really nothing happening around Smithyveg Manor at the moment. All i'm doing for now is getting home from work and going out walking 3 times a week to get myself fighting fit for the imminent yearly emptying out of the sand barrels ritual. As I get older I dread this essential task more and more. Otherwise it's a case of writing your sowing dates in a diary, cross-referencing against previous years and double checking to make sure all the information is in there to make sure you haven't missed anything. Although I could probably get through a year on memory I still like to refer to my RHS diary on a weekly basis during the main sowing season (February to June), and I religiously note when all crops are sown, potted on and eventually planted out. However, you have to remember that each year is different and what worked last year won't necessarily work this year.

I'm going to be sowing my Vento onions indoors for the 250g class at Malvern this weekend. I won't be posting a photo of this process because quite frankly if you don't know how to do this you shouldn't be allowed out unattended let alone be thinking of growing veg for show. I'm hopeful of much better germination rates than last season now that Medwyn has got his supplier to get rid of those evil seed casings. I shall be glad to get back to growing Vento as I do find it an excellent onion to grow, the foliage growing quite upright meaning that you usually get plenty of uniform round specimens, with the growing point pretty much bang in the centre. I've also found it pretty tolerant of strong winds also, although you should always be prepared to re-upright them (is that a real word?...well it f***ing well is now) by pushing them back if they lean to one side, pushing soil underneath to keep them standing erect. This prevents the bulbs growing to one side and going off-centre. Last year Medwyn sent me some plants in the post to compensate for my germination problems, but those workshy bastards at the Post Office neglected to post a slip through my door telling me they'd tried to deliver them. By the time I realised they had been in the dark for nearly a week and although the plants did eventually get planted and harvested they were pretty pathetic specimens.

Other than that the only other things 'growing' are the potted up shallots although to be honest they are just sat now in freezing compost in an unheated greenhouse. The last few nights have seen temperatures down to -4degC which is much more like it for the time of year. I wonder how many growers were tempted to try a few early sowings in the recent mild weather?

I have a single long carrot down to seed, my best one from last season. I tried seeding one last year but it rotted off by early summer and I never managed to get my own strain of seed going. Hopefully I'll have more luck this time around as the plant certainly looks a lot better than before.

And last Saturday we took Oscar to Clumber Park in Nottingham. Well worth a visit, they have a superb walled garden growing all manner of veg varieties in an organic (yawn) manner. Most interesting is a display of old tools with a museum telling the history of the gardens and the techniques that the Head Gardeners employed. However, take plenty of money as the National Trust sure know how to empty your pockets.

Sad.....but true

2012-01-17T11:13:00.001Z

Woman - "Can I drive?"

Man - "No. I'm fine"

Woman - "Oh, please let me. I really want to!"

Man - "No"

Woman - "I tell you what, if you let me drive, just for a bit, when we get home I'll give you a blowjob"

Man - "Really?"

Woman - "Promise"

Man - "Oh go on then"

(Apparently, the final entry from the black box on the cruise ship Costa Concordia)

Cold comfort

2012-01-11T17:13:00.000Z

My wife, kids and work colleagues all think i'm quite mad. I travelled a 300 mile round trip last night to listen to John Soulsby's talk on leeks, specifically the importance of supplementary lighting. It was well worth the effort. John is a florist by trade and has a great knowledge on the science of plants and what they need or don't need in terms of lighting/heating/feeding, learning much by trial and error, experimentation or just plain mistakes. Just like thes rest of us in fact! It was quite heavy going at times and quite technical but there is always something you can learn from these talks. Being an NVS member you can attend many such events that are going on up and down Britain pretty much every week of the year.

A pot leek specialist, John has a huge set up as he also supplies thousands of pot leek plants through a mail order business to growers the length and breadth of the country, but he has experimented with every conceivable light set up over the years to ensure he has the best possible plants when it comes to competition. As he said last night, if you can go to a talk and pick up just one tip then it's always worthwhile and I certainly had flashing lights going off in my head at some of the things he was saying. Eventually I'd like to consider growing my own leeks from pips, and I will need better conditions to 'strike' (root) them than I currently have but from what he told us last night I'm even more convinced that my current cardboard set up is more than adequate for growing on my bought in plants.

I've always been worried about sudden temperature drops causing the leeks to go to seed later in the season, and indeed I lost about half a dozen last August which I'd put down to the extreme cold we had in December and January. But last year John performed a little experiment that blows that idea right out of the water. He left a tray of tiny plants on his lawn through the depth of last Winter when we experienced temperatures in the region of minus 16deg.C. They were sometimes covered with 18" of snow. Quite incredibly, none of those plants went to seed! However, other plants that he had in his heated greenhouse he neglected from time to time in terms of depriving them of water, giving intermittent exposure to light, excess heat at times and a poor feeding regime. These plants ALL went to seed. This experiment illustrates that many plants are well adapted to coping with the cold and lets face it leeks are traditionally hardy biennials, the staple diet of the winter veg plot especially in the harsh north-east. But once you start messing about with their essentials for life then the plants become stressed and it's then that you run the risk of your plants going tits-up.

John reckons leeks are more than happy with an ambient temperature of 45degF which is a relatively lowly 7degC. My crappy little growing chamber (some cardboard boxes and silver foil!) is more than capable of maintaining this temperature but I am now of the opinion that I need to make sure I don't let the plants dry out which I may have done last season as I didn't want the roots sitting in freezing compost. Now that I know cold isn't really a major problem I won't worry too much if the night-time temperatures dip but I will ensure I keep the compost as moist at all times with water at ambient temperature. Similarly, when planted out in the beds my leeks were left to fend for themselves somewhat last season and of course we had a particularly dry summer. I shall be adopting a more regular watering regime this year and will be sinking bottomless pop bottles next to each plant to ensure water gets straight to the roots much as I do with tomatoes. I think my few plants went to seed so late in the season because of a stress check through lack of water in July rather than anything that went wrong in December or January.

I am also being very particular with switching the light on at 6pm every night and turning it off before going to work in the morning, to make sure they get the minimum 12 hours lighting. The heat from the light also helps keep the temperature well above freezing, which of course I now realise isn't a problem anyway. This will continue until March time when the day/night hours equal out and I can bring the plants into the greenhouse during the day, and the plants can benefit from the natural light spectrum.

Unnatural urges

2012-01-09T17:09:00.000Z

Doesn't it feel great now that we're getting a couple of minutes or so of extra daylight per day? The first daffs are poking their little noses through the soil and several trees are breaking into blossom in the town, very early I know and a frost will soon knock it back but no worries....Spring will soon be here although it will be some while before the Northern chutney ferrets can start doing their naked group sundances where they lather each other in lard and see who can spear the most black puddings on their love cabers.

This weekend I will probably sow my Vento onions for the under 250g class at Malvern, although i'm in no rush and if it's a task that gets left to the end of January then no problem. I had huge problems with the germination of Vento last season thanks to those maddening seed casings that the suppliers coated them in. After several weeks they still hadn't come through and I since found out that they were germination inhibitors that allowed farmers to sow early and that the seeds wouldn't germinate until temperatures in the field were right. Great for farmers but no friggin good for me and, as it tuned out, dozens of other growers up and down the country who were experiencing similar problems. Well, Medwyn listened to us and insisted to his suppliers that in future all his seeds wouldn't have this coating on so I felt duty bound to buy a packet from him which duly arrived with my other orders last week. I'm going to try sowing the seeds in slightly larger modules with some seed compost and added vermiculite for drainage. Onions like an open, 'gritty' media and the traditional practice is to prick out at the crook stage. However, some current thinking is to leave the seedlings until they have the first proper pair of leaves and are more robust and likely to survive transplanting. Doing so at the 'crook' stage risks damaging the delicate root and is easily done with my fat fingers.

I am also hoping to get hold of some onion sets 'Setton', a variety which I have grown for a couple of years now. They are quite unusual for sets in that I find they grow pretty uniform in shape (similar to Vento), ripen nicely and are pretty easy to match up. Every other onion set i've ever grown has thrown up a multitude of different shapes and skin tones, and matching up nigh on impossible for anything other than village showing. However, as with all my onions this year i'm going to have to grow them in pots throughout, as I can never grow in the ground again because my soil is rife with white rot. I finally decided last year to give up growing them in the ground as the failure rate was proving to be just too high, despite regular treatments with the highly toxic Basamid.

I really want to stage a set of 250g onions as part of the Millennium Class at Malvern, a class that was introduced in 2000 to give ordinary growers like myself a chance, as none of the crops supposedly required any special heat or set up to grow them. This isn't strictly true, as the top growers have made great strides growing potatoes in polybags, stump carrots in deep sand beds, and even coring holes for globe beetroot i'm told, so if you want to compete you do still need to go to great lengths of preparation. David Thornton won it in the first year but hasn't got a look-in since so he obviously got lucky. The class calls for 5 dishes namely, 250g onions, tomatoes, globe beet, potatoes and 250g onions, 4 matching specimens of each. Mark Hall has won this class at the last 2 Nationals so he'll be going for his hat-trick at Malvern but it's always a competitive class attracting many entries. Here is Mark's winning entry from Llangollen in 2011.

The bottom photo shows Ron MacFarlane's winning 'Toughball' onions in the 250g class. Note how beautifully ripened they are and how uniform the shape is, with the veining adding an attractive pattern to the skins. 250g onions only command 15 points under NVS judging rules, the same as cabbages, marrows and globe beet. I reckon they deserve more as getting this sort of quality takes more than just growing them to the required size.

p.s. has anyone got an antidote to an itchy beard? My face feels like a pair of bollocks that have been across a desert without a change of Y-fronts.

Scholes, goals, and holes

2012-01-08T17:29:00.001Z

On the day that the report of Manchester United's demise appeared premature I managed to get some shallots potted up. It's unseasonably mild still, and despite the high winds of last week (which actually blew our conservatory door off!) we haven't had any Winter as such yet. But it will come!

I watched Dave Thornton potting his up yesterday, dibbling a hole about an inch deep and nestling the bulb about 3/4 depth as previously mentioned.. This is much deeper than I've always done it but hey ho. Aint gonna argue with Dave on shallots.

I used a good quality multi-purpose compost with a bit of Q4 added as the shallots will be in the pots until April, so you don't want them to go short of food.

I also scraped the base plate and dipped it in some dry Rovral powder before planting and hopefully this will ward off botrytis during growth. I'll give a spray of Rovral before harvest also. Dave was using Benlate this time around but he reckons they're very similar.

On Tuesday i'm hoping to make the trip up to Cumbria to hear John Soulsby talk on leeks at Westmoreland DA of the NVS. A pot leek specialist, he also knows a thing or two about blanch leeks so i'm sure i'll be able to pick up plenty of tips. There aren't many pot leek growers left outside the north east and I must admit they're not something I think I'd ever want to start growing, but i'm always open to persuasion.

Bullshit boys are back

2012-01-06T17:05:00.000Z

I haven't seen it yet but apparently my photo is once again in the January edition of the NVS magazine Simply Vegetables, prompting Dave Thornton today to call me (and I quote) an "arse licking, good for nothing,attention seeking twat". I'd sue for defamation of character if it wasn't for the very minor technicality of him telling the truth! I can only assume someone has set me up again. When will people learn their lesson? It isn't set in stone that I have to wait until the next Smithyveg Awards you know!

Anyways, back to the business of the year now that all that Christmassy nonsense is out of the way. I am happy to announce that the 2012 BBC event will be contested in the 3x20 pointer class in the NVS Northern Branch Championships at Harrogate in September. It will be changed this year after complaints from the Pennine Sausage Jockeys that they couldn't possibly beat me in the 6x1 collection and could we make it easier for them? Awww bless. Anyway, i'm a fair man so we had a committee meeting....when I say meeting, Dan suggested it and me and Bastow said yeah ok....so it's now set in stone. Same rules as before, 10 quid in, winner takes all including a year's bragging rights. Which will be me....of course. So if you think you're good enough to put me back in my box and wipe the stupid smirk off my face then make sure you enter. Below is a previous winner of the class.

This is a good class to enter at a higher level as you obviously only need to find a pair of matching specimens and I entered this class at both Llangollen and Malvern last year. I won didly squit but it did allow me to compare my produce against the very best at very little 'outlay' in terms of the quantity of specimens I had to pull or harvest. I'd suggest to schedule makers of village shows that this would also be a good class to introduce if entries in your larger collection classes have dwindled over the years.

Tomorrow I will be potting up my shallots if the weather stays as mild as it currently is but I'll be doing things slightly different this year. Each shallot will be potted up into 3" square pots as i've always done, into good compost with a bit of added Vitax Q4, but I will bury them to about 3/4 depth rather than just nestling them on the surface as I have in the past. I will also be scraping the base plate until it 'gives' a bit of moisture and dipping this in dry Rovral powder. Both these tips come from multiple National Champion David "pot/kettle/black" Thornton, who is convinced that dipping in Rovral prevents losses from botrytis during storage. We shall see as I only left myself 15 bulbs of my own stock this season due to a 60% loss rate and a few giveaways, although he has kindly offered me some spares from his own stock which I shall be collecting from him tomorrow afternoon.

I have also grown my first crop of the season in the form of a spiffing new beard. I got to thinking once again that several of my scottish friends sport varying degrees of facial fungus so it got me wondering whether it might be a useful tool in attracting mildew away from my peas, and that climate really has nothing to do with it. I'm told I look like a cross between the Yorkshire Ripper, Zac Dingle and Baldrick, but it's got to be worth a shot and it has the added advantage that I sometimes find bits of leftover food in it.

Happy New Year from the Smithyveg clan

2012-01-03T00:36:00.001Z

Tucked up?

2012-01-02T15:10:00.001Z

Well I finally managed to get up to H'udders-fondle in Yorkshire to fetch my Pendle Improved leeks grown by Dave Metcalfe. Paul Bastow had kindly collected them for me before Christmas so it was with some relief that I got them back home so they can be grown properly from now on!

I am now relaxed about showing a photo of my growing chamber, simply because I know it works. There's a lot of talk about light meters and additional heat but my area consists of nothing more than a few cardboard panels with a single grow light suspended above the plants, and this will now be on for approximately 12 hours overnight. I line the cardboard with some silver foil but that is pretty much it. I have no additional heat as I find the light throws out more than enough heat to keep the plants ticking over, although I will keep an eye out for the nighttime weather forecasts. Having said that my leeks survived minus 16 last year although I did eventually lose half a dozen plants that went to seed in July/August which was unsurprising.

I will pot the leeks on into individual 3" square pots at the weekend once they have got used to their surroundings, inserting a cane and a plastic plant support clip to keep them growing upright. Another important thing to do is to make sure there is a small watering can full of water in the chamber so that you are applying water at ambient temperature.

Other growers will soon have far larger plants than me, but I prefer to have slower, steadier growth that race away when planted in the outside beds in April. I have 24 plants but will only plant out the 20 strongest.

And if anyone doubts how strong and hardy the Pendle is then the last photo shows a leek that is growing up through the top of my compost bin. I threw a discarded base plate in here several weeks ago and it has thrown up new leaves. It has been quite mild the last month but even so this is still a great indication of a plant's will to survive.

Seed leek

2011-12-28T23:53:00.001Z

I shall be fetching my Pendle leeks from Northern chuff chewer Paul Bastow tomorrow as he was good enough to fetch them from Dave Metcalfe for me before Christmas. Hopefully he hasn't killed them out of spite for Manchester United's brilliant holiday form.

The leek that I set away at the end of October for pip production next year has grown away steadily and is now looking like this.

Abacus adds up

2011-12-27T12:24:00.001Z

This year i've grown my best ever sprouts, the variety 'Abacus', even managing to win at Derby with them in late October.

They hold firm on the stalks and I was able to harvest a large bowl on Christmas morning, still leaving plenty for several more Winter roasts to come. They also turned out to be the tastiest sprouts i've ever had.

I planted them in firmed soil back in April, having given the ground a nitrogen top dressing a couple of weeks before. The plants were regularly tied to a cane and given 3 or 4 sprays with Decis during the season. I never had any problems with caterpillars as a result. I'll certainly be growing Abacus again this season. Now we've gone past the shortest day I can quite happily say that we are into 'this season'.

The 2011 BBC* Veg Personality of the Year Awards

2011-12-24T16:08:00.002Z

* Bullshit Blogger Champion

Yes folks….it’s Christmas Eve and that can only mean one thing to the discerning veg showman, the annual Smithyveg Awards Ceremony, where a coveted gong can set up a grower for everlasting National fame or infamy. So switch off your phones, bolt all the doors and windows, kick off your shoes, pour yourself a stiff one (or handle one if that’s how you roll!) and sit back as I reveal this year’s runners and riders, losers and schmoozers, winners and sinners.

We start off with one of the more prestigious awards of the evening, that of Luckiest Bastard of 2011, and this year it goes to Medwyn who won tomatoes at Llangollen (below). If I hadn’t made such a monumental balls-up with my own plants, setting them away too soon, I WOULD have won this class myself. As it is I shall just have to make do with winning at Malvern next season …..along with peas of course.

Now to Bum of the Year! For most of 2011 it looked as if Pippa Middleton would walk this one as teenage boys across the land did trouser tent impressions at the sight of her perfectly formed posh padding. But then there was a late entry, a different type of ‘bum’ entirely as NVS stalwart John Trim gave this faultless performance of contented sozzlement, pickled as he often is from the inside out !

That’s also because he also wins the award for best pickled onions 2011 (see http://www.smithyveg.blogspot.com/2011/09/problem-solving-on-daily-basis.html). I have now made several bottles to JT’s brilliant recipe. Believe me these are the sweetest tasting pickles you’ll ever throw down your throat and the perfect accompaniment to your Christmas cheese and biscuit board as you browse the 2012 seed catalogues in front of a log fire. Well done John!

The next award is the best joke or wind-up in 2011. I’ve awarded myself a 3rd in this category for a brilliant piece of improvisation at the Edible Garden Show back in March. As part of the team on the NVS stand at Stoneleigh Park I was introducing my colleagues to a potential new member. “This is David Thornton, National Secretary. This is David Allison, National Editor and I’m Simon Smith, National Disgrace.” Everyone laughed nervously, probably because it isn’t far from the truth!!!

I was very definitely the butt of the joke for the 2nd placed winner, David Thornton, when he advised back in early Summer that the yellowing on the tips of my potatoes meant they had wet crack and my spuds would be dead within a fortnight. Distraught I googled ‘wet crack’ at work to see if they could be salvaged. The list of pornographic websites that flashed up on my screen set off that many alarm bells in the IT Dept that they thought a fucking fire engine had gone past. Bastard.

But the ‘winner’ has to be Messrs Stocks/Cameron/Taylor (et al) for their audacious wheeze of getting Medwyn Williams to present me with a wooden spoon at Llangollen for services to gobby non-achievement. Rest assured, there will be justifiable retribution upon the main protagonists later on in this awards ceremony!

Bonus of 2011 was seeing how much my good lady enjoyed being at Llangollen, after dreading it beforehand, thanks mainly to the ladies of the NVS who I have now termed the WAGS! Whilst I was talking veg they were all cackling away ripping their menfolk to bits so my thanks to Linda, Jean, Jacquie, Sarah, Unni and Fiona for making Leesa very welcome. Along with their menfolk you’re friends for life! And that’s as gooey as I’m gonna get!

There were some monumental cock-ups in 2011. Contenders include Paul Bastow for entering 8oz onions in a 250g class and getting NAS’d for being too heavy (tosser), Frank Taylor for failing to put an exhibitor ticket next to an entry (tit), and myself for daring to take on the might of the Scottish Pea Growing Mafiosi (what an arsehole....I’ve agreed to do the same in 2012!). But there really could only be one winner of Biggest Cock-Up 2011, and it goes to David Thornton for travelling all the way to Llangollen and forgetting to take his tomatoes after having droned on to me all the previous week that he thought he was in with a good shout of winning. There are many ways of displaying tomatoes to their utmost effect, but the last time I checked ‘in a box, in a greenhouse, in Derby’ wasn’t one of them! I’m only upset that I couldn’t witness first hand the sight of his face as it dawned on him what he’d done. Apparently it was pure poetry. So well done Dave, 2011 Dipshit of the Year.

In this PC world in which we live in, we have to be ridiculously careful about what we say and how we say it, especially in the work environment. For this reason I spend large parts of my working day with my mouth well and truly shut. That way I don’t get into any trouble, and I can then use my humble blog to rant to my heart’s content. Therefore, my Hero of 2011 is Jeremy Clarkson who suggested in November that striking teachers and civil servants (f***ing paper shufflers) should be lined up and shot. I’m a bit of a do-gooder at heart (no, really!) so I would actually have them ordered to do a proper day’s work first of all to see if they can change their ways. Send them down a pit, or tell them to get up at 3am to do a milk round. Milk some cows at 7am on a Winter’s morning. Put them on the front line in Afghanistan, or stacking shelves for a pittance in Tescos. That should make them realise how overpaid and mollycoddled they really are. And if they didn’t….THEN I’d shoot the twats. In the bollocks and tits first then in the head.

A deserved winner of the Biggest Exaggeration Award is Pretentious Photographist Richard Walton of Surrey who spent all year referring to himself in correspondence to me as Dickie Nine Inch. He reminds me of a pal whose wife actually threw him out for measuring his own cock, unusual but a poor reason to cite in divorce papers I think you’ll agree? For the record it was the roughly same length as her sister’s throat.

The award for Biggest Bastard took a lot of deliberating over, as 2011 was a vintage year for complete tossers, so I decided to award 5 placings.

In 5th position was the referee who sent off a Welsh player in the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup back in October for a powder puff tackle on one of the French players. I don’t normally follow Wales but as the opponents were the soap dodging garlic eaters and my wife has watered down Welsh blood I found myself touting for them. It was a shocking decision.

4th biggest bastard goes to the holier-than-thou idiot who thought it would be a good idea to prevent me from putting up for election to the ‘board’ of a charity because I swear a bit. Well hush my mouth vicar. Despite his apparent outrage he also showed that he must visit my blog on a regular basis. Perhaps he secretly enjoys it? All he succeeded in doing was preventing that charity from benefitting from my enthusiasm and huge brain full of brilliantly spiffing ideas. So well done on your award and all I’ll say is let he who is without sin……..

In 3rd place are the faceless bueaucrats who have decided that we gardeners are the spawn of Satan and who will be making sure that we can no longer use peat from 2020 in order to protect our peat bogs from extermination. In the course of my countryside ambulations I have often strolled into or across a peat bog (photo of one such below). Believe me, they are the most miserable, slimy, pox infested shat’oles you will ever visit and quite why anyone would ever see fit to protect them is f***ing beyond me. It could be a thriving industry employing hundreds and Mother Nature would soon move into to colonise the nakedness created on the landscape. But no….we are going to have to use composts with roughly the same nutrient content as the dust from a witch’s titsack.

In 2nd place are the increasing amount of toilet scum, very often so-called fellow exhibitors who frequent the end of our shows and who swipe the fruits of our labours. At the Llangollen National last August, Raffles would have been proud of the way one of Andrew Jones’ onions was snaffled as the call came up to collect your veg. There were also instances of stolen veg at Scottish Branch and Harrogate although thankfully Malvern took steps this season and cordoned off the aisles so that only exhibitors could gain access. Way to go. Be warned though…..we’re all getting increasingly pissed off and will be more vigilant from now on. Perpetrators will be named and shamed in future, no matter what your previous standing in the world of showing might be.

But the Bastards of the Year 2011 are the traffic cops who have nothing better to do than point their stupid little Star Wars guns at otherwise law abiding citizens who might have the misfortune to creep above the speed limit in a moment of absent-mindedness, and in particular the officious turd in a van outside Llanberis on April 30th of this year. Presumably he was pissed off at not being at home for the Royal Wedding so thanks for ruining what was otherwise a brilliant walking weekend. Thanks to you I now drive with my eyes on my speedometer again rather than the road ahead. How safe is that? I hope someone buttf*cks you with your own truncheon one day. Still, my license looks very colourful thanks to all the pretty letters and numbers scrawled upon it by various of Her Majesty’s Constabularies.

Next up is the ‘I Wish I’d Grown Those F*ckers’ Award, for the exhibits that I really wished had been mine. In 3rd position are Ian Stocks winning stump carrots at the Llangollen National. I was very proud of mine as I’d staged them and could see they were better than the few sets being staged around me, so I really thought I was in with a shout of a ticket. However, when the Stocksmeister uncovered his it showed me how much further I had to go.

In 2nd place were Ian Simpson’s long carrots as part of his tap root set at Harrogate. The same carrots won the individual class at Malvern a week later.

But the exhibit I really coveted above all else were Eric Craik’s winning set of 5 leeks at Llangollen. The foliage was so lush and green and the shafts were so absolutely gun barrel straight that many folk (including myself) thought they should have got best in show.

Reigning National pea champion Ian Simpson of Scottishland wins ‘Most Gullible Person Award’, narrowly pipping myself over the wet-crack affair! He admitted to me at Llangollen that at one point during the year he was genuinely worried that I was a contender because of all the boasting I was doing about winning peas at the National. He obviously didn’t know me very well, but is now sleeping peacefully each night knowing what he does now, that I am a gobby buffoon who generally talks a good game but who cannot grow exhibition peas to save his life. Or can I????

Last year I introduced the Gary Glitter ‘I love you love, you love me true love, I love you love me love’ award for services to vegetable bum banditry. Last year Paul Bastow and Dan Unsworth won it. Unsurprisingly, they’ve pulled it off for the second year running, although this year they did have some help this time around from their new and incredibly good looking dwarf boyfriend. Thanks for crouching for the photo lads. (Wankers)

To be fair one of my best moments of 2011 was seeing my Northern blogging pals win prizes in the NVS Northern Branch Championships at Harrogate. Dan got a 2nd in the 1.5kg onion class after I’d been on at him for a couple of years to have a go at a higher level. Paul got 4th in the very popular 250g onion class and could possibly have got better, the bizarre lighting at Harrogate doing the judges no favours whatsoever.

I decided to reintroduce the Best Newcomer Award (f*** me a serious award!) after some new names and faces made the breakthrough in 2011. There were many new young exhibitors who had great successes (I use the word ‘young’ in its most outrageously broad sense in some cases) such as Marcus Powell, John Ellis, Darren Blick, Mark Perry, Helen Vincent, Ray Ingram (told you it was broad!) and of course my perennial sparring partners Dan Unsworth and Paul Bastow. But the gong has got to go to Owain Roberts from ~~Ceredigeeon~~ ~~Sheridogbone~~ ~~Cerrydiggeryknob~~ a little village in North Wales who entered his first ever National at Llangollen and won the coloured spuds, beating the usually unbeatable Sherie Plumb. A cracking lad, he also won tickets in the other three spud classes and therefore won the Banksian Medal for most prize money in the process. He only looks as if he’s about 12 so it’s nice to see people so young (and nearly as handsome as me!) coming into the game and helping to ensure the future of our hobby. Follow Owain’s blog (if you can speak Welsh!) on http://garddiadur.blogspot.com/

This leads us into the Most Disappointing Moment of 2011. For most of the year it was the week in June when I was forced to pull up all my tomato plants and start again, and I suddenly realised I had no chance of getting a set of tomatoes benched at the Llangollen National after my success at Malvern the previous year. But this was surpassed when we witnessed the RHS throwing 60% of the exhibits displayed at the Westminster Show into a skip, including large onions and leeks. They reckoned ALL the produce left at the end of the show was given away to charity. It really left a bitter taste in my mouth and their half-hearted attempts at explaining themselves after I complained only compounded my annoyance. All that dedication and hard work thrown into a rubbish bin when 99% of it was still perfectly edible. It narrowly pipped the moment when I realised my suggestion to the NVS to have a 'best body' class at the National wasn't going to be adopted. I feel sure I'd have won although it has been suggested in some quarters that my dibber wasn't long enough.

The next award is the Camera Never Lies award, one that I’ve introduced for the first time this year to prove that not only am I still the best looking NVS male member, but that in general we veg showers weren’t built to be put in front of a lens, and indeed in many instances shouldn’t be allowed out during daylight.

In 3rd position is Gareth Cameron, snapped here having actually won something in the after show raffle at Malvern although you’d never know from the photo. He looks like he might be smiling but having personally witnessed how much he drank that night I can assure you it was wind. Gareth is now doing the after-dinner speaking circuit as Jim Bowen’s stunt double. Currently inseparable from his old mucker Ronnie Jackson I think someone should tell them that you don’t get anything for two in a bed in this game!

In 2nd place is Frank Taylor from Aberdeen. Although he is posing here having won his local DA collection, a magnificent achievement in anyone’s book, he still manages to give a faultless study in abject misery. He looks as if he’s lost a tenner and found an empty haggis bladder.

But the winner is 2011 National stump carrot champion and 2012 pea runner up Ian Stocks. I’m reliably informed that ‘smiling’ is number 653 on his list of things to do each day. Despite being snapped having helped JBA win a gold medal at Gardening Scotland he quite superbly succeeds in replicating the face of a bulldog licking piss off a poked wasp.

(That’ll teach you sods for giving me a wooden spoon!!)

Ian Stocks is the night’s second double award winner as he also wins the Anne Frank Award for most abrupt ending to a diary or blog. He started off great with regular entries but there hasn’t been a single posting on his Carrot Grower website since February. I reckon he’s solely to blame for my crap long carrots in 2011 as I was eagerly waiting the next instalments and didn’t know what to do next. Come on Ian….stop coiffuring that beard and get writing!

Best Achievement in 2011 was a difficult one to decide, as there were so many momentous events and milestones during the year. In 4th place are Manchester United who won their 19th League title, surpassing the haul of the Liverscum that had stood since I were but a snip of a lad. I didn’t believe it could happen in my lifetime.

3rd place goes to yours truly for winning the inaugural Bullshit Bloggers Challenge at Harrogate despite months of cruel jibes about my height and quality of my produce. He who laughs last, laughs a long, long time with bragging rights to boot. Looks like it’s going to be a permanent fixture on the Bloggers’ calendar so I look forward to crossing swords with the Northern Knuckle Shufflers for many years to come.

2nd place goes to Ed Milliband, a man so devoid of any discernible personality that he has managed single-handedly to make Labour unelectable even in the worst recession in living memory. Thank f***!

But there could only be one winner. In the 1980’s the record weight for an onion stood at around 5lbs. It rose steadily over the years and stood at 16 ½ lbs in 2005 until in September Peter Glazebrook smashed it by nearly a pound and a half to take it to 17lbs 15 ½ oz.

I visited Peter’s garden in July and you didn’t need to be Einstein to see that he was probably going to do it as I reckon his onions were already then nudging the record. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke and his wife also makes a mean fruit cake.

Talking of fruit cakes, the award for the Sorest Loser in 2011 (and it gives me no great pleasure to make this announcement) has to go to my wife who even now is insisting that my winning fruit cake at Seagrave Show was burnt. Leesa managed only a 3rd despite having the whole day off beforehand, whereas mine was thrown together quite magnificently at 9pm the night before and may or may not have been a little….shall we say ….‘tinted’?

We all need to learn that the judge’s decision is final and it does us no credit whatsoever if we keep moaning about a result that hasn’t gone our way. Dave Thornton ran her close, coming in 2nd AND 3rd for whineing like a trapped cat about his shallots only coming 4th and 3rd at Harrogate and Malvern respectively. Put another record on Dave!

If it’s any consolation to my wife, this year I’ve decided to award the medal for Most Impossible Man to Live With to …..MYSELF. Quite how she puts up with me is anyone’s guess but next year she’ll have been doing it for 25 years so I must have a certain ‘Je ne sais quoi’! I guess living with me is like white water rafting as the Men Behaving Badly would say? And living with a perfectly conditioned natural athlete like this does have its perks. Know what?….I reckon I should have won Bum of the Year!

A new award this year is that of Funniest Man. Many people make me laugh. Ed Milliband makes me laugh a lot when he talks simply because he sounds like Wallace of Wallace and Gromit fame. Dave Thornton has me in stitches when he moans about his shallots not winning at Harrogate, a seemingly annual event these days. And I like listening to the chap I work with on the phone to his many women friends as he juggles his hilarious love life, his mind working overtime as he tries to remember what he’s told each one in the past. But the biggest laughs I had this year were listening to cauliflower king Jim Pearson’s various stories whilst on a boat trip along the Llangollen canal. All the more remarkable as I couldn’t understand a single thing he was saying with his broad Glaswegian accent. I wish I had a photo of him but I couldn't keep the camera still long enough as I was laughing so much!

I’d like to end the Awards on a very positive note with the Most Helpful Man in 2011 or any other year come to mention it. Since I joined the NVS online forum I’ve received an enormous amount of help from one guy in particular, a grower from Scotland called Paul McLeod. Thanks to him I’ve grown my best ever celery and long beet. He always has time for anyone else and is very generous with seeds and other ‘stuff’, is a stalwart of Scottish Branch and in my opinion should be given an NVS Gold Medal never mind a silver medal. Thank you Paul…you’re a star!

So that’s it, 2011 will soon be gone, a momentous year full of drama, intrigue and history changing World events. The year in which Osama Bin Bastard and Colonel Gadaffi Duck finally got their just desserts, when I made the leap to National level showing and passed the NVS Judges Exam, when Medwyn Williams got a lucky break after I stuffed up my tomatoes, a year when the World’s tallest and most miserable leprechaun was found alive and well and dwelling in Yorkshire…

….and when three growers in particular put themselves very much in the frame for a Smithyveg Award EVERY year for many years to come!

So what does 2012 have in store? It promises to be truly momentous. It is of course the year the Olympics will come to Britain, something we won’t see again in our lifetime or our children’s probably. The Queen, God bless her, will be celebrating 60 years on the throne. It will also be the year that a bald, fat English dwarf finally conquers the Scottish pea growers at Malvern.

So all that remains now is for me to wish a very Merry Christmas from all in the Smithyveg household to everyone who has been daft enough to follow this blog during 2011. You lot really need to get out more.

A special thanks to Frank and Jean, Paul B and Linda, Ian S and Linda, Paul W and Linda, Gareth and Jacquie, Dickie four point 2 Inch, Helen V and Geoffo who have been asking after Oscar during his various trials and tribulations. It's been a real tough year for him but he seems to be doing fine now.

That’s all folks!

Seemed rude not to join in....zzzzzzzz.

2011-12-23T19:22:00.001Z

One day to go!

2011-12-23T09:28:00.001Z

Scotland and the North of England braces itself!

Only two days to go to the 2011 Smithyveg Awards!

2011-12-22T13:17:00.001Z

Be afraid.....VERY afraid!

Bastard!

2011-12-20T20:31:00.001Z

When I had a text the other day from Dan asking me for my home address so he could send me my Christmas pressie I was quite excited. What could it be? Onion seeds from his Harrogate 2nd prize winning strain? A special limited edition hand thrown pot from Ingleton Pottery. Or a hand-knitted willy warmer with I LOVE DAN embroidered into it that stretched to I LOVE DANDELION AND BURDOCK when I had an erection? He asked me to promise to post a photo of it on the blog when it came.

It arrived today! C*nt!

I remember this!

2011-12-20T17:22:00.002Z

How times have changed....This was originally shown on BBC TV back in the 1970's. Ronnie Barker could say all this without a snigger, though God knows after how many takes.

The irony is, BBC received not one complaint.

This is the story of Rindercella and her sugly isters. (written on a faulty typewriter)

Rindercella and her sugly isters lived in a marge lansion. Rindercella worked very hard frubbing sloors, emptying poss pits, and shivelling shot.

At the end of the day, she was knucking fackered. The sugly isters were right bugly astards.. One was called Mary Hinge, and the other was called Betty Swallocks; they were really forrible huckers; they had fetty sweet and fatty swannies.

The sugly isters had tickets to go to the ball, but the cotton runts would not let Rindercella go.

Suddenly there was a bucking fang, and her gairy fodmother appeared. Her name was Shairy Hithole and she was a light rucking fesbian. She turned a pumpkin and six mite wice into a hucking cuge farriage with six dandy ronkeys who had buge hollocks and dig bicks. The gairy fodmother told Rindercella to be back by dimnlight otherwise, there would be a cucking falamity.

At the ball, Rindercella was dancing with the prandsome hince when suddenly the clock struck twelve. "Mist all chucking frighty!!!" said Rindercella, and she ran out tripping barse overollocks, so dropping her slass glipper.

The very next day, the prandsome hince knocked on Rindercella's door and the sugly isters let him in.. Suddenly, Betty Swallocks lifted her leg and let off a fig bart. "Who's fust jarted?" asked the prandsome hince. "Blame that fugly ucker over there!!" said Mary Hinge.

When the stinking brown cloud had lifted, he tried the slass glipper on both the sugly isters without success and their feet stucking funk.

Betty Swallocks was ducking fisgusted and gave the prandsome hince a knack in the kickers.This was not difficult as he had bucking fuge halls and a hig bard on. He tried the slass glipper on Rindercella and it fitted pucking ferfectly.

Rindercella and the prandsome hince were married. The pransome hince lived his life in lucking fuxury, and Rindercella lived hers with a follen swanny!

Crap Cryptic Christmas Quiz

2011-12-19T09:36:00.001Z

For those of you not on the NVS forum some idiot came up with this quiz. Whoever it is has a truly brilliant brain far in excess of any pea grower from cooler climes.

There are 19 veg and one herb to find. A word of warning.....some answers are so cringeworthy they'll make you curse!

1)Burnt Roger Federer
2)Regret the hook
3)Hit the map
4)Staffordshire town known for drugs
5)Blooming Lassie
6)Latin dance without the final vowel is a bit dubious
7)My dad's vasectomy
8)Foot blister isn't sour
9)A wall mounted room heater....sort of!
10)I can't believe it aint head tennis
11)Chicken red-carded in farmyard football match for unsporting play
12)Boom boom
13)Jewish teacher is also a miner
14)Rusty Limousine
15)Produces Bond films
16)Garfunkel strangled in the Holy Land
17)Blowing up your family with air
18)Ryan Giggs has got goals for the last 20 years
19)Corroded Fiat panda
20)Wow...the Red Arrows!

No wonder I could not find my glasses!

2011-12-18T22:01:00.001Z

Ian Stocks bleaches beard for Winter scaring children job. No extra padding required.

2011-12-16T16:00:00.001Z

The not-so-magic powder

2011-12-15T17:09:00.001Z

I can probably admit to this now but a few years ago myself and a highly respected NVS member who shall remain nameless, were convinced that a certain spud specialist must have been treating his/her show potatoes with some product that made his/her spuds shine out on the show bench. This was because at the end of a three day show his/her spuds looked as bad as, if not worse than everyone else's exhibits. In our infinite wisdom we decided that the product being employed was something called 'Dry White' which is used in fish and chip shops to keep the buckets of chopped up chips nice and white before they're fried. As my boss also owns a chip shop I duly purloined some of said substance and underwent a series of not very scientific tests to see if they made any difference on my own spuds.

I washed and prepped some Winston and Kestrel spuds, doing one of each in the normal way with no treatment (on the right), and one of each was dipped in the Dry White solution overnight (on the left). The spuds in the background were a plate of Kestrel I'd got best in show with the previous weekend. There was no discernible difference as far as I could tell after a day or two, but after three days the Kestrel that had been dipped in the 'magic mix' looked absolutely horrendous, and actually the photo doesn't do justice to just how manky it looked. In fact, coloured spuds in general reacted very badly and some Maxine that I had used in one of my first trugs at Malvern reacted really badly and displayed all manner of strange callouses after a couple of days in the marquee. They were probably burn marks and I was quite glad to get the trug away at the end of the Sunday afternoon as I was quite embarrassed about them.

What this illustrates is that we all seek to find that elusive secret or substance that we are convinced our competitors must know and we don't, when in fact their success is probably just down to hard work, dedication and a bit of extra know-how. I've asked various people about this exhibitor's spuds and at the end of the day I think they just wash the skins to within an inch of their lives at the last possible minute so that when benched they generally look the best. However, that much 'polishing' has to come at a price, and this can show up as a truly shocking skin finish by the end of the second day. If it's a three day show the visiting public will be scratching their heads wondering why there's a red card against a set of green spuds with purple bruising that are barely fit to grace the rubbish bin.

I'm reminded of this because at the weekend I found a jamjar of powder and couldn't remember what it was (always label things!!!) so I popped the lid off and had a sniff to see if I could recognise it. I cannot begin to describe the searing pain that assaulted my nostrils at that moment in time, pain that when straight to the back of my eyelids and then down to my throat so violently it felt like my head was being chopped up with scissors from the inside. It was the Dry White powder of course but something had happened to it in the two years it had been in storage in my garage to make it so unpleasant. Just remember, every time you buy a bag of chips you're eating some of that bloody stuff. And be very careful what you sniff!

Anyway....to cut a long story short, Sherie Plumb is NOT using Dry White or any other foreign substance. And my eyeballs are still f*cking hurting!

A good job nailed

2011-12-10T15:44:00.001Z

That's the tomato greenhouse cleared of last year's disaster crop, with the borders being rotavated over and everything given a thorough drenching of Jeyes Fluid inside and out. I'll be giving the soil a good old regular drenching over the Winter with buckets of rainwater as it was a little on the dry side. To be honest I can't remember the last time I watered the plants. Failure to do this leads to a build up of salts which affects the conductivity of the soil and the plants will struggle to take up nutrients next year as a result.

I also need to change a few panes of glass for which i'm tracking a few lots on ebay.

I'm glad I got this job done as it will be a while before I can get back into the garden now as the holiday party and relative visiting season kicks into gear. I'm out with the boys tonight and fully expect to be hugging a bucket and nursing a brainache tomorrow.

EU crisis explained

2011-12-08T15:38:00.001Z

This arrived to me from Mr Bastow via Dickie Nine Inch. I think it explains the crisis in simple terms.

The season has started.....but not in my garden!

2011-12-06T17:13:00.000Z

As many of you are aware I have always been strong on getting a woman to do something for you if you can get away with it. This is why I get Leesa to construct my trugs and then take the glory if I win. If I don't it's her fault. With this process in mind I've got a fellow NVS member Helen Vincent growing me some onions through the dark winter months whilst I take it easy. When I sat my NVS Judges Exam in October I visited Helen at her large garden in the New Forest and was able to witness her first attempt onions. I believe she won all the local shows she entered with them and i'm not surprised as she would have been in the tickets with them at National level in my opinion. They were a superb, classic flask-shape, beautifully ripened and bang on 1.5kg. For a first attempt they were quite awesome, and as I staged Dave Thornton's onions at Malvern where he got 2nd I know they were way ahead of his. He also got 5th at Llangollen, hence my confidence they'd compete at the National. She grew them in large pots so this is a method I will be employing myself, along with a bit more know-how on compost mixes and nutrients. More on this next year. If I'm going to get a set of three for a large collection I need a bit more than just a 'bit of compost in a pot'!

I need to set up my leek growing chamber in the garage in preparation for the leek seedlings I'll be collecting from Dave Metcalfe before too long. This is nothing more than a few wooden boards, lined with tin foil, with some green builders netting over them. A single grolight is suspended above them, one I bought off the internet several years ago and I have no idea what the make is. I shall post a photo of it all this weekend to show how disgracefully home made it really is. The thing is, after last season I can say with confidence that it actually works for me. This year I staged my leeks at Harrogate, Malvern, Westminster (where I placed 3rd below....got 30 quid for that!) and Derby alongside some of the country's best and I was scoring quite highly and certainly not there just to make up the numbers.

My leek plants are only kept ticking over during Winter so I don't want huge, lush plants that need larger, more elaborate growing chambers and heating systems. I plant out smallish plants but once they get their feet into my fertile raised beds I find they soon catch up and my girth is on a par with most of the growers I've competed against, although of course they have the genetic make up to grow large. I still think this is pretty good when you consider that all my leeks are grown on outdoors, although i'm thinking of putting some form of wind protection up next season as I do tend to get a few ripped flags if there are any high winds which would be pretty disastrous if it was close to showtime. Also, I gave my leeks very little TLC last season, bordering on total neglect at times, and as I want to stage a collection of 6 at Malvern I shall be going to town a lot more with them in 2012.

When I was at the Scottish seminar JBA were showing a bag of this compost specially formulated for growing on onions and leeks and I must admit it was pretty good looking stuff.

If you're thinking of ordering some go onto the JBA website to the following link:

http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/maincrop/leek-and-onion-mix-p431.html

There is also a ready mixed potato compost available that will save an awful lot of messing about come Spring time.

http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/maincrop/exhibition-potato-compost-p424.html

The season starts here

2011-12-04T13:57:00.002Z

For the past few years i've regarded this time of year as the start of a new season in order to combat any depression over the shorter days and longer nights. With this in mind I've made a start on tidying up the garden and getting things more organised in the potting shed (my garage....more on this in a later posting).

After a couple of huge bonfires i've disposed of the last of the debris from the two large trees that I had felled a few weeks ago, as well as a load of other rubbish knocking around the garden. I can now see the wood for the trees as it were.

Despite the first frost of the other day the dahlia tubers showed no sign of going to sleep but I got them up anyways, cut the central stalk back to 6" and the tubers are now drying out in the garage, upside down to allow all surplus moisture to drain away. I always take great care with my labelling, tying a label to each tuber with thin gauge wire.

Next weekend I shall turn my attention to getting my tomato greenhouse emptied and thoroughly sterilised with Jeyes Fluid. After this year's tomato fiasco I want to make sure I stage tomatoes at Malvern next year so a scrupulous clean up, inside and out is called for, as I have a little bit of mould on several split fruits. I lost interest in the crop after accepting I would not be staging any tomatoes at Llangollen, otherwise the plants would have been managed a lot better than this.

Botrytis blues

2011-12-02T12:50:00.001Z

According to numerous reports I've received, up and down the country it has been a really bad year for allium diseases, especially during the late ripening process in the ground or in storage. The main culprit is a fungus called botrytis, although there are several types of botrytis that act in slightly different ways. You may know them commonly as grey mould or neck rot. Botrytis leaf blight, or leaf blast (below) is a less common fungus, and certainly not one I've witnessed personally.

The important things to know are that the spores overwinter on infected garden detritus and leaf tissue. It can also store on dirt piles in storage sheds and there are reports it can survive on seeds for 3 years and then transmit to the emerging seedlings. As well as spreading through the soil via the mycellium, spores can also be spread on the wind so as you can see there is a wide scope for being affected at some point or other, even in greenhouses.

The best time (or worst depending on your viewpoint) for infection is during cool, moist, humid conditions which for us in the UK is during mid to late summer when we're thinking of getting our onions up. With the cool summer we've just had you can see why botrytis infections have gone through the roof this year. The botrytis will enter the onion through the tiniest of wounds in the skin or leaves, or via the succulent necks after the tops have been removed.

There are a number of things we can do to minimise losses apparently. First of all consider immersing your seed in a suitable fungicide prior to sowing. For this purpose I have acquired some Rovral fungicide and will be doing this to my seed next season for the first time. If growing in the greenhouse, make sure everything is scrupulously clean and with this in mind I will be giving everything a good spraying and drenching with Jet 5. I'm reliably informed that another, cheaper product called Red Label will also do a good job. Failing that, try a solution of cheap bleach, and add a dash of bleach to your water butts to kill any pathogens lurking in the water.

During the season make sure that you remove all weeds from the greenhouse borders and edges, or from the outside beds. Any onion debris infected or otherwise should be cleared and disposed off, although not on the compost heap. Do not apply nitrogen in the mid to late season of the onion's growth, as this will delay ripening and increases the likelihood of storage losses as the tissue will be too soft and therefore susceptible. Do not water 2 to 3 weeks before lifting and apply a late spraying of fungicide (Rovral) just before lifting when it's not raining or rain is forecast. When actually lifting take extra special care not to damage the onion's tissue, and consider letting the foliage die back naturally rather than cutting as is advocated by most of us in the showing game these days. I've always cut the tops off which I think should be fine if you're ripening off in the house but if you're leaving them in a garage, shed or other outhouse then it may be advantageous to leave the foliage on to dry out and die back naturally. Cool, dry conditions with good airflow are best for storing onions. Ivor Mace has his in a spare bedroom I believe.

It has been a disastrous year for storing shallots for much the same reason. I know of one grower who binned several hundred shallots that all went rotten with botrytis, and I myself have also had to discard about 60% of my crop. After a few 'giveaways' I only have 15 bulbs left for replanting. Dave Thornton reckons he suffers very few losses and the precaution he takes is to scrape the base plate of the bulb so that it is moist. This is then dipped in a Rovral solution to the recommended manufacturer's rate and he is convinced this is why he gets very few rotten bulbs, so I will be doing that to my remaining shallots this weekend hopefully. Another problem with my staged shallots this year was a marked purple tinge to the ripened skins, which I have also suffered from time to time in the past. DT informs me that this is a fungus called 'psytocyanin' and is the result of fluctuating storage temperatures between night and daytime. As I store mine outside on a wire rack I can see that this would certainly have been the case this season, the night-time temperatures this year in June/July resembling much cooler climes. I shall be taking steps to store them in the greenhouse next season to see if I can improve this, as you will certainly be marked down on condition because of it.

Although leeks are also alliums of course, they do not seem to be affected by botrytis as far as I can tell.

First frost of the year today

2011-12-02T09:41:00.001Z

December 2nd!!! Is that a record?

'striking public sector workers should be shot'

2011-12-01T10:06:00.000Z

At last! Someone talking sense!

Cauli wobbles

2011-11-30T17:24:00.000Z

Jim Pearson's talk on caulis at the recent Scottish Branch seminar was refreshing in as much he didn't reveal any great secrets to growing good caulis. Jim doesn't have soil analyses done, doesn't spray with any chemicals such as Decis, and doesn't believe in counting back so many days from a show for a sowing date as he believe this makes no odds whatsoever, and makes four sowings per year on 25th April, 5th May, 15th May and 25th May. As Jim has won the National more than anyone else with caulis i'm not going to argue with that. He prepares trenches in the Autumn and lines them with home made compost from his compost bins. Once he runs out of compost he uses kitchen waste, backfills the trenches and by the time Spring comes around everything has rotted down and added fertility and structure to the soil. He also adds a sprinkling of blood, fish and bone a few weeks before planting and a handful of Levington Organic Blend Farmyard Manure. In mid-February he will lime the whole plot and leave for the rain to wash it in.

As i'm not going to grow any white spuds next season I will have spare land enough to get about 4 rows of caulis in, at a 2'x2' spacing. Jim grows 179 caulis and when asked why 179, he replies because he hasn't the room to grow 180! I'm hoping to get my trenches prepared this weekend with a view to allowing the winter frosts (we still haven't had one!) to break everything down in the next few months before planting. One thing I will be doing is cutting some DPC material into 4" squares with a slit to the centre to act as barriers to cabbage root fly. Jim goes one step further, by cutting squares of carpet with another slit which he lays on top of the DPC with the slit at 90 degrees to each other, in effect giving him double the barrier. There is a chunk of leftover carpet in my loft that I have earmarked for this purpose.

There were several other tips which I made a note of and will be divulging next season at the requisite times. I've never managed to stage a good set of caulis and assumed my soil has always been wrong for them, and gave up growing them about 4 years ago, but this is a simplistic view so i'll be giving them another go in 2011. I may need a set of three for my Malvern collection but one thing's for sure.....I won't be anywhere near Jim's winning set from Dundee in 2010.

The Basil Fawlty of the world of pottery!

2011-11-27T16:04:00.001Z

Just imagine for a moment, the barrage of swear words that came out of Monsieur Unsworth's mouth when his parents unveiled his costume for their latest market stall.

Would you buy a pot from this man? Would you even approach without bursting into tears? Hilarious or what? This made my weekend!

Mess

2011-11-27T09:12:00.001Z

There's a magical hour or so, for me around 2pm on the 3rd Saturday in July, when you realise everything is either planted, sown or growing as it should do. When you can wander round the plot, cup of tea in hand, smugness personified. All your tools are where they should be. There are no weeds. Plant supports are in place. Grass borders are edged perfectly. The car is shiny. Even the dog is clean.

I don't know what causes it but a blue touch paper is then lit and your garden goes off like a firework explosion, and you never get it back under control, as Nature goes on an orgy of production. Once show season starts you've got no chance, and it will be several months before you find the secateurs you used for cutting a marrow before the first show. My lawn edging shears usually surface from a pile of potato peat around mid-April and i've got more trowels waiting to be rediscovered that i've buried over the years than B&Q have got on display.

In short my garden is an utter disgrace at this time of year. It does cross my mind to lay the whole lot down to lawn or a top dressing of concrete, but then I can see parsnips, leeks, beetroot, turnips and tomatoes waiting to be picked, with plenty of spuds and onions in store and realise why I do it..

And as we haven't even come close to a frost the dahlias are still blooming. Maybe I'll start the big tidy up next weekend!

1 today

2011-11-24T18:45:00.001Z

Happy birthday to my little ray of sunshine!

Things I have learned in Scotland this week

2011-11-22T19:13:00.001Z

1) It is sometimes NOT misty on the mountain tops. I had an absolutely glorious walk up Beinn Ime today, walking via the high pass alongside the craggy 'Cobbler' which I shall save for another day.....and when I feel brave enough to go through 'the eye of the needle' (look it up!).
2) Sea otters are thriving. I saw a pair of them yesterday and it was a superb sight.
3) Scotland has the funniest sitcom on TV. Why do we not get 'Still Game' in England? Imagine 'Last of the Summer Wine' set in Glasgow....but funny. Hilarious. Brother bought me series one on DVD.

Back home to Blighty and Oscar tomorrow :o)

matt Munro

2011-11-21T21:14:00.001Z

First walk of my scottish mini-holiday today, along Glen Fyne and then up Ben Bhuide (attempted!). It was a beautiful walk, if a little slippery in places and I ended up on my Sherie Plumb on several occasions. As it was getting late and mist shrouded the top I decided to leave the summit for a clearer day when the views are reported to be superb, turning back at about 2800'.

I'm now soaking my tired limbs once more and for the benefit of several guys who (rather worryingly!) approached me at the superb Scottish seminar and said they enjoyed my last bathtime photo (names not revealed until the Christmas Smithyveg awards) I hereby post another to keep them happy. I do so to illustrate the joys of taking a bath/shower/wash in Argyll. The water is BLACK! The reason being it comes from a boggy reservoir a few hundred feet up the local hillside. You get used to it eventually and it does make your skin feel incredibly soft afterwards. However, in the spring you also get bits of mashed up frog that strayed too close to the filter!

Off on me 'ols!

2011-11-18T15:54:00.001Z

After all the drama and tribulation of the last week I have mixed feelings about my forthcoming trip up to Scotland next week. Saturday marks the annual Scottish Branch of the NVS seminar, where for 8 quid you get three speakers and the chance to buy items that are unavailable in the garden centres. Speakers this year include Peter Glazebrook on onions and Jim Pearson on caulis and as I'm hoping to improve my onions next year, and actually grow a cauli worth showing having struggled in the past, these are two very timely talks as far as i'm concerned.

From there it will be up to my brother's on the Kintyre peninsula for a few days walking. However, he informed me that there is a ceilidh (pronounced kaylee...huh?) in the village church hall on the Saturday night for which there is compulsory attendance. I've been to these shindigs with him and his family before and believe me they are one of the most terrifying things you'll ever experience. I'm convinced they were invented purely to make visiting englishmen look like pricks. And believe me.....when i'm 'ceilidhing'.....I look like a prick. My sister-in-law seems to take great delight in sending me the wrong way and I always end up with my face in some huge scottish lady's boobs, or holding hands with an enormous bearded bloke with big teeth who takes a worrying delight at doing so. And because the church hall is 'dry' there is no alcohol to soften the pain. I feel very, very trepidacious!

Don't do that again!

2011-11-16T15:01:00.001Z

Don't know what i'm going to do with this wee monkey. Little sod reduced the wild man of the NVS to tears yesterday. I'd rushed home to find paramedics trying to revive him before he was whisked off to hospital in an ambulance with full blues and twos. By the time I saw him he looked like this, little bugger. I thought he was a goner but to be honest I think he's turning into a bit of a drama queen....just like his grandad! Scared the living shit out of me.

As I write he's still in hospital undergoing various tests but it appears to be some sort of inexplicable seizure, similar to the one I had in Llangollen when I saw my stumps were unplaced!

Onions 'dressed' and onions 'as grown'

2011-11-14T17:13:00.000Z

Surprised no-one has asked me about these definitions before as I've seen it cause more than it's fair share of confusion. I've even see one set of 'dressed' onions have a little paper shirt and tie affixed to them but that wasn't exactly to do with confusion rather than the exhibitor in question being a bit of a twat.

I've been stewarding a show when the judge has complained to me about the 'as grown' onions having all the soil still hanging from the roots, when the exhibitor has literally pulled them up and plonked them down on the bench. He was upset that he got wet soil over his trousers which was fair enough. Even though the term 'as grown' is used you should still give your onions some TLC. First and foremost make sure all soil is knocked from the roots. They don't need to be washed as you would leek roots, just free from the worst of the dirt and in a presentable condition. I would also go as far as taking off all the old, brown, fleabitten leaves and any loose skins, but be aware that this could potentially leave you open to being NAS'd by a pernickity judge who deems them to be not 'as grown'. I would say that most growers would be tidying up their onions as they grow so this would be a perfectly acceptable way of displaying 'as grown' onions.

In my opinion it's a lot better spectacle than this

But just be aware of my proviso and check with your show manager if in any doubt.

Contrary to the comedian who drew a tie and jacket on a set of onions, 'dressed' means simply well ripened, uniform bulbs with the roots cut flush to the root plate and the tops tied neatly with RAFFIA. Try and get into the habit of using raffia if you can, even if your show schedule doesn't specify it, as there will come a time when you will be NAS'd for using green string, elastic bands, green tape....believe me I've seen them all used at local level and they look truly awful. Even in a village show a judge will struggle to take you seriously if you don't tie your tops with raffia.

Kneed a break

2011-11-12T17:08:00.001Z

Today was the annual 15.7 mile Seagrave Wolds Challenge walk that I have done for the last 5 years, this year with a very badly injured knee. What a soldier I am. Currently enjoying a well deserved soak in a hot bath. The toys are NOT mine!

I also managed to get a snap of one of my walking pals Alan against the infamous sign that he head twatted on last year's walk......and I mean TWATTED! He's just about forgiven the rest of us for spending the next 5 miles giggling helplessly like little kids.

Kids tried to get me to go on this....

2011-11-10T07:53:00.001Z

.....I told them to.......

Hook a duck!

2011-11-09T18:56:00.001Z

Loughborough Fair 2011

2011-11-09T18:30:00.001Z

We have a huge street fair every year....since medieval times actually.

Leesa really enjoyed her trip on the baby train and clanging the bell!

All change

2011-11-09T10:05:00.000Z

I was 3rd with long carrots at Derby (out of 3!), Dave T being 1st and 2nd, but to me this photo is significant for a number of reasons. Albeit these were literally the last 3 long carrots I had left to pull but all season I was getting lovely clean carrots, with nice shape and form but struggling to get any weight on them, and if i'm honest they've been going downhill for a few years as I've tweaked my mixes from one season to the next. It's all the more frustrating as I had the biggest, freshest, healthiest looking tops for many a year so I was really hopeful of pulling some decent long carrots this season, which is why it's quite significant seeing mine against Dave Thornton's on the show bench. I saw his carrots at his garden a number of times during the season and always came away quite smug as his foliage always seemed quite small and spindly compared to mine. However, in August just before the National Championships he showed me the shoulders of a couple of his carrots and they were very large, totally out of proportion to the tops in my opinion so I was quite confused once I started pulling my own. At Derby he even displayed one carrot in the tap root collection that was the biggest I have ever seen, i'm not joking when I say it must have been at least 6" diameter.

It's a similar situation i'm thinking to dahlias. I've had dahlias before that have huge tops but when you come to dig up the tuber in the autumn for storage there is barely a root worth saving. Perhaps i've simply overfed my carrots to the detriment of the root which of course is the important part as far as we're concerned. Or perhaps I'm expecting too much from an old mix that has served me well over the years at local level and indeed is still more than good enough to win most of my local shows, but if I want to take the next step up I need to rethink things. So I sought the advice of National Tap Root Champion Ian Simpson and he told me that he used Graeme Watson's mix which was 4 gallons of sieved Levington F2S and 3 ounces of calcified seaweed. I thought perhaps he must have clicked 'send' on the email before he'd finished typing the rest of the mix so I asked for confirmation and he replied that indeed is all he used for his carrots last season. He feels that there is enough nutrient in the F2S to last the season and overfeeding gives coarse skins. So what the hell, i'm going to try it next season and see if I start to get better results. It certainly makes things a lot simpler and should mean I'm able to get my holes bored and filled in record time if nothing else.

Up a gum tree

2011-11-08T19:07:00.001Z

I mean business with onions next season. I shall be installing a new greenhouse in which to grow some in large pots but before that I needed to make sure I could provide it with as much light as possible. With that in mind I had to fell three trees that made my intended location for the new glasshouse quite shady, including this 50' eucalyptus. It was also leaning over next door's property quite a bit as the miserable titwitch who lives next door never ceased to remind me. So I was recently to be found thus, topping out said tree before a pal chainsawed it down to ground level. Health & Safety would have shite their trollies!

Propagating leeks

2011-11-06T13:15:00.000Z

I'm doing something this season that I've been meaning to do for the past few years, that is putting down one of my show leeks to produce baby leeks next season for growing on and showing in 2013! It's not something i've ever done before but I remember seeing it done nearly 20 years ago when I visited an uncle who lives in the north-east leek hotbeds around Sunderland. I chose one of my best shaped Pendle Improved and cut off the bottom 6" or so thus;

Now, the outer layers of flesh will simply rot off in time so you may as well cut them off now, so that the leek is now roughly the same diameter as the base plate. All the old roots are also cut off as these are now dead and useless. The inner core of leaves has already started to re-grow.

I prepared a 6" pot with some old potato peat and 1/3 vermiculite with a pinch of general purpose fertiliser, stuck in a couple of canes and plastic clips, then put the leek in thus, about an inch deep.

The leek should soon re-root and start to grow away in my conservatory over Winter, and I'll be logging the progress over the next 10 months or so until hopefully I can strike some bulbils (or baby leeks) around October 2012.

As I say, this is the way i've been told to do it so if anyone has any different ideas then let me know.

I am a judge!

2011-11-04T18:05:00.001Z

Just had it confirmed that I passed the recent NVS judges exam, with 90% on the theory and 81% on the practical. Wonder when I can judge the National?!?

Keep 'em coming

2011-11-04T13:30:00.001Z

Some toms have soft skins and some have fairly hard skins, my question is when being judged what type of toms would the judges prefer to see to enable them to award points. If the judge put to much pressure on the tom and it split how would he decide how to point it although it was of the right size and condition?

I'm assuming you've grown a variety such as Gold Star in the past which has thin skins and is notoriously prone to splitting during transit. You always had to take spares with you but sometimes they split after you had staged them and left the hall! Nowadays Cedrico is the one to beat as it's what is known as a vine ripe variety that stays firm on the trusses for weeks in good condition and is a lot less prone to splitting. Irregular watering followed by a deluge is one reason why tomatoes will suddenly split so make sure you stick to a regular watering and feeding regime.

In theory judges don't have favourite varieties but should judge each exhibit on merit. A well grown set of an old variety such as Shirley can win against a poorly grown set of Cedrico no problem. The judge should handle each and every vegetable during his deliberations to decide on the placings, but he should do it with confidence and care, so with tomatoes that means not putting so much pressure on them that he clumsily pierces the skins. However, if a tomato split during normal handling then i'm afraid it would have to be downpointed on condition as it would signify an over-ripe and soft skin, or one that had been poorly grown for reasons mentioned above.

The first questions are in!

2011-11-03T18:20:00.000Z

If any of my more esteemed & experienced chums have anything to add please feel free to comment.

1) How do you remove the tomato from the plant, with calyx attached---I suspect it should be obvious, but I don't know!.
No great technique required to this, just a bit of care. Make sure you have a compartmentalised carry box of some description with soft tissues to protect the fruits once picked. Support the tomato as if you were cradling one of your own bollocks, then snip the stalk of the calyx past the 'knuckle' with sharp scissors. Careful not to pierce the skin with the end of the scissors. I like to leave the stalk as long a stalk as I can get as I think this stands out and I know this was the method favoured by Charlie Maisey, but it's only a personal preference. Cut just past the knuckle if you prefer.

2)Is there an optimum pea size? I didn't grow many last year but intend to grow more next season. Many of my pods when left on the plant at maturity resulted in the peas showing bulges on the outside of the pod. Is this expected and necessary to be successful on the show bench?
The short answer to this is no there isn't an optimum pea size. The NVS Judes Guide states pods should be long, fresh, smooth well-filled pods with good bloom and colour. In practice that means getting 9 (or more - see schedule) pods that are as large as possible for the variety without pea bulge (this is considered a fault therefore) or going over on skin condition. At National level you need pods with 11 or 12 peas in them although at local level 10 would be very good. But bear in mind that size only carries 4 points out of the total 20 on offer and as with most show vegetables is a relatively small proportion of the points on offer. Condition scores up to 6 points, uniformity 4 points, fullness of pod 4 points and colour 2 points so for local level just grow a mildew tolerant variety as unless you live in Scotland or the North you will struggle to exhibit 'Show Perfection' past mid-August. If you have a variety that only has 8 peas in, but you can get nice clean pods benched, all the same size with no bulge then go for it. Peas need to be picked at their optimum condition, and they only last in a perfect state for 5 or 6 days so you need to time your row to make sure you have plenty to choose from. Show Perfection takes approx. 80-85 days from sowing to showing depending on location and climactic conditions during growth.

3)I'm hoping to show at some local shows next year. My difficulty is to choose what veg to show and how many of each individual veg' to grow to give me a chance. (i.e. to get a uniform set of 3 do I need to choose from 10? Also sowing intervals to give progression...... 4 weekly?

The scoring system and detail of what is expected, uniformity, size, condition & how this effects the scoring would also be useful.
Right, quite a few questions in this one. First of all scoring systems. You need to find out under what rules your show is being judged, whether it's RHS (more usual for village shows) or NVS rules. There are subtle differences between them but nothing to worry about if you concentrate on quality and uniformity above all else. Try and purchase a copy of The Horticultural Show Handbook 2008 ISBN 9781902896830 which you will find enormously useful if you're just starting out.

All vegetables are given a points value depending on how easy they are to grow, so you will find the hardest to grow well are termed '20 pointers' and include long carrots, parsnips, leeks, potatoes, large onions, caulis, long beet and celery. Other veg are deemed easy to grow well, such as small fruited tomatoes (12 points), pumpkins (10 points) and radishes (10 points). These points are broken down into 4 or 5 sections usually, so if we look at parsnips for instance under the NVS rules it is awarded a maximum of 6 points for condition, 4 for uniformity, 4 for shape, 3 for size and 3 for colour. Virtually without exception all vegetables will score highly if in good condition, although i'm afraid you need to be prepared for an untrained judge being blinded by size at a small village show.

If you're doing shows for the first time try not to be too ambitious. Ask yourself what you have personally grown well in the past and try and concentrate on these. In my opinion a good starting point for local shows would be tomatoes, globe beet, onions from sets, courgettes, potatoes, french beans, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers, cabbages and maybe short carrots grown in sandy raised beds. Don't get hung up on growing the biggest, but rather try and get matching specimens that are grown to perfection with few signs (if any) of damage from pest or disease. Really get close to your plants and learn how they grow, and try and spot any problems before they get too far out of hand. Remember, a perfectly grown small to medium set of onions can beat a huge set that is disease or pest damaged, non-matching or poorly shaped. You need to give yourself plenty of vegetables to choose from but don't go so mad that you can't maintain steady growth. It's better to mollycoddle a few to perfection than grow a field of mediocre specimens. With experience you'll be able to grow fewer specimens and still make good matching exhibits. Certain vegetables are quicker to grow to maturity such as beetroot which usually take 12-15 weeks. However, I have had them reach grapefruit size in 6 weeks so sow a row per week from mid-May until mid-June and you should cover the show season.

Back to basics

2011-11-02T17:10:00.000Z

Well now, how am I going to pass the next few months before the seed sowing starts in ernest? I thought I could get back to basics and the real reason I started this blog, to explain the terminology of showing to beginners and novices, plus any tips on preparation and staging. So it's going to be over to you guys for the next few weeks. If anyone has any questions they need answering then drop me a line or post a comment and I'll do my best to reply as succinctly as possible. If I can't answer then I know people who can. It really doesn't matter how stupid you think the question is as we all started somewhere and I remember scratching my head myself as some of the things I read, wondering what was actually meant by it.

As a starter for 10, I'll begin with the wording in show schedules regarding the word 'dish'. I've been asked more than a few times about this, as people often think they actually have to exhibit all vegetables on a dish if the schedule calls for '1 dish of 3.....'. 'Dish' is merely a generic term used by schedule makers to denote a specified number of vegetables which can be displayed in a number of ways (unless specified in the schedule) for instance direct on the table (carrots & parsnips), on special 'homemade 'stands (onions) or actually on dishes (potatoes).

Therefore this is a 'dish' of potatoes....

But this is also a 'dish' of onions

And this is a 'dish' of carrots

Hope that helps.....any more questions?

p.s. Before any clever fucker asks, I will not answer questions such as ....why are you such a twat? What is the daily diet of a munchkin or a fucking oompa-loompah? Or why can't you grow peas?

Derby 2011

2011-11-01T17:11:00.000Z

It seems strange to think that I probably won't be doing another show now until the Malvern National at the end of September 2012. In many ways I'm going to be 'taking a year out' as at this moment in time I don't intend to do any local showing next year, something I last did in 2000 when we had an extension to our house and I simply couldn't afford the time. The way I feel at the moment I just need to recharge the batteries and rethink my strategy from now on, as putting 30-40 entries in every weekend really takes its toll, and I didn't enjoy some shows as much as I should, in particular Malvern, Westminster and Derby all for different reasons.

For Derby I felt like shite, suffering from a severe dose of manflu in the days leading up to it, so I was chuffed to come away with 9 tickets. Pick of my bunch was a win in a Top Tray class of 8 entries thanks largely to a good set of 6 Cedrico tomatoes (at last!) that scored well along with 3 nice Sweet Candle stumps and 3 Kestrel spuds that weren't great in uniformity but did clean up nicely.

I didn't win with my globe beet which surprised me as that was the one class I thought was a nailed on ticket, even a first. I believe globe beet is the class that is the biggest lottery as it's usually well contested and indeed i've won shows where I didn't expect to so you win some, you lose some.

I was 2nd in the leek class, my set being the heaviest there but a strange bulge on one side of one of the barrels must have counted against me. I've never had it before but I think it's a side shoot and indeed you could see a secondary growth emerging from one of the leaf folds, almost like a mini-leek within the leek itself. Scottish Chair Jim Williams reported in the NVS magazine that he'd seen it on some of his leeks for the first time ever this season and wondered what the cause was. In my case i'm assuming it's stress related as I don't think I watered enough this season, especially during June, July and August when we hardly had a drop of rain to speak of.

I was 3rd in a strong parsnip class with 'Polar', a bit of canker (or was it carrot fly damage?) downpointing me. It's a shame I still get these markings as size and uniformity wise i'm on the money and the skins clean up pretty well too. I'm hoping that a thorough drenching of Jet 5 in the Spring will cleanse any spores and other nasties out of the sand as I hope to get a set of 5 at Malvern along with another three in the big collection class. When I got a best in show with 'Pinnacle' at Leicester Show a few years ago a respected fellow grower reckoned they would have competed at National level. They really did stand out and the skins almost shone but I've never had parsnips so blemish free since. I changed entirely to Polar this year as this variety was pretty clean for me last season but about 60% of them have been marked so I have a decision to make. Pinnacle is supposed to have the best canker resistance rating but does get a bit 'blocky' near the top I find so I'll probably stick to Polar as I think it has a more refined, tapering shape.

I always say you have to be in it to win it and I picked up an unexpected 3rd in the white spud class out of about 15 entries with Casablanca. These looked so bad on Friday night there was no way I could get them clean with a soft cloth so I had to resort to using the rough side of a scourer and rubbing the skin with that as hard as I dare. They looked reasonable when I staged them but as you can see by the Sunday afternoon they looked absolutely shocking. I'm not going to miss growing white spuds at all next season. They look magnificent when they're first harvested but boy do they deteriorate. Sherie Plumb must have some form of industrial buffing wheel in her kitchen!

I also won with brussel sprouts 'Abacus' at Derby, and with the trug prepared as usual by Leesa and which attracted an awful lot of interest from the general public, mainly from people enquiring about the little mexican gherkins that I use to fill in any gaps.

And so that's it. Time now to get the garden shipshape once again, install a new greenhouse that I intend to grow some decent onions in for once, and to get the old walking boots waxed ready for some Munros in Scotland in a couple of weeks time. I've learnt many things in 2011, proof that you will never stop learning and you need to store everything in the memory bank and take it with you into a new growing year. It's been my lowest haul of tickets for quite a few years because I did 4 less local shows than usual and tried my hand at a National Championships and Harrogate for the first time instead, but I feel I've still grown some of my best stuff ever, particularly stumps, leeks and celery that didn't look out of place at the highest level. I got more satisfaction from seeing my veg alongside the very best and winning nowt than I did winning 30+ tickets at my local show. And most important of all (by far!) I made some new friends at these new shows that I am looking forward to spending many more social evenings with in future years.

I did not bother growing a pumpkin this year.....

2011-11-01T09:54:00.001Z

.......so we made do with this!

Occupy London?

2011-10-31T18:10:00.001Z

How about fucking off and occupying a job instead? Get the bulldozers on the lazy, want everything for nothing bastards!

Dave Thornton in Smithyveg Winning Top Tray Admiration Shock

2011-10-30T21:03:00.001Z

Debt due

2011-10-30T13:43:00.001Z

Just on the way to Derby Show to see how I did and to pay the inevitable wager to Dave T. He doesn't know it yet but this is how he's getting paid....snigger! He can count himself lucky our works till doesn't have a load of 20 and 10 pence pieces!

And so I face the final curtain!

2011-10-28T16:36:00.000+01:00

Derby Show staging in the morning and I pulled some very good globe beet a couple of nights ago. After washing, getting off all the fine root hairs, carefully rubbing off any corkiness around the shoulders with the rough side of a scourer and carefully snipping off any side roots from the main central tap I left them to soak in bucket of water with some vinegar and a dash of salt. I find this really brings out the colour of the roots and indeed I've had a good year again, winning at Westminster, coming third at Malvern plus a couple of local show wins. I also have some spare roots which look really good in a trug when turned upside down with the tap sticking upwards, and Derby has a trug class this year for the first time I believe so I (Leesa!) will make an effort to enter that one.

I think I've really found the key to good globe beet the past couple of seasons, growing them in raised beds that has a good depth of crumbly compost/soil mix. The deep bed in question is actually where I grow my leeks and onions and which has been well cultivated for several years now. After my shallots are pulled in June I give the soil a nitrogen fertiliser boost and sow my seeds in drills over several weeks to cover the show period. I have other beds in old half-oil drums and an old water tank which yield good globe beet for the early shows. However, the beet in the water tank starts well enough but then wilts quite badly and i'm thinking the soil gets too warm in the steel container.

All my remaining carrots and parsnips have now been pulled so I'll have a reasonable set of stumps, a nice clean (if a little small) set of long carrots and a canker free dish of parsnips. I've managed to cobble together a set of 6 tomatoes for a Top Tray entry, I should be able to bench a decent pair of long leeks and 3 or 4 collections which are all for single specimens only. In the any other veg class I'll be entering some turnips, lettuce and sweet peppers which are growing in pots and which I moved into my conservatory a couple of weeks ago in case any frost caught them.

And that will be that for another season, but my preparations for next season have already started. I've ordered 25 blanch leeks 'Pendle Improved' from Dave Metcalfe which I'll be collecting in early December. I shall put one of my Derby leeks down to seed for next season but more on that later. You need to be looking at the seed catalogues and getting your orders in as early as you can to avoid disappointment and I'll say from experience that you should make a plan of what you're going to grow where and when, so that you only order what you can physically grow. I've done far too much this season as I've attempted to try and win more tickets than Dave T, an attempt that seems doomed to failure going into tomorrow's final showdown. I've grown crops that I wouldn't normally give the time of day such as turnips, pak choi, spring onions and many other minor veg but never again. I shall be concentrating on the 18 and 20 pointers for next year as I attempt to stage a large collection at the Malvern National. Plus, after researching the subject in 2011 I shall be going all out to win peas at next year's National. This year was merely a practice run.

More hair than Grandad already!

2011-10-26T09:45:00.001+01:00

Final countdown

2011-10-24T17:10:00.000+01:00

Just a few more days until my last date of the season, the Dave Thornton organised Derby Show on Saturday and Sunday. I actually made up about 9 points on him at Westminster thanks to my policy of entering just about everything including a plate of 1000 matching lentils and a dish of curly pubes (dressed). However my chances of overhauling him are nil as the likes of John Croot, John Goodall and Charles Cooper will be showing at Derby, all first-rate growers. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and although i'm over 300 points behind i've kept back some long carrots, parsnips, stumps and spuds plus I finally have some tomatoes ripening which I hope to include in my Top Tray. There are also classes for brussel sprouts, a brassica collection (for which I saved one of my 3rd place winning Westminster red cabbages) and a weirdly named 'stem vegetable collection' where you choose from 3 types, 1 of each type selected from Onion, Leek, Celery, Beetroot, Swede. Never seen a class like this at any other show anywhere but it could be worth a dabble! And there is an any other veg cass that my radishes won last season, although I've been a bit more ambitious this year and think I have some nice clean turnips plus I still have several decent lettuce 'Sandrine'. If the Great Show God Mohammed Medwyn is smiling upon me I might make it a close contest yet!

And in answer to the pathetic torrent of texts, emails, blog comments (deleted) that I have been subjected to since yesterday afternoon (haven't you fuckers got anything better to do?) can I just remind you all of the following?

October 20th 1996 Newcastle United 5 Manchester United 0

October 26th 1996 Southampton 6 Manchester United 3

Champions that season? I rest my case. No trophies were ever handed out in October! Now piss off!

Remember our feathered friends!

2011-10-22T12:54:00.001+01:00

Winter will soon be here and our native birds are finding food scarce. Please go to the pet shop & buy a bag of nuts for our feathered friends.
There is no finer sight on a winters morning than a pair of tits around your nut sack. Just remember however its a bit early in the year to expect a swallow.

Getting kinky with Sherie

2011-10-21T17:06:00.000+01:00

An unexpected bonus on Wednesday night was to hear Sherie Plumb also talk about runner beans. It was quite reassuring to see that she grows her beans up 8' inclined bean poles in the garden and there was no special set up or technique. She doesn't thin the trusses to one bean as legend has it, but does snip off any that are unduly bent or that will never make good show beans. All side shoots are nipped out as well as any flower trusses below 18" up the plant. Sometimes you will get two flower trusses in the same leaf axil....nip out the weakest one. As the beans grow you may need to secure them with string upwards to the bean pole to stop the weight of the bean bending the truss down, as once this happens then it stops growing. Other than that its water, water, water onto well cultivated, fertile soil, regularly dowsing the foliage also to mimic its natural habitat in the rain forests of central and southern america.

I would love to be able to get anywhere near beans like these that won her this year's National. And she was adamant that she doesn't have any curling tongues to give them that unique and characteristic kink at the end. She reckons they go that way because they grow so fast, although she assured us that she gets plenty of beans with no kink on the end.

Her pre-show picking can start a week or more before the show, when she will decide on a length and start picking as and when that length is achieved. Each bean is then wrapped in a damp towel against a wooden batten, put into a polythene bag then stored in a fridge...obviously not a freezer! Final selection is made the day before the show. She made it sound oh so simple!

Masterclass

2011-10-20T17:14:00.000+01:00

Well Sherie Plumb was her usual thorough self last night, and guided us through her growing year with spuds then runner beans. Her attention to detail is legendary and I was listening intently to try and work out if there was anything she did a lot different to me. A few points struck home and will result in me trying them out at least.

Sherie washes all her seed spuds before planting, discarding any that have scab. Now then, the science says that the scab lesions on a seed spud are merely the physical mark left by the scab fungus on its journey through the soil or growing media, and that it is impossible for scab to be transferred to a daughter crop from seed. Sherie remains unconvinced but perhaps the fact she washes all her seed spuds is the key here. The scab fungus overwinters on garden detritus so perhaps it is the dust that coats your seed spud that is actually the culprit here? Could this be harbouring the fungus so that it gets transferred into your bags? David Peel was also at the talk and he has had an excellent year, winning the collection at Harrogate and he washed his seed spuds this season as well as discarding any scabbed up spuds.

Because I believe in and trust the science I won't go as far as discarding any scabbed seed but I will now wash them before planting purely as an extra precaution. The key is STILL to make sure your bags never dry out. The scab mycellium thrives in warm, DRY conditions so a regular watering regime will ensure you don't suffer any scab marking your skins. I made sure my bags didn't dry out last season, especially at tuber initiation (when the haulms are about a foot high) and I think I can remember about three tubers having a single scab marking, a vast improvement on what I was getting before when I wasn't as keen as I should have been with the H2O.

Sherie uses medium grade moss peat (fine grade compacts too much) that she passes through a shredder. I have lent my shredder to a friend for a couple of years so I think I'll be getting it back for this purpose. An important element we all overlook at our peril is AIR and I think shredding the peat not only breaks up any lumps, twigs, fibre but incorporates air into the peat and allows the roots to really breathe and get out into the fluffed up mix. A good root system will give you good tops and then good tubers.

And finally, she stores all her spuds after lifting and grading in fresh peat rather than the stuff they've been growing in. This needs to be really dry and David Peel even said he went as far as spreading his peat out on sheets in the sun to get rid of any excess moisture. I wonder whether this may prevent the silver scurf marks that I seem to be prone to towards the end of September when I get my spuds out of the peat for washing? However, as i've said this does seem to affect the white spuds more than the coloureds.

There has been a lot of debate about the effectiveness of calcified seaweed. Apparently it has been estimated that it takes over a year in the soil for it to be of any real benefit and as the spuds are only in the bags for 10-14 weeks then surely it's a waste of time? Sherie pointed to an experiment carried out by John Branham where he trialled some bags without any calcified seaweed and they weren't as good as those spuds grown in bags with it so she is adamant about its advantages and will carry on using it. Good enough for me but I will be using the new alternative product from JBA potatoes this season that is more finely ground than the boxed stuff you buy from the garden centres these days. They are not ground up very fine at all, resembling small white stones and I'm sure some of the skin blemishes are down to these large granules resting against the skin during storage.

Here is the link to the JBA product: http://www.jba-seed-potatoes.co.uk/maincrop/powdered-calcified-seaweed-p300.html

Sherie bought several plates of different varieties to the talk that she'd washed that morning for the purpose. These weren't deemed good enough for showing during the season but I can assure you all they would probably have been in the tickets at just about every show i've ever been to. I wish i'd taken a photo of them. Sherie was adamant that Casablanca will never compete with Winston and held a sample of each together to demonstrate. During the break myself and Dave Thornton had a closer look and both of us were in agreement that the Casablanca looked superior. It seemed to positively gleam in comparison to the Winston that seemed a creamier hue. Each to their own I guess although no-one doubted that Kestrel would rule the roost in the coloured class for a long time to come yet, Purple Eyed Seedling and Blue Belle being some way off.

Bring back fox hunting!

2011-10-20T14:13:00.000+01:00

Further to my postings of a couple of seasons ago that caused uproar in some quarters including my, at times, cloud cuckoo-land daughter, if anyone thinks foxes get a raw deal then here is the scene this morning at a fellow grower's hen house. They don't just take one hen for food, they indiscriminately kill every hen in the coop. The sooner every fox in the land is culled the better as they're just vermin.

And while we're at it let's do the same to the so-called travellers who don't intend to travel or pay their way gypsy scumbags who have cost us law-abiding tax-payers 18 million quid to teach them a lesson about right and wrong. And anyone that agrees with their pethetic, warped reasoning....you can fuck off too.

Plumb centre

2011-10-19T17:16:00.000+01:00

I'm looking forward to hearing Sherie Plumb talking at North East Derby DA of the NVS tonight on spuds. I've heard her before but there's always something new you can pick up even if it's largely the same talk. Sherie is always trying to learn new tricks and adapt the ways she does things, a real thinker, so it will be good to hear about her 2011 experiences when she didn't get it all her own way like she usually does it must be said. She didn't win the coloured spuds at the Llangollen National and also the collection of spuds at Harrogate where I believe she only came 3rd, although she did win the British Potato Championships at Dundee again, plus most other single plate classes at most other championships so she's still the Queen of potatoes. I came 2nd to her at Westminster and 3rd in the collection at Malvern and it's a pleasure to be competing with her.

Next year i'm limiting my spuds to two varieties only, Kestrel and NVS Amour. I've found it much easier to get good skin finishes on coloured spuds, and indeed throughout the season I never really had a single blemish on any of my Amour and they were a real joy to clean up. I shall grow more of these two varieties than normal and skip whites for a year which I find take much more cleaning up to get them gleaming. For some reason white spuds also seem more prone to silver scurf in storage than the coloured varieties although I did have a few spots on some Kestrel. I'm hoping I can get a good set of 5 for my collection of 6 veg at Malvern and also a set of 4 in the Millenium class which will be main focus in 2012. I was very happy with how my spuds looked in my mini collection at Malvern. They were the best spuds in the 6 or 7 sets that were benched.

I shall be using fresh peat once again for my 2012 spuds and not get tempted to use the old stuff from this year. Instead I will be sieving this old peat over the coming Winter, bagging it up and using it in some pipes for long carrots in the greenhouse. You need much more medium to fill pipes than you do conical bore holes in sand, so with some vermiculite, silver sand plus the usual nutrients I'll be giving this method another go in 2012, having grown 8 heavy (if a little uneven roots....erratic watering) this season. A friend who works for a large building firm is getting me some more plastic drainpipe material (unusable offcuts...honest!), as I will be hoping to use the long carrots from these on my collection of 6 at Malvern also. I could fit about 20 of these pipes at one end of one of my greenhouses and will be quite happy to empty all of them out to get a set of 3 if necessary.

Well that has cheered me up no end

2011-10-19T08:21:00.001+01:00

There's surely no better way to start the day than to watch a load of unwashed, thieving, law-dodging pikeys get a kicking on TV

Tooty fruity

2011-10-18T17:18:00.001+01:00

This is going to come as a huge surprise to some but I've discovered in the last few days that I'm rather partial to Cox. Indeed, for the last few days I've not been able to get enough Cox. In the past, whenever I've exhibited apples it's always been for the late August/early September period when I've required a specimen for the single flower/fruit/veg class, or a plate of 5 dessert apples a class which I actually won at Seagrave Show this year. As I only have a single Cox's Orange Pippin tree it has invariably been a Cox that I have slapped down on the table alongside a dahlia and a carrot. Whenever I've popped one of these cox into my mouth after the show I've always spat it out as it's been a bitter taste. In truth it's just not been ripe as I've now discovered when I picked all the remaining fruit off my tree last weekend. The taste is a lot sweeter and melts nicely on the tongue now I've allowed them to ripen properly on the tree into October. It just proves that the longer you can leave a more mature Cox the nicer it tastes and I would certainly recommend that you all eat more Cox and keep the British apple flag flying high.

Sometimes I'm so childish it's positively pathetic!

The big clean up

2011-10-16T19:12:00.000+01:00

The warm October weather we've been experiencing is due to break up towards the end of next week, with the possibility of the first frosts also. This means the dahlias will be blackened and I won't be able to show any at Derby in two weeks time. The same thing happened last year meaning no entries in the dahlia classes but that's a chance you take with a late October show. I haven't staged many dahlias this season whilst i've been concentrating on the veg but I've grown this variety this season, Blyton Softer Gleam and it's really flowered its socks off. I shall certainly be growing this one again and trying to save some tubers and hope we don't get a Winter like last year that killed all my stored tubers.

I also took the opportunity to get my 'show' cacti and succulents inside today. They've been outside all summer and have really benefitted from it. I shall now stop watering, and will not resume until the early Spring.

Since I started showing in late August the garden has been left to its own devices and now resembles a bomb site. In the the next few weekends I need to bring things under control again and get everything shipshape in time for lift-off once more in the New Year. I have a couple of large trees to fell as I want to fit in another greenhouse and they'll be seriously cutting out the light to it if I leave them. And I will be grubbing out several large shrubs that I planted 20 years ago towards the bottom of my long garden when I wasn't into vegetable growing as much. How I wish I hadn't planted them now but I intend to use the new land for several raised beds to grow more vegetables and make us more self-sufficient. It's a bit silly to have such a large garden and yet only about 10% of it is laid down to crop production.

Can he fix it?

2011-10-14T19:49:00.001+01:00

I've decided to purchase a cement mixer in time for next season's root mix preparation. I'm thinking that in order to improve upon the uniformity of my long carrots in particular I need to ensure all nutrients, sand and composts are thoroughly mixed. Doing this by hand is turning out to be a hit and miss affair and is also taking its toll on the Smithyveg backbone.

So with the help of Ebay and email alerts as soon as any new second hand mixers are listed i'm hoping to have one installed at Smithyveg Towers before next Spring. If there are any retiring Bob the Builders out there looking to get rid of theirs (very cheaply!) then let me know!

However, i'd prefer one that isn't the standard orange colour as i've just had a most disconcerting experience. I walked in on my 23 year old daughter coating herself in fake tan whilst listening to music. She looked like a satsuma and i've gone right off the colour!

Regrets? I have a few....

2011-10-13T17:16:00.000+01:00

No matter how experienced you are (or how experienced you think you are!) it's still possible to make basic mistakes that you should know better not to do. All season I have been kicking myself about my tomatoes and 2011 will be the first time in 11 years that I won't have won a class at any show during a season with toms. Indeed I haven't even picked up a place card as Westminster was the first show I managed to stage a set when I finally had a few ripe fruits ready from my late 2nd planting. I'm starting to get some very nice shaped ripe fruits coming now so I should be able to include a set of 6 on my Derby Top Tray collection at the end of the month.

My troubles began as I tried to plant earlier in order to get plenty of fruits to choose from for the Llangollen National. For the past few years I'd only had a few fruits ready for the August Bank Holiday weekend shows so my thinking was I needed to sow earlier to give me earlier ripening and more choice. I always plant my tomatoes around the Spring Bank Holiday weekend but this year I planted on the May Day weekend at the beginning of the month. We then had several nights of quite hard frost and despite covering each plant with newpaper they got chilled and never recovered. The thing is, it took a few weeks for the problem to show up as the plants went yellow and sickly, leading me to believe there was some nutrient problem which I tried to correct by giving the plants nitrogen and even aspirin! The answer I now know was much more basic.

It was all the more frustrating when I saw the winning sets of tomatoes at Llangollen. Medwyn Williams won, and my pal Mark Roberts was 2nd. Here is Medwyn's set:

Tomatoes are the only veg I would confidently say I would currently be able to win with at National level, and I hope I'm not being big headed when I say I could possibly have done so at Llangollen if I hadn't made such a monumental pig's dinner of my planting. However I did and as you have to be in it to win it I will now have put my money where my mouth is and make sure I don't do anything so stupid in 2012. As the National is at Malvern at the end of September my usual planting date is going to be cock-on so I really do intend to have a good go next year.

Where did it all go wrong?

2011-10-11T17:17:00.000+01:00

I've just been looking back through some postings and I thought I'd tie up a few loose ends with various experiments and new methods I was trying this season.

The raised cucumber platform was....how shall I put it? ......a total fuckfiasco. Once planted the cu's never really got going and indeed it was quite an awkward job getting water to them above my head once the plant canopy got established. More water ended up going down my sleeve and drenching my armpits than got to the roots of the cucs. I'm not sure the gro-bags were moist enough either and coupled with a severe attack of the leaves turning yellow and basically going all crinkly (not sure what that was but definitely not red spider....possibly poor quality compost) then all things considered it means I won't be growing them in this fashion ever again. I shall stick to what I know.....growing them in the greenhouse border soil at an angle along a stout cane.

However, one experiment I tried which i'm happy to say was a total success was putting bottomless pots or sections of drainpipe around the tops of my stump carrot boreholes. This concentrated an amount of water to the root during an overhead drenching with the watering can rather than it dissipating out into the sand and meant I didn't have a single forked root this year. This was in stark contrast to the previous two seasons when I didn't really have a single unforked root! In the early days before the seedlings get growing they also mark where the boreholes are so you can easily re-sow if you have any stations non-germinate. And they also stop the compost washing away and exposing the shoulder which can cause them to go green. All things considered it was a bit of a faff but certainly worth it in my opinion.

Last year I had wooden frames around my stumps with enviromesh tops and polythene sides, and I extended that this season to include a cover over my long carrots. It meant I had lovely carrot fly free roots but watering was a problem during the very dry summer when I needed to give them more than that which fell from the sky. It meant I had ribbed skin finishes rather than smooth tapering roots. Extracting them from the boreholes wasn't very easy either so I shall have to give it all some thought during the long Winter months.

I laid some black membrane over the crowns of my parsnips to stop any canker spores reaching the tops. This worked but I still had some skin blemishes which I am now convinced more than ever is down to carrot fly activity. I don't think it looks the same as the damage caused to carrots because the grubs perhaps don't find them as palateable, but i'm now fairly certain it isn't canker. I shall be including Phorate in my mixes from next season and applying more Phorate powder to the drum tops every time I treat my carrots drums and beds with it. All of my sand will be drenched with Jet 5 which I'm told will kill all known germs and many unknown ones so I'm hoping for much cleaner roots next year.

A few years ago I stored my shallots in the greenhouse after lifting and they suffered severe dehydration during one particularly hot day, rendering them virtually useless for showing. Since then i've stored them outside on a wire rack but this season I've had quite a few of them get purple patches on the skin finish. Dave Thornton informs me this is a fungal infection caused by fluctuating differences during storage which could well be true as we had warm days and fairly cold nights in June and July. Dave stores his indoors on some polystyrene sheets which he is convinced holds the warmth during the night and stops this problem. I shall be reverting back to greenhouse storage therefore but I will make sure I have some fleece to throw over them during the day to stop them drying out.

I grew my best ever celery this season by a country mile (thanks for all the advice Mr McLeod!) and will certainly be repeating a couple of methods with reservations. The bottomless pots screwed into the soil certainly allowed me to concentrate water straight to the roots. However I had a surprise when pulling the pots up last weekend to store them away now all my celery has been used. I expected the soil to be very moist seeing as I have given each and every plant at least a couple of litres most days throughout the summer and early autumn. But it was quite dry and just goes to show that celery really are thirsty plants. In future, if in doubt.....give them a lot more water! I shall also be using cardboard for blanching having switched from damp proof membrane material. No doubt the dry summer was also a factor but I haven't had one loss to celery heart rot. I actually cut the cardboard from very stiff boxes which meant they were more than strong enough to last the season much easier than the stuff you get on a roll.

So there you have it...some failures and some successes. But I firmly believe you have to keep trying different things until you find a method that suits you, and then once you do inprove on that method each season.

I have a dream

2011-10-10T17:19:00.000+01:00

This showing season isn't quite over but I've already made a written note of my initial plans for next season. As I'd always promised Leesa that I wouldn't be showing during our 25th anniversary year I had intended to take a complete year out in 2012. Since making the pledge she agreed (nay encouraged!) for me to do SOME showing but just not for the end of August/early September period when we intend to be out of the country on the honeymoon we never had 24 years ago! With this in mind I have therefore decided to throw virtually everything I have at the Malvern National in 2012, and specifically the collection of 6. I've always dreamed about getting a large collection benched in a National and so i'm going to take the opportunity to have a go next year and fulfil that dream. Having entered collections of sorts at Harrogate and Westminster I was able to see that I wouldn't be disgraced and so I may as well have a crack. I won't have to worry about leaving produce for later shows and can pull as many carrots and parsnips as I want to get the two sets of 3.

You might think it's complete madness to throw so much at something you have no chance of getting a ticket in (the place cards will be contested by a list of 5 or 6 suspects) but it's part of an ongoing 'apprentiship'. I made sure I observed how the top guys displayed their collections at Llangollen and Malvern with a variety of metal frameworks and boards and have made a note of the heights and girth I achieved with my own leeks and celery this season, as well as the length and diameter of my parsnips and long carrots so I'm not overambitious when I manufacture my own display boards during the Winter months. My collections at Westminster and Harrogate were all displayed in flat mode but for a National you need to be getting your leeks and celery vertical. Here is Jeff Parson's winning collection at this year's National.

I shall also not be bothering with runner beans in 2012. None of us in the family eat them and they take up a lot of room on the plot and as I won't be needing them for local shows I'll give them a miss for a year. Instead I will be using the land vacated to have another go at cauliflowers. I've never succeeded in growing great caulis for show and I don't really understand why as I have reasonably deep, fertile, moisture retentive soil. Jim Pearson is giving a talk on growing caulis for show at the Scottish Branch seminar in November so I shall be taking detailed notes. Mind you I took detailed notes last year on growing f***ing peas and look where that got me! I know a lot of people will disagree but I believe peas and caulis should be worth more than 20 points as getting them timed to perfection for show day takes much more skill than leeks, onions, parsnips and long carrots in my humble opinion.

Also, I won't ever be twatting about growing things like pak choi, radishes, turnips and spring onions again. I only bothered as I was trying to win a wager against Dave Thornton and needed a lot of these things for Westminster. Not only did they mean I took my eye off the ball with the 'major veg' in certain cases but I never actually timed them for the bench at London anyway so that was a monumental waste of time and energy. In 2012 I will be concentrating on 18 and 20 pointer vegetables, trying to time my entire season for one weekend in late September! How hard can it be?

Harlequin

2011-10-07T11:13:00.001+01:00

At the last minute I decided to stage 15 Harlequin instead of Sungold in the small fruited tomato class at Westminster and was rewarded with a 3rd place. I'd hate to judge this class at most big shows and indeed there were a dozen or so good plates in London. I staged mine around the edge of the plate, nestled into some sand in quite a neat fashion even if I say so myself. When I came back I was faced with this abortion of a display which annoyed me somewhat as a judge should always do his best to leave an exhibit how he found it. It didn't annoy me as much as the variety of the 2nd placed set.....yep you guessed it. F***ing Sungold!

Imperial War Museum

2011-10-05T17:48:00.001+01:00

We spent the best part of today at this marvellous (and free!) museum and only saw a fraction of what was on display. Well worth a visit just to see the Spitfire suspended from the roof.

Just had time to get back to the show and take a pic of my winning cylindrical beet and Scottish Branch's winning collection of 10, put up by Jim Pearson one of the funniest men alive!

All in all a good show for me, winning 14 tickets in all which is proof of my continuing progress in the game. Only Derby now at the end of the month then time to give my aching back a few months well deserved rest.

We wuz robbed

2011-10-05T12:11:00.001+01:00

We got 2nd in the trug class out of 7 entries (first photo) and whilst that was an improvement on a recent run of form I think it was better than the winner (bottom photo).

Global warming

2011-10-05T09:55:00.001+01:00

My thanks to Dickie Nine Inch for sending me this absolute gem. Rock on Michael!

Westminster 2011

2011-10-05T09:40:00.001+01:00

This is fast turning in to my favourite show despite the problems associated with getting veg into the middle of London. Having spent all day Sunday lifting and preparing veg, then getting straight down to more of the same after work on Monday it was 2am before I left home. Thanks to satnav technology which I was using the first time I was able to drive straight to the RHS Lindley Hall, arriving at 4.10am. A quick offload I then drove 3/4 mile to leave my car at a pub which hires out its parking spaces at a tenner a day. Bargain at London prices.

As for the show I managed quite a few placings which has pleased me no end seeing as the welsh boys were in attendance this year, along with the regular contingent from Derbyshire.

Pick of the bunch was 2nd in the class for 5 Kestrel spuds, behind Sherie Plumb of course!

I entered a collection of 6 (won by Jim Thompson) and came 4th but was more than happy with how my stuff compared, my leeks, celery and parsnips in particular. I even had a couple of bonus wins for chilli peppers (me and Dan have the country conquered!) and in a highly popular cylindrical beet class, although I forgot to get a photo of them.

Leesa came down on the train and we had a stroll along the south bank followed by a meal....outside.....in short sleaves......on the 4th October. Unbelievable! War museum today then back to the show to load up. I'll make sure I get a photo of my superb beet!!

Stretching summer

2011-10-02T21:56:00.001+01:00

With apologies to my Scottish friends who have had several days of rain, it seems really weird preparing veg for an October show in shorts, flip-flops and a t-shirt! It has allowed me to spend the whole day pulling and matching up my tap roots, and cleaning leek roots with a hosepipe and not have to worry about getting hypothermia.

I've been very happy with my leeks this season considering the minimal amount of attention I have lavished upon them. I've had to overstrip a couple due to 4 or 5 split flags which I think is down to a lack of water during the last few months. Still if I can grow them this well through neglect i'm really looking forward to next year when I intend to devote far more time to their culture.

And i've managed to get a pair of long beet for the collection of tap roots at Westminster. They're really far too big to contend but it's shown me that I can grow them and it's another crop I shall be hoping to improve upon next season. A later sowing should give me more refined, tapering roots for Malvern.

Hot!

2011-10-02T09:03:00.001+01:00

No not me, the weather yesterday as I sat the judges exam down in Dorchester. It was the hottest October day on record apparently and the sweat was pouring out of me as I 'judged' the mock show after the written exam.

I think I did ok but I know I made a hash of at least one of the questions so I'll just have to sit tight and await the results. John Trim took this photo as I was 'pointing' the collections. At least I look as if I know what i'm doing!

Who'd be a judge?

2011-09-30T10:03:00.000+01:00

Well....me actually! Tomorrow is the day of the NVS Judges Exam and I'm probably not as confident now as I was when I first put forward for it. It's quite a high pass percentage you have to get, so there isn't much margin for error but it'll be a good experience if nowt else. And when you see some of the decisions on the benches you do wonder whether you want to put yourself forward for the inevitable criticism that will come your way.

Last year at Midlands Branch I put three globe beet in that I felt had a very good chance of getting a ticket but came away with nothing. However, the set I put in this year got third but when I walked away from staging I thought it was merely making up the numbers. Whilst I was surprised and happy to get the placing I still felt there were better conditioned and more uniform sets that didn't get anything. The tent was still quite dark when the judges started their deliberating so did that come into play perhaps? And at Harrogate the hall in which the veg is staged has the worst lighting I've ever experienced. It made many of the veg appear to be yellow or green in some cases.

What it illustrates is that judging of vegetables can never be an exact science. As long as it is carried out by fellow exhibitors themselves at the top of their game, or people who have been there and done it you have to trust the process and take all decisions in good faith. I've always said that the day I get upset and contest a decision is the day I give it up for good.

Stick at it

2011-09-28T10:05:00.001+01:00

At Malvern I staged my first ever entry of celery 'Evening Star' at such a high level. Whilst I didn't win a ticket I was more than happy with how they looked, especially as I'd grown these myself from seed, and if I hadn't been pushed for time I'd have titivated them up a lot more as some of the stalks needed straightening up having grown a bit off centre in the cardboard blanches. At the time I didn't know it but I actually staged them next to Ray Sale's winning brace. As you can see I got more blanch than him but they weren't quite as bulky, but all in all I'm encouraged to keep growing celery having considered not bothering after this season. Indeed, next season I have decided I will be growing many more celery in a raised bed that I normally grow my 250g onions in. The bed has a severe infestation of white rot so I have to find somewhere else to grow onions. I reckon I can get 20 celery in the bed and will erect a mesh barrier to stop strong side winds battering them down as currently my celery grow in quite a sheltered spot.

The key to growing better plants this season was plenty of well rotted horse muck in prepared holes and sieved soil on top of that to plant the seedlings into in late Spring, with a top dressing of dried blood and nutrimate a fortnight before planting. After that I never let them dry out, and when the plants were growing away well I gave them a couple of litres of water every day with a high nitrogen feed once a week, switching to a high potash feed 4 weeks before showing. I used Decis regularly to prevent attack by leaf miners, and later on Bumper to prevent blight. As I go to press I have 6 plants left, and I hope to stage 4 in a collection at Westminster next week and 2 at Derby at the end of October, frosts permitting.

London calling

2011-09-27T17:15:00.000+01:00

Next up is my 4th Clash (see how clever I was there!?) with Dave Thornton at the RHS Westminster Show a week today. This is an absolutely stunning venue in which to stage vegetables and if you can make the effort the rewards are good as the RHS give very good prize money across the classes, not just in the big collections. Thanks to a website www.parkatmyhouse.com i've managed to find a parking spot at a local pub for 10 quid a day (you can claim this back) so I shall be driving into London in the early hours in order to avoid the congestion charge. Leesa will be travelling down on the train later on in the morning as there will definitely be no room in the car for her this time around.

The reason for this is i've entered 35 classes including 5 collections in the hope of clawing back some of the points difference between myself and the Derby Dingbat. He currently leads by a seemingly unbridgeable 716 to 351 but hopefully i've got a few tricks up my sleeve as Westminster has classes for things like squash (of which I have a nice specimen), turnips, brussel sprouts, red cabbage, cylindrical beet (I have 4 drums of these to empty out!), loose leaf lettuce (my current speciality!), courgettes and chard. When I informed the Thornquat of all my plans his smug face quickly changed and I know he's looking for late rule changes as we go to press just in case. Having said all this he usually picks up a rook of red cards at this show, especially if the Welsh boys don't turn up as happened last year. Therefore I don't doubt that Medwyn will be taking his photo again for GN....yawn!

As well as my Westminster preps i'm also in the process of digesting the NVS Judges' Guide for my impending exam this Saturday. Because Midland Branch aren't holding an exam this year i'm having to travel down to Dorchester in southern country-bumkin land so i'll be setting out early for the 200 mile trip. It means I will be not be entering Sturton Show in Lincolnshire for the first time in 12 years. As well as a two hour written paper there is a mock show that you have to judge, coming up with a 1-2-3 in each class. There are two collections A & B that have to be pointed, so i'm hoping that my experience in entering several collections this year and concentrating on the pointage given to each competitor will stand me in good stead for this. I may sleep in the car if i'm too tired afterwards but as there are more village idiots per hectare down south I don't really want to be hanging about after dark.

Slow down you lot!

2011-09-26T17:19:00.001+01:00

It would appear that some of my 'disciples' are getting better at this showing lark than I am. Following on from Dan and Paul's successes at Harrogate I must add my congratulations to Ray Ingram who won shallots at Malvern, beating a very miserable Dave Thornton into 3rd place. As I'd staged Dave's shallots in his absence whilst he was out enjoying himself, in the wee small hours, very, very tired having had no sleep at all it didn't stop me from getting the blame for his failure. All I can say is I did one better than at Harrogate where he only came 4th having staged them himself the ungrateful fuckwit. Anyways....well done Ray and hard lines on the trug. I thought we were going to be out of the cards this year when I saw your's and Denise's effort.

Also, well done to Marcus Powell for winning the marrow class with Bush Baby on his first ever Branch show. They were a superbly well matched pair and fairly obvious winners in the end. He has now been bitten by the bug and i'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of him in future.

You gotta be in it to win it!

2011-09-25T20:51:00.001+01:00

My only red card this weekend came on the Malvern side in the any other vegetable class where I staged a single Sandrine lettuce.

At 2am I dug this plant up, gave the roots a quick blast with the hosepipe (sorry neighbours!) and threw it in the car. At the showground it was the first thing out of the car but because i'd already seen it was a very popular class I thought I won't bother staging it so just threw it on the grass by the car.

At the last moment I thought sod it i'll chuck it in, staging it with the roots in a jamjar of water. And I was rewarded with a red card which was a total surprise. Steward Colin Higgs (another top bloke) said judge Charlie Maisey thought it was faultless.

So it just goes to show that unless you put it on the bench you'll never win. If you've gone to the trouble of growing it, preparing it, then travelling with it you have nothing to lose by staging it.

If I hadn't I wouldn't be Midland lettuce champion now would I?

Top fellas

2011-09-25T09:48:00.001+01:00

I spent last night drinking with this rather strange man. I think he ran a game show in the 80's involving a bull. Nowadays he just talks it....or is it me that does that? :o)

Anyways i'm not sure he was in the tickets at the Show but he did manage to win these excellent wooden dildos in the Midland Branch raffle.

His real name is Gareth Cameron and comes as a double act with Ronnie Jackson. Both top growers they are two of the most knowledgeable and helpful guys you could wish to meet. However, if they think that exempts them from this year's Smithyveg awards they're very much mistaken!

With Malvern 2012 in mind.....

2011-09-25T08:59:00.001+01:00

......i'm going to have a real crack at the Millennium Class next year, when Malvern will host the National. You need 5 plates of 4 veg, potatoes, stumps, tomatoes, 250g onions and globe beet.

Midlands have a similar class calling for four dishes only and I narrowly missed out on a ticket as I was forced to field two 15 pointer veg. My globe beet let me down but I had some nice stumps and Kestrel spuds.

There's always next year!

Bushed

2011-09-24T19:05:00.001+01:00

Probably too much information but i'm currently soaking in a beautiful roll top bath in our very pleasant victorian b&b after an afternoon spent fast asleep. This through the night staging lark sure does take it out of you.

Pick of my results was 2nd in the cherry tomato class, a result that owes much to having a wife with a good eye. I grow Sungold and whilst this is the tastiest cherry tomato i've never seen it in the tickets so i've always made up the numbers with it. I handed Leesa a bowl of fruits that i'd picked in the dark at 2 o'clock this morning and said 'pick me 12 out of that lot and stage them for me'. I really couldn't have done a better job. She can come again!

However, we could still only make our perennial 3rd place in the trug class despite a different design to usual.

Your man at Malvern reporting

2011-09-24T13:06:00.001+01:00

Wow what a show. If anything i'd say the standard is even better than at Harrogate last weekend. Indeed, Ian Simpsons Harrogate tap root winning long carrots took 1st place proving that you can use your roots on more than one weekend.

They beat Dave Thornton's long carrots into 2nd, and no doubt he'll blame me as I staged all his veg for him. I have to say.....never again! Quite how I got all our veg to Malvern intact i'll never know as my car has never been so rammed. His onions were balancing on my cabbages, our celery on my leeks and so on. And because I was loading the car til 3am I got to the Showground a bit late to stage things properly. In the end I was running around doing last minute adjustments which is never a good thing.

I wasn't expecting anything but I did get a few tickets, most pleasing being a 3rd in the potato collection. Not bad for a wooden spooner I reckon!

All staged

2011-09-24T07:22:00.001+01:00

First impressions.....Bloody hell! Some bloody good stuff here this year. Will be lucky to get a ticket in anything!

Leesa insisted I take this photo proving that she constructs my trugs!

Malvern countdown

2011-09-23T08:53:00.001+01:00

A year ago I was preparing marrows, globe beetroot, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers and medium tomatoes in the hope of getting a ticket in the novice class at Malvern. I think it says a lot for the improvement I (and indeed my blogging pals) have made in that I am now preparing long carrots, leeks, potatoes and celery for this year's show. I think we're all currently 'bubbling under' as the saying goes. The thing is I know I don't have an earthly of getting in the tickets in most classes and yet they are some of the best veg I have ever grown. Just getting the stuff on the benches and not looking out of place is reward enough for me at the moment. When I compare my veg now to only a couple of years ago there's no comparison and a lot of it is down to the daily advice I can call upon via the NVS online forum. You can't put a price on good advice from guys who have been there and done it.

All you can hope to do is keep improving and one day I'm fairly sure I'll get there at National level but for now it's a case of listening to and learning from the best in the land, keeping an open mind and adapting their ideas and methods to suit your own situation. In the meantime remember it is just a hobby and if you don't get any enjoyment from it, just stress and upset, then it really aint worth doing. Getting tickets is nice, but making lifelong friendships and getting the best possible experience out of your growing is way more important.

A year ago I genuinely had a sneaking suspicion my tomatoes would be there or thereabouts. This year? Well I'm very happy with how my celery looks. But I know Malvern always has great celery so I shan't get carried away. I've downloaded a Blogger app on my phone so I should be able to post pictures from the showground this year. Malvern is a superb day out so if you're going make sure you get there early as there is so much to see, do and buy! If you notice me in the veg marquee please make yourselves known to me, poke me or smack me in the mouth, whichever you feel most comfortable with.

Long brute

2011-09-22T22:18:00.001+01:00

I was hoping to stage a set of three long beet at Malvern but couldn't get a matching set.

As this monster, 15" round at the crown shows, I think I need to sow a tad later if I want to have some for the Malvern 2012 National.

I've left a drum unpulled as I hope to at least have a pair for the tap root class at Westminster in a week and a half.

Dynamec and Jet 5

2011-09-20T20:03:00.001+01:00

I'm probably going to be getting some of these substances in November. But I certainly won't need the agricultural quantities they're supplied in so if anyone fancies going shares with me it will split the costs and I can divvy them up into jamjars or other suitable containers and distribute.

Dynamec for onion and leek thrips

Jet 5 for sterilising your sand etc

Send me a mail if you're interested and i'll let you know in due course how much it'll be when I have final numbers.

Today's lesson is.....never play darts against Dave Thornton and let him do the scoring.

2011-09-20T17:04:00.000+01:00

Having put the village idiots from Yorkshire firmly in their place I now turn my attentions to Malvern and Westminster and my ongoing battle with Dave Thornton. He has built up a substantial lead of 440 points to 205, having originally claimed he had 500 points. It took several abusive emails to convince him he only had 440 the cheating twat. I managed to claim a couple of 80 point scores at Harrogate by coming 3rd with two collections. His face was a picture of disgust when I told him that a trug counts as a collection, a face that already had a quivering bottom lip as he came 4th with shallots for the second year running. He wins everywhere else but somehow not at Harrogate. It's hilarious actually.

I've decided to bench a couple of celery at Malvern. I had a stick in my collection at Harrogate and it didn't look as if it was in the wrong company so I'll give it a go and see how they compare. I've also got 4 sets of 3 potatoes for a potato collection which won't beat Sherie Plumb but you never know....they might just sneak into the tickets given a fair wind and a blind judge with a drink problem. I checked them at the weekend and they're still fairly blemish free (i've had a few go down with silver scurf during storage) and have reasonable uniformity although they're perhaps a little undersize to compete. But if you aint in it you can't win it!

Last night I went through all of my shallots and regraded them into the best set of nine, plus another set of 12 for the Malvern side which I managed to win last year. Tonight I'll go through my 250g onions as I want to stage a mini-collection which calls for 4 sets of 4 from stumps/spuds/beetroot/tomatoes/250g onions. Ideally you want to stage stumps (18 pointer) spuds (20 pointer) and tomatoes (18 pointer) amongst the four sets for definites. The fourth set needs to be between the beet and onions which are only 15 pointers. As my tomatoes are not quite ready I may need to stage both beet and onions which puts me at an immediate 3 point disadvantage but I have seen it done if the uniformity etc is good.

I'm expecting Dave to pick up good points at Malvern with shallots, long carrots, parsnips and the onion collection so I could really do with a bit of luck at Malvern in order to hang onto his coat tails until Westminster where I hope to be able to catch him up a bit with some tickets in the minor veg classes. This would piss him off enormously and also be very, very funny.

Farcical and evil

2011-09-19T16:47:00.001+01:00

With the Scottish Branch also holding their Championships over the weekend I've heard of several cases where people have had their produce stolen at the show breakdowns when the shout goes up that you can collect your stuff. This follows on from Llangollen where top showman Andrew Jones had one of his large exhibition onions swiped by a fellow exhibitor. This has got to be the lowest of the low, the perpetrator no doubt intending to seed his strain of onion for his/her won ends. At the weekend at Harrogate the 'uplift' descended into farce as several exhibitors had to have a tug-of-war as members of the public tried to swipe whatever they could get their hands on. When you have produce spread across a large venue you don't have a chance sometimes and at Malvern last year I had some Vento onions stolen. I always make sure I guard my shallots and Leesa will stand by something else but you cannot cover all bases.

It's about time the large show organisers emptied the hall/marquee and only allowed the exhibitors back in on presentation of a pass. We were actually given passes at Harrogate but never asked for them so what the hell is the point of doing it? It just descends into a free for all and several people lost veg. Dan lost a good stump carrot from his collection and in Scotland Ian Stocks lost his winning peas. In Scotland, as at Harrogate it can only have been a so-called 'fellow exhibitor'. Most of these guys will happily help you out with seed if you ask them nicely so why steal?

I'm dreading the Malvern breakdown because it's such a large venue that you have produce spread over a much larger area. I complained last year to Three Counties but never even got the decency of a reply. Shrewsbury Show has been blighted by this problem for many years despite Medwyn going public in GN about it. If I see any exhibitor swiping veg that does not belong to him/her I will have no hesitation in naming and shaming them on here. If necessary I am prepared to trade punches with anyone stupid enough to stand up to me. I'm a nasty little fucker when I need to be. You have been warned you scumbuckets.

Let's have a look at what you could have won!

2011-09-19T00:06:00.000+01:00

After only my 4th NVS show I feel a bit like an old hand now such is the friendship i've experienced at the highest level already. It really has been another top weekend and I'm already looking forward to meeting up with the gang again at Malvern next weekend. Aside from the Bullshit Bloggers Challenge which I won in magnificent style I had the following results;

I came 8th in the National Carrot Championships out of a dozen entries, typically just outside the sodding money! My entry is on the right next to Dave Thornton's 5th placed exhibit. His stumps were truly shocking but his long carrots were quite good I suppose!

My best placing was 2nd for these Sandrine lettuce, the roots having to be washed and placed into a jar of water. Returning to the show today I noticed that everyone else's lettuces had wilted and mine still looked as fresh as they did Friday morning.

I got 3rd in a mini-collection for 4 veg with a points value of 16 or under. I staged 3 Sandrine lettuce, 3 Pablo beet, 3 onions under 250g 'Setton' and 6 pickling shallots 'Hative de Niort'.

And at least I was beaten by one fellow blogger this weekend, James Park (Digtoplant) showing the Yorkshire bumboys how to do it with a 2nd placed trug (top of the photo) beating me into third( below it). This was actually Leesa's fault as she did the design work and threw it together on Friday night in about 10minutes. I really am getting sick to death of coming third with trugs so I'm hoping she pulls her bleeding finger out at Malvern next weekend.

There was quite a lot to see at Harrogate although it's nowhere near the size of Malvern. Pick of the exhibits for me was this stunning display of dahlias by Kent Dahlia Society I believe.

So that's Harrogate over with and I'll certainly be back. It's a long drive (they need to sort that exhibitor parking issue out!.......and also stop the thieving bastards nicking your stuff at the end!) but I earned 44 quid from a second and two thirds! Certainly beats breaking your neck at local shows, and getting a shed load of tickets for 20-30 quid!

So tonight I treated myself to a couple of bottles of my favourite tipple Snecklifter, Cockermouth's finest. It's certainly wasted on Cumbrian Jim Bowen looky likeys. Super smashing great.

Celt invasion

2011-09-17T11:00:00.000+01:00

I don't think there's any doubt that the best growers in Britain at the moment currently reside north of the border. I got to Harrogate at roughly the same time as Ian Simpson of Fife yesterday and he certainly created quite a buzz when he staged his carrots in the National Carrot Championships. They were heavy a long way down and well matched, and of course he's grown good stumps for a while now, winning the NATIONAL a few times. I reckon he is now on a par with Graham Watson's long carrots from a couple of season's ago.

In a disappointing display of WAG solidarity his partner Fiona reckoned my fruit cake last week was burnt! Pssh!

Best in Show however went to Bob Lind's leeks which made me realise how much work I have yet to do if my collection leek was worth 14 points. These were truly stunning and followed on from Eric Craik's win in the NATIONAL.

If Alistair Gray ever starts travelling south to other branch shows we're all screwed!

They know their onions

2011-09-17T09:31:00.001+01:00

I've got to mention again Paul and Dan's efforts at Harrogate. They say that Northern and Midland branches are the hardest to win tickets at (I reckon the scots will have something to say about that....see next post) but they both managed it this weekend.

Paul is only in his second year of showing and is already churning out quality stuff as can be seen with his 250g onions whick took 4th in a large class.

And i've been trying to convince Dan for a while that his onions deserve to be given a better forum than local shows. I was vindicated as he took 2nd in the 1kg to 1.5kg class.

For me the 6x1 class was all about getting them to exhibit at a higher level and I achieved that. And the 20 quid will come in handy......it means I can probably pay Dave Thornton as he increased his lead substantially!