Last show of the season

Tomorrow is my last show this season at the village of Sturton-by-Stow in Lincolnshire. As I said in the previous post it's been going over 119 years and is another well-run show organised by very nice people. They always make me feel very welcome, appreciating the fact that I have to travel over 50 miles in time to get there at 7.30 to start staging.

I have to be mega-organised for this one as I put in about 60 entries, so I have to get as much stuff ready in the days leading up to it as possible. I got up bright and early yesterday morning to pick a load of dahlias as heavy rain was forecast, which could have marked the blooms. My onions and shallots are all packed, my cacti top-dressed and the pots cleaned and my marrows cut. There are some jobs such as lifting the roots and cabbages which need to be done today otherwise they won't be as fresh as possible on the showbench. I've booked the afternoon off so that I can finish everything off and get the car loaded so that all I have to do in the morning is drive off.

The last job that I always leave as late as possible is washing the spuds. These have now been out of the ground stored in my garage in pots of peat for over 5 weeks now and will not be looking as fresh as they would have done a few weeks ago. Because of this they take a bit more 'scrubbing' and can show up bruises by tomorrow afternoon when the show is open to the public. This can cause some comments from people who cannot understand why mine have won. But what you have to bear in mind is that they probably were the best when they were judged. The judge cannot judge on what they might look like in 2 or 3 hours time. Similarly, you may see dahlias and chrysanths that are falling to pieces and yet they have a prize card against them. In those instances the exhibitor only just got away with it and staged his blooms at the last possible moments of their perfection before they started dropping petals. Seems unfair but that's 'showing' for you!

Pics above are one of me at a previous Sturton Show and one of my winning spud entries.