Growing peas for show

If anyone's ever wondered why peas are a '20 pointer' under show ratings as they've always found them easy to grow........just try getting them to come good at the end of August onwards. It's much more difficult to get good quality peas later in the season, hence why they are valued so much.

I've only ever managed to show one set of peas before and did come first with them........but alas they were the only entry in the class! Most 'Showers' grow the variety Show Perfection which takes about 90 days from sowing to showing. I sowed mine at the beginning of June but they haven't come through yet....so it'll be another pea-less season for me I fear.

Instead of growing through chicken wire or letting them scramble up peas sticks they are grown singly against canes in cordon fashion. All the tendrils are cut off and the peas tied to the canes as they grow, in much the same way as you might grow sweet peas. The flowers need to be snipped off until about 3 weeks before show day.

Mildew is usually a problem with growing peas that late in the season and the plants would need to be sprayed against that. Growing so late means pea moth is not usually a problem however. They need to be cut at their optimum size (6-8" long preferably) and can be cut up to 3 or 4 days before the show and stored out of sunlight in a dark place. Never handle the pea pods......hold them by their stalks and cut as much stalk as possible. This way the 'bloom' stays fresh. Some growers go as far as storing them on a bed of nettles until show day. Ideally the tiny little remnants of the flower should still be showing at the bottom end of the pod. They can be staged on paper plates but they look best when staged side by side on specially made black boards.

When it all comes right on the day!

The whole country seems to be under water and my garden has been no exception. Thankfully, things aren't as bad in Leicesterhsire as they are in Yorkshire. However, I still have several puddles of standing water around the garden which is unheard of for mid-June.

As I said the other day, rain gives plants a nitrogen boost and my potato foliage in particular is now looking really bright and fresh. I'll need to put canes around them with horizontal strings to support the foliage.

My first 12 runner bean plants went in last night, each one planted against stout canes. It's probably the latest I've ever planted but I know they'll romp away now, especially as the soil is so wet. As I grow mainly for show I need my beans to be available from the end of August into early October so I didn't sow mine until the last couple of weeks or so. I made sure I scattered some slug pellets around them as slugs and snails love the tender, young shoots of runner beans.

After that it's all just a matter of 'titivating' the plot and making sure things keep ticking away until showtime. By titivating I mean feeding when necessary, weeding, spraying against fungus or pest, nipping out tomato sideshoots, tying up cucs and tomatoes, taking off collars and inspecting leeks and celery, harvesting and ripening onions, etc etc etc.Hopefully, when it all comes to the end of August it has all been timed to perfection and you can enjoy plenty of red cards.

Looking back through some old photos yesterday I came across the one above from Sturton Show a few years ago of my 1st (and 2nd) prize winning carrots which won me 'best in show'. I grow about 35 long carrots and exhibit about 21 or so at the various shows I enter. When 'pulling' a set for a show you may have to pull 4 or 5 or even 6 to get a matching set of 3. Or you may be really lucky and get a set of 3 from the first 3 you pull. The year of the photo I'd had a particularly good year with my carrots and had plenty left to choose from for Sturton which is my last show........enough to put in 2 entries of 3 and get first and second. Sometimes, it really does come good on the day.

Tomato update

My tomatoes last year were the best I'd ever grown and came about because of my desire to beat my friend Wendy at long last! There was only so much ridicule I could take each year! I therefore devoted far more time to them than I had ever done previously, to the detriment of some of my other veg, especially runner beans.

Having 'nailed' them last year this year should be easier.....but it hasn't been so. Because I had poor germination (only 6 came through on the original batch) I had to hurriedly sow some more in late April and these are well behind the others.......but I should get a longer cropping season because of that, and give me a better choice for the October shows. In many ways it has also helped my onions because they are all growing in the same greenhouse border......if I had planted all 14 or so tomato plants together the onions would now be getting swamped and therefore not ripen properly. So, by accident I may have stumbled upon the way I will grow them in future years.

I use three different feeds in alternation as soon as the first tomato is about the size of a pea. The first is the usual tomato feeds you can buy anywhere. The other two are liquid feeds I make from fermented comfrey leaves and nettle leaves that have rotted down in buckets of water for a few weeks. The 'stews' are sieved off and the resultant liquids bottled up. A splash of each feed is put into a watering can at each watering.

I water and feed into half lemonade bottles sunk into the soil next to each plant. This way the water gets straight to the roots and the topsoil is kept dry. This is because tomatoes hate dampness and much prefer hot, dry conditions. This is especially important nearer show time as any moisture in the greenhouse could settle on the ripe fruits and cause what are known as 'ghost spots' which are basically tide marks.....you would be downpointed for this on the showbench.

Again.....as with everything involved with 'showing' it seems an awful lot of effort to go to but when the judge is looking to decide between 2 or 3 'dishes' things like that can make all the difference.

3rd in a one horse race!

This pic shows my 3rd prize winning entry at a show a few years back. Nothing unusual in that perhaps except it was the only entry in the class ! How can this be so you may wonder?

Well, on this occasion the judge decided that my entry wasn't up to the standard he would have expected to find had the class been better supported. He considered that under normal circumstances I might only have merited a 3rd place and judged accordingly.

This is a contentious issue as some people think it's not fair on newcomers to the show scene who may be put off from entering in the future due to the perceived humiliation of such a decision. Luckily, I was happy with the decision as the celery wasn't in brilliant condition and had a spot of celery heart rot. As a reasonably experienced exhibitor I was half prepared and would even have accepted disqualification.

Just because you may be the only entry in a class don't expect to automatically come back to a 'red card'.

Rain is good and bad.

We seem to have had incessant rain for nearly 2 weeks now..........which has good and bad points for the garden at this time of year. Rain gives plants a nitrogen boost so that when the sun does shine (it will....won't it?) the plants will race away and grow very lush, very quickly. The problem is it will be soft, sappy growth that slugs (apply pellets!) and aphids love. So you'll need to be armed with your spray guns ready to zap any clusters of green and blackfly before they can do too much damage.




In between showers yesterday I had to pull a leek that just hadn't grown anywhere as fast as all the others. On closer inspection it appeared to be rotting at the base. All the others seem to be growing strongly so I think it's just one of those things. The area it grew was sterilized with Jeyes fluid and I'll wait a few days and plant a cauliflower or something in it's place......I don't let any piece of spare land go to waste even if the ruins the aesthetics of the plot !




I'd worried that my onions weren't growing as I'd hoped but over the weekend my wife and a neighbour both commented how much they'd swelled since they'd last seen them a few days earlier which pleased me.....when you're seeing them every day you don't appreciate how much they've grown.



Everything is now planted apart from my runner beans and cucumbers. I'll construct the bean fence tomorrow evening.....taking great care to make it a lot more robust than last year's sorry effort when it kept blowing down or coming apart. The cucs will be planted into the border soil in one of my greenhouses at the weekend.



We're on holiday in 3 weeks time so I need to be really on top of everything and make sure everything is in place for my daughter's boyfriend to look after things while we're away. He's never done anything like this before so I'll leave him detailed but simple instructions with a list of jobs to do on a daily basis. All my spray bottles and homemade feeds will have to be clearly labelled so that no mistakes can be made!




I also have a vist from a horticultural society in the next week........I was asked if they could bring round some younger members and people who want to start showing. So I want to make sure the garden is as pristine as possible in order to make a good impression.

In defence of pellets

Here is a picture of a patch of hostas at the side of my house. There isn't a hole from slug or snail damage anywhere to be seen. The reason? I use SLUG PELLETS!

I hate snails. If I never saw another snail for the rest of my life I'd be happy. Quite how those weird french bleeders can eat them by the bucket load is beyond me. But then we did have to bail the workshy twats out of two World Wars.

If I didn't use pellets this patch of hostas (not to mention my cabbages, beans, lettuce etc) would be reduced to stalks as the snotty little sods march over them unchecked. The various solutions offered up by the yippee-hippee, organic, 'thou shalt not' brigade do NOT work. These include using layers of grit, eggshells, bran and beertraps. Why anyone would want to waste beer in such a way is beyond me. And who the hell has enough time to crush enough fecking eggshells to lay a carpet of them for God's sake?

No......believe me.....slug pellets are the only 100% solution. However, if one of the eco MENTALISTS happens to be mincing past your garden putting everyone else's world to rights just as you happen to be spreading a few pellets over your very own little patch of world, he/she will scowl at you from under their psychedelic bobble hat, snort down their pierced nose at you and puff out their chest exhibiting a CND or Greenham Common tattoo. They will bang on at you about how you're killing the environment because birds, hedgehogs, cats and dogs will be poisoned by your little blue Hiroshimas.

Over the years I have developed a way of skilfully counteracting their arguments. I tell them to f*ck off.

Slugs and snails seem to be drawn to crawl over pellets as if they're in a sort of death trance. Death is quick. And it's satisfying. But a slug or snail that has died this way does not get immediately devoured by the next passing hedgehog, frog or bird.....and how many dogs do you know that eat soil? Instead the carcasses lie there untouched for weeks, festering away. And even if a hedgehog was daft enough to eat it, then it's been estimated that they would need to eat another 9,999 for it to do it any harm !

Nice shape but poor size

The pots my shallots were growing in were lifted a week ago and stored in my greenhouse so that no more water could get to them. This is so that they stop growing and ripen off properly. (See top pic)

The second pic shows how each pot was thinned down to 2 back in mid-April. The idea was that each bulb can grow larger and produce a better more rounded shape. This hasn't worked out. The shape is fine but as you can see from pic. 3 they're not that large and I shall have to re-evaluate how I do it next season. I think I will need to get a new stock of shallots from a champion grower.

The final pic shows the shallots having had their roots trimmed in a tray ready to allow the foliage to die back. I'll leave this in my greenhouse with a sack over them so that they don't scorch and wrinkle. Like I said, I was very happy with the shape so I'm confident the method is good......I just need to work out how to make them bigger. Ideally they need to be twice this size in top competition.

However, on the plus point I'll have plenty to select from for the pickling shallot classes ! A word of warning however, if you enter this class at your local show....check the schedule carefully. This is because some shows work to RHS rules whereby the shallot has to pass through a 25mm ring, and others work to NVS rules where a 30mm ring is used. If you enter 30mm shallots in a show where the 25mm ring applies they'll be disqualified. And if you enter 25mm shallots in a show where the 30mm rule applies you'll lose points for size! I grade my pickling shallots so that I know exactly which tray to make my final selection from before a show.

Problems, problems !

At the weekend it was the Sutton Bonington garden walkabout (I live in Loughborough) and we took the opportunity of a few hours away from the plot to walk around the village noseying at other folks' gardens.....and some of them were quite stunning.

Anyways, when we got to the garden of the Secretary of the Hort Soc committee he (Frank) took me round the garden of my closest competitor in the carrot and parsnip classes who happened to be on holiday that weekend, as Frank was looking after his garden whilst he was away.

I was 'upset' to see that his carrots and parsnips seemed to be faring better than mine and the foliage looked more advanced and a lot stronger. Of course, with the root crops you can never tell until show day whether you have a good specimen or not.....unless you have x-ray eyes and can see through the soil or the sand in the drums.

I got to thinking about this later on in the evening whilst watching the 'Great British Village Show' on BBC1, when a chap was 'joking' about 'accidentally treading on a fellow competitor's pumpkin plant. Whilst I think he was joking, cheating and sabotage does go on in the show world and I've been subjected to it myself. But walking round that chap's garden in the afternoon the thought had never entered my head to do anything untoward to his produce. Seeing how good his stuff looked only made me realise I have a lot of hard work to do between now and show day to beat him.....but if he beats me then fantastic. The more competition there is the better for the future of 'growing for show'.

On another note, we've had so much rain here in Leicestershire this past week that my produce was in danger of drowning. It's certainly different from this time last year when the soil was so dry. One advantage of the rain is that I can continue to plant things like marrows, beans and courgettes in order to get a continuous cycle of produce over the growing season. Last year if it hadn't been planted by now you were wasting your time even thinking about it.

I don't know if the incessant rain has caused this but 2 of my long carrots have collapsed in their growing stations. You always lose a few to some form of disease or cultural disorder during the season and you get used to it. But this only leaves me with about 30........and I need about 20 at all the shows I plan to enter....and some of the remaining ones are bound to be below standard.

Top Tray

After a weekend of heavy rain not much could be done on the plot so thoughts turned to the shows. The Show Schedules should start dropping through the letter box soon.

At most shows you will see a class called 'Top Tray', which is often popular and well contested.

This is for 3 sets of vegetables chosen from a list as follows:

3 onions

3 potatoes

6 pods peas

6 runner beans

6 tomatoes

3 caulis

3 carrots (foliage cut back to 3")

3 parsnips (foliage cut back to 3")

The veg must be displayed within an area of 24"x18" which is usually a piece of board cut to the required dimension with a lip all round. Alternatively, a piece of cloth can be used. No 'aids' such as onion rings are allowed and the carrots and parsnips cannot be bent round to fit within the allotted space......so sometimes you have to cut the tails of the roots down to size.

It was originally sponsored by Garden News and a seed company, and seed vouchers and small medals were competed for. Lots of shows have kept the class and now have a specific trophy for it.

It can be a popular class for beginners but you should still bear in mind that good quality veg needs to be shown. Each set of veg will be marked out of 20 points according to RHS rules, and the tray with most points wins first prize. The pic shows one of my winning 'Trays' at Sutton Bonington Show......I got 10 points for my onions and potatoes and 13 for my carrots. Not a brilliant total and perhaps a bit harsh but good enough on the day. It just goes to show how difficult it is to get anywhere near full marks for a 'dish'. I think the most I've ever scored was 15 for tomatoes last year.

First courgettes planted

I planted my first courgettes last night, the variety 'One Ball' which gives round, green fruits. I have another variety 'Orelia' to plant which are narrow, yellow fruits like Chinamen's willies !

Although these are specifically bred to be 'courgettes' in actuality if you leave them they will grow into small marrows so the idea is to pick them as soon as they are a few inches long for optimum yield. In the past I've actually exhibited 'courgettes' (and won with them) by picking small fruits of my marrow plants.

For 'show' purposes you need to select 3 (or however many the schedule asks for) and try and ensure the flower is still attached to the end. This needs to be done as near to show day as possible, certainly no more than 3 days before. You may have to pick one on the Thursday and wait until Saturday for another 2 to match. Cut with about 20mm of stalk and stage on paper plates all facing the same way.

Happy Birthday Mongo!

Happy 17th Birthday to my 'least favourite daughter' Jennifer. xxx

Thinning tomato trusses

When showing veg different veg have different attributes and one of the requirements of tomatoes is that they should be as round as possible. One thing I noticed last year was that many of mine had flattish sides where they were resting against their neighbours on the truss. As I fed them well they grew larger than usual so there was more tendency for them to touch.

I've since found out that the top growers will thin the trusses as soon as the developing tomatoes are the size of a pea to give each fruit more room and hopefully prevent flat side syndrome.

The bottom pic shows one of the trusses I have thinned this year. If you look at the top pic which shows some of my crop from last year....you can clearly see how crowded they get so it is inevitable they will not all end up a uniform, round shape.

My babies!

First rooted dahlias

Last weekend I managed to get some rooted dahlia cuttings potted on at last. The pic shows me giving them a tug to make sure they had rooted, but there were also quite a few roots coming out of the bottom of the pots. I like to pot them on even if they're only in the pot for a week or so before planting out, as I like the plants to make a good root system before I plant them in the soil.

When I plant them out I'll probably nip the tops out to make them branch, and put a stake against each plant. Further stakes will be put all the way around the bed and a series of strings wound round so that there are plenty of supports for when the plants get big. They topple over quite easily and any flowering stems can break or end up as funny shapes......you need straight, stout stems for exhibition purposes.

Potato Amour

Finally, finally, finally.......I managed to get a couple of rows of my final potato variety in last night. The variety is Amour which I grew for the first time last year and was most impressed by it's form and colour. Sadly however, it's no longer commercially available so this will be the last year you can buy it officially....so I'll have to save a few tubers from this year's crop and hope they stay virus free.

The only problem I experienced with it last year is that the foliage seemed to stay strong for ages.......well into September........so I would have like to have got it in at least 2 weeks ago. However, the condition of the seed tubers of my other varieties dictated that they had to be planted first....the Amour looked as fresh as the day I bought them back in March.

As you can see from the pic they are a rounded shape, white fleshed with pink splashes around the eyes. They were incredibly easy to clean up also.

Caulis

I've never really successfully managed to grow cauliflowers for show so I'm hoping to do better this year. They're generally accepted as one of the more difficult veg to grow well and timing is often the thing that lets you down. You always seem to have one ready on show day without a partner to match it or else you have 2 perfect 3 or 4 days before the show!

They also like lots of bulky organic matter digging into the beds in the previous autumn, but because I don't have a piece of ground I can keep free for them they invariably have to go in where something else has been grown and since harvested, meaning the soil has been depleted of nutrients. I'll be planting my caulis within the next couple of weeks.....they're only 2" high seedlings at the moment. You can reckon on 12-14 weeks or so from sowing to showing with caulis but it all depends on conditions. In hot summers you really have to give them plenty of water in order for them to develop large, solid curds.

You are out there!

I sometimes write this and wonder wherher anyone is actually reading it......and then you get an email or two from fellow growers !

So hi there to Debbie (see link at the side) and Mel at Sileby.....sorry I only just noticed your comments on previous posts.

If anyone's around at 6.50 then make sure you watch 'The Great British Village Show' on BBC1. It's a bit of a contrived set of shows to 'big up' the art of growing/cooking/flower arranging etc for your local show and some moments on last week's show was a bit cringe-worthy but Alan Titchmarsh is presenting it

Cabbage update

I've not shown my cabbages on here for a while. The variety in the picture is Brigadier which can grow to huge proportions but with good form and quality also. You may be able to notice a series of strings suspended above them which is there to deter pigeons. The don't like to have obstructions above them apparently as it means they may get caught if they have to do an emegency take off if an angry gardener comes down the garden at them! In the past I've planted my cabbages and retired to the house for a quick cuppa, only to return half an hour later to find my newly planted seedlings have all been eaten! Pigeons SUCK!

The only problem now will be to keep cabbage white caterpillars away and I plan to do this with a spraying made from a solution containing rhubabrd leaves. The butterflies hate the smell (allegedly) and won't lay eggs on leaves that have been watered with s

Potato update

My first potatoes planted at the beginning of May are now about 8" high in the polybags filled with sieved peat. I'll need to put canes around the bags soon and tie strings across and around to support the foliage before it gets too tall. The canes placed over the pots in the pic are to stop cats digging in the peat.......soddin buggers!

Before the foliage gets too long I'll also just have to top up the bags with more sieved peat to give the optimum growing area for the tubers to swell into. Then it's just a matter of making sure they get plenty of water.

Progress update

Long carrots Foliage looking good and a good 8-10" long.

Stump carrots Thinned to one per station. Foliage 2" high. No problems so far (Heracles)

Parsnips Erratic growth but few problems otherwise. Sprayed against aphids twice already.

Large Onions In greenhouse......very good foliage and starting to swell.

8oz onions Planted outside and growth as usual. (var.Tasco)

Shallots About ready for lifting but size disappointing. Foliage has been poor.

Tomatoes 6 plants of 'Cedrico' in greenhouse. 2' high and 2 flower trusses. 6 smaller plants to go in this weekend.

Cherry toms 'Gardeners Delight' and 'Sungold' planted in row outside next to leek bed. 10" high no flowers yet.

Leeks Already on 18" collars and 1" dia. No problems with foliage yet.

Beetroot Successional sowings 'Pablo' from early May. Most seem to have germinated.

Cabbages 'Brigadier' looking very good. 'Kilaxy' may have succumbed to a virus as leaf edges crinkled and yellowing. Red Cabbage 'Maestro' also looking good.

Brussels 'Brilliant' starting to grow well.

Caulis Still in cells in greenhouse. Will be planted out in place of lifted shallots.

Runner beans First sowing of 'Enorma' made 2 nights ago in pots. 2nd sowing in a week or so.

French beans First sowings will be this weekend. 'The Prince' & 'Purple Speckled'

Cucumber 'Carmen' will be sown this weekend.

Marrows First sowing made last night 'Blyton Belle'

Courgettes 'Orelia' and 'One Ball' germinated in pots in greenhouse

Pumpkin Plants ready for planting

Potatoes 4 varieties 'Winston', 'Kestrel', 'Nadine', and 'Maxine' planted and through compost in varying stages. 'Amour' to plant this weekend but would have liked to have had them in at least a fortnight ago.

Peppers Planted in large pots. 'Californian Wonder' and 'Sweet Spot'

Many other veg in various stages on and around the plot.

Latest on long carrots

The long carrots have also put on decent growth and they should get away well from now on. A spray with insecticide may be required if greenfly descend but they don't usually go for carrots I tend to find, preferring my parsnips next door. However, slugs and snails are a different proposition and I have to scatter pellets over the tops of the drums to kill them.......whoever says slugs and snails don't like to crawl over coarse materials is talking out of his chocolate starfish!

Unlike most veg, with roots you don't really know until Show day whether you have some good exhibits or not. They may have forked halfway down or be bent etc. But hopefully the preparation you did in the early Spring means that the hard work has been done and the tap roots are now going down deep into the growing medium ready to put on good weight during the Summer.

I will scatter some special powder that I've bought called Rovril during late June and late August to try and deter the carrot root fly. It's not available to the general public (don't ask how I came by some!) and stinks to high heaven. You just scatter a few grains around the crown of each carrot and the root fly won't come anywhere near it......we shall see!

Onions starting to excite me !!!

The onions I purchased back in March have put on exceptional growth.....compared to what I've been used to at any rate. You can almost see the difference daily. I've only ever managed to get them to a couple of pounds but I feel sure these will excel that easily.

The key now is to keep them growing upright in order to keep them symmetrical in outline when harvested. I won't liquid feed except perhaps for some phostrogen towards the end of June to assist with the ripening process. All being well I'll start to harvest during late July.....which won't be easy as I'll be on holiday in Rhodes so I'm hoping my daughter's boyfriend will

Showing Tips

I'm quite proud of this..........I've prepared it for inclusion on the website of Sutton Bonington Show.



http://www.calypso.fsnet.co.uk/Guidelines%20for%20Exhibiting.pdf

Get planting

The risk of a late frost should now be over with.......so now's the time to be planting all the tender veg such as courgettes, marrows, lettuces, runner and french beans, as well as all your bedding plants.

Having said that, as I grow for show I haven't even sown my beans yet. I'll be sowing my runner beans in pots tonight. I find that you have better results if you plant out strong plants and germination is more or less guaranteed. They soon make good strong growth and allows me more time to prepare my supports properly. The variety I grow is ENORMA.

My french beans will not go in for at least another week as these only need 8 to 10 weeks from sowing to cropping. I'll be growing THE PRINCE and PURPLE SPECKLED. I'm even toying with the idea of growing these in large pots to make picking easier and to keep them out of reach of slugs.

After my weekend away I've had to throw away several trays of veg and bedding plants.....that's what you get if you leave the watering duties to an airhead of an 18 year old daughter !