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.