A challenging season

This is probably the most difficult growing season in my 12 years or so of showing. The hot dry Spring followed by the washout (so far) of a summer has bought just about every conceivable problem that a grower could face in a season, and this year I've come back off holiday to potato blight which is something I've never suffered from before.

My daughter's boyfriend did a fantastic job whilst I was away for 2 weeks (jeez it was hot in Rhodes!) but the damp conditions have made conditions perfect for blight to take hold. I was up at 4am the day we flew so that I could tick off a list of last minute jobs I wanted to do before we had to go to the airport at 7am......I got them all done except one....you guessed it....spraying my potatoes against blight! Every single plant is showing signs of it and the Winston spuds have totally collapsed. I doubt whether I'll be able to salvage any of them as once it takes hold there's absolutely nothing you can do. All of my outdoor cherry tomatoes (tomatoes are from the same plant family as spuds) have died also.

However, there are plusses to offset this and my large onions are still looking good. I've stripped back any split skins and shall be harvesting them in the next week or so. More on this with pictures at the time. My leeks are also excellent...by far the biggest I've ever had but leek moth has caused some foliage damage which I've sprayed against.

Celery is a bog plant in the wild so they are looking good, and I fully expect a good crop of runner beans although my plants are only about head height. And surprisingly, my long carrots and parsnips appear to be fit and healthy. Scaping sand from around the shoulders has revealed some clean looking and quite large specimens. Time will tell.

I now need to make sure everything I will need for the shows is ready to hand in the next few weeks.......e.g. raffia (for tying onions & shallots), onion display stands, 'Top Tray' boards, oasis for dahlias etc etc.

Brits abroad......a few personal comments

1) Just how pissed do you have to be before 'Karaoke' becomes a fun thing to watch let alone take part in?

2) Why am I the only British man over the age of 17 without a tattoo? I think it may be because I haven't taken the trouble to get lobotomised for the 20 minutes it takes to decide 'hey, I think I'll get a tattoo. It will look great and I won't look like a complete tw*t' ! (exception being the one in the Man Utd shirt who obviously must have had his done in a moment of inebriation after a famous win over the scouse scum)

3) Which of the words 'No' and 'Diving' when put together on a sign and posted several times around the edge of a pool do you fat, tattooed tossers not understand?

4) When semi-naked on sunbeds around the edge of a pool you cannot tell what people do for a living ....apart from the tattooed ones who are obviously either van drivers, builder's labourers or work in Halfords. So why do some pillocks feel the need to make a call on their mobiles to make themselves look important? By all means make the call but bugger off back to your room and do it in private. The tit lying next to me made a call to his work that went a long the lines of.....

'Hi, Gav it's Brian here...........BRIAN! (you know....your flaming boss you little dipshit)

Yeah mate great ta......just touching base on the Williams contract......sorry? (yeah I know you can cope perfectly well but I really need this conceited prat lying next to me, the one reading Kitchen Garden and who won the hotel quiz last night, that I'm a really important bloke ok?)

Oh right that's good news then. Why ring now? Oh no real reason....just wanted to get it out of my mind for the rest of the week. (and I know that at this very moment the MD is in the office on his weekly round and will overhear this conversation and think I'm the best sales manager ever, whilst the rest of you quite rightly know that I'm a complete f*ckwit!)'

5) Scousers and Londoners should never be allowed on holiday....ever. Their voices really annoy me.

That's it!

Right......enough!....I'm off on me hols and the veg is gonna have to survive now til I get back.......although I'm sure my daughter's boyfriend will keep things adequately ticking over till I return.

Wandering round the plot at dusk is very satisfying at the moment as everything is as it should be or better and I'm hopeful of being able to exhibit my best quality veg ever. The rain has helped create reasonable conditions but we now need some decent spells of sunshine.

So, unless Mr. Bin Laden and his rabble of assorted arseholes has worked out how to mix hydrogen peroxide and flour in the correct quantities I'll be back in 2 weeks time.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Pre-holiday overview

Long Carrots. Foliage looking strong on most specimens although at least 2 stations have succumbed to some form of pest or disease.Rain and winds battered them in June but they seem to have come through fairly unscathed.

Stump carrots. No problems.Foliage looking good

Parsnips. Foliage suffered in winds of late June and several large stalks broken. This will affect ultimate size.

Large onions. Still growing strongly. Biggest is 4" dia.

8oz onions. No problems now although 3 were lost to white rot a few weeks ago. Will probably start to reach harvesting size while I am away!

Shallots. All in trays on sawdust ripening. Good shape but only 9 are larger than pickling size. Should have good entries in pickling classes however.

Tomatoes. 6 plants up to top of the string with several good looking trusses on each. Later plants are struggling to catch up and may not make decent plants in time.

Cherry tomatoes. All growing outside this year. Slow due to wet, cold June but usually pick up quickly during July and August.

Potatoes. Winston foliage looking very poorly...perhaps due to waterlogging. Amour,Kestrel,Nadine and Maxine all growing very strongly. Needs spraying against blight.

Cucumbers. 5 planted but 1 died within hours! No other problems. Marrows. Planted 3 weeks ago but have not strated to climb yet.

Courgettes. Planted several weeks ago but very little growth made. As with marrows I expect these to suddenly take off.

Runner beans. Planted in last 2 weeks only. No problems so far. Better fence erected.

French beans. No problems so far especially with 'Prince'. Only had one seed germinated from 'Purple Speckled' so more stock will have to be purchased next season.

Beetroot. Just been thinned out. Mangold fly attacks a problem again.

Celery. Looking good so far.Taking off collars and examining more regularly than usual.Leeks. Biggest ever. Some sign of leek moth caterpillar damage but otherwise no problems.Cabbages. A few slug holes but no sign of caterpillars yet. Rhubarb spray seems to be working.Large variety 'Brigadier' looks as if it could be exceptional. Kilaxy struggled at first but appears to be ok now.Caulis. Planted in pockets of ground alonside leeks and Tasco onions. Foliage ok so far.Some have been lost presumably to cabbage fly despite powders being applied at soil level. Really need more ground to be able to grow successfully.Brussels. Green brussels 'Brilliant' as expected. Red brussel 'Rubine' lookes very good.Peppers. Plants are all in large pots and appear in good health.Aubergines. In pots in greenhouse.No fruits showing yet but quite a few flowers.Lettuce. 2 trays of seedlings will be planted after holiday as and when space becomes free.Peas. Complete non-germination.Old seed.Radish.First sowings will be made this week then successional sowings at 2 week intervals.Pumpkin. 3 plants planted but only one looks any good. No pumpkin set as yet. Will only grow some smaller fruits for the 'any other veg' classes.Swiss chard. Poor looking plants.Okra. In pots in greenhouse. Plants look better than last year. Don't like to be too wet.Hot peppers. In pots in greenhouse. Plenty of flowers.Purple carrots. Foliage looking good. Will be interesting.Purple caulis. Foliage good. Grown as novelty only for the trug class but may try them against their white counterparts if any are ready. Should make the judge earn his corn.Long beetroot. Only growing 6 stations in a spare drum. Some mangold fly attack. Will probably use for 'any other veg' class where round beetroot are specified in the schedule.Heavy carrot. 4 large pots with carrot grown for weight only in greenhouse. Impossible to tell if they will be any good but seem ok so far.Longest beans. Growing specialist strains of runner and french beans for length only.Runners are ok so far but french ('Yardlong') beans appear to be suffering from some form of chocolate spot disease.Dahlias. Cuttings were very late again and growth is very slow apart from 'Jomanda' which seems robust as usual.Fuchsias. Poor summer had helped in as much as low light levels had resulted in lush looking foliage.

Only a few more days to our holiday.........got our tickets yesterday at last ! Everywhere I look I see little jobs that I MUST do before I leave......if only it would stop raining !

I've managed to finish some wooden and mesh frames to go around my stump rooted carrots in the slab beds. These will be an absolute godsend for keeping the local neighbourhood cats from digging in the sand and leaving me little deposits. The sand in the stump carrot beds needs to be kept reasonably moist as opposed to the long carrots where you try to keep it dry. The best 'stumps' are about 6-10" long to the stump end before the fine hair like tap root starts. If you keep the bed dry the stump will end up longer than necessary and be harder to match up.

As you can see my onions are also continuing to swell nicely. The biggest is now 4" diameter which is as big as I've harvested them in the past. I have at least another 3 weeks growth left so I reckon they'll be 5-6" dia. by then as there is plenty of vigour and life in the foliage yet. That won't be huge......say 2-3lbs.......but the quality is very good and that is the most important thing. I'll try and harvest them over a period of a week or so to try and let some catch up with the ones harvested first. I think I should have about a dozen to select from............but trying to get 5 matching onions from such a small quantity won't be that easy. Some will be slightly taller, some may have flattened bases, some may not be exactly symmetrical.

More effort required with 'runners'

My runner beans seem healthy although they've only been in the ground a couple of weeks. I made the mistake last year of rushing my bean fence with the result it was a botched affair that fell down at the first puff of wind. I was then constantly having to do running repairs and the beans never came to anything much. This time I have made sure they are fixed to stout metal rods and should not fall down.

I like to angle my canes at about 20-25 degrees from the vertical so that I can make sure the developing beans hang down from the foliage and do not become unduly bent. This means checking daily so as to extricate the trusses of beans early on in their development so that they can grow as straight as possible with the minimum of manipulation. When they are small it's a lot easier to straighten them. A bean that is a couple of inches long 2 weeks before show day should be the aim.

You need to pick daily to discard any beans that will never make the grade so that the plants continue to produce new beans. Aim for beans 12" (minimum) to 18" (ideal) on show day, each pod showing no sign of the actual beans i.e. 'being 'bumpy'. They have to be uniform of colour and freshness which means you really have to be on top of the watering. A judge will always snap one of your beans in half. If your bean is stringy it will be downpointed and could mean the difference between first and second place....or even worse! Beans should be laid flat on the bench, or on pieces of back painted board, all facing the same way in order to highlight their uniformity.

He's finally lost it mum !

A class at a local show for a 'plant in an unusual container' always gets me trying to think of a madcap idea. Last year I won with a hosta in a slug pellet container (geddit?) and this year I'm going for a marigold in a marigold (geddit?) Ah well......you're probably with the kids on that one then....they looked at me gone out too!

As I write it's raining again although it's been a fine weekend and I've got loads done....but I needed to as we fly off to sunny Rhodes this coming Saturday. It's gonna be a fortnight of lying on a sunlounger wondering if my daughter and her boyfriend are really looking after my veg while I'm away. However, I reckon by the time I come back England will consist of the top 100 foot or so of Scafell Pike if this rain keeps up !!!

Everything has now been planted apart from a few trays of lettuce and caulis which will be ready for planting when I come back. Then it'll be a matter of keeping everything ticking over until the first shows at the end of August and making sure I have all the necessary paraphernalia to hand.....things such as raffia for tying onions, string for tying beetroot foliage, oasis for displaying dahlias, display boards for the Top Tray classes etc etc.

However, I have a list of jobs to do before I fly to make sure my under gardeners have a relatively easy 2 weeks babysitting my prize veg and flowers. I have to make sure all the stakes and strings are in place for my dahlias and potatoes, that my tomato feeds are at hand, that the caulis and cabbages are given a last blast of insecticide.....oh I could go on forever!

Leeks best ever?

My leeks are as big now as any that I showed last season. And with at a couple of months to go until the first shows I'm hopeful of having some decent entries to compete against the regular leek growers. If I can keep rust and the leek moth at bay

Dilemma

I got a schedule through the post yesterday for a show I've never entered before but it looks very interesting. The range of classes looks quite a challenge and I know that it's quite well supported. The problem is it clashes with another show that I've done for several years......however, it's one that appears to be dying on it's feet because of the attiude of some of its committee. I won 11 classes a few years ago but 7 were only entries! You get no satisfaction in those circumstances. And when a friend overhears someone in a pub moaning about the fact that I won 5 trophies it does make you wonder why you bother......if I don't enter all the stuff I do then the show would be a greatly reduced spectacle.

No more rain.......pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!

This is getting serious now. It's been raining on and off for about a month it seems with little sunshine to offset the gloom. If we get sun now I think we'll be in for some superb exhibits on the show bench but much more and things are going to just sit still and rot. My long carrots are looking particularly sorry for themselves and I wonder whether they will produce long tapering specimens as the sand is so saturated meaning that they have no real need to go down in search of moisture. Time will tell.

My cabbages however have really perked up. A few weeks ago they seemed to be suffering some form of virus attack with yellow, veiny foliage. However, I also thought it might just be magnesium deficiency and so watered with a solution of epsom salts. Lo and behold.....all foliage is now a nice, bright green colour.

The pic shows my Brigadier cabbages in a raised bed next to the waterlogged path next to my garage

Had this in an email today!

MISSING!!! - ROUND YELLOW THING USUALLY FLOATS AROUND IN THE SKY & ANSWERS TO THE NAME OF ''SUN''

IF U SEE HIM TELL HIM IT'S F***ING JULY!!!

HERE'S A SKETCH ARTIST'S IMPRESSION RELEASED BY THE POLICE TODAY!!!

White rot

Me and my big gob! No sooner had I said everything in the garden was rosy than I lose one of my onions to white rot, a cucumber plant suddenly wilts and shows no sign of recovering, whitefly are spotted in the greenhouse for the first time and some unknown animal is digging in my potato bags !




The biggest concern is the onions. I noticed fluffy white mould at the base of one of the smaller onions and as soon as I applied the slightest pressure it came away from the soil in my hand, the roots having rotted to virtually nothing. The larger onions are looking fine thus far but white rot (or snot nose as some call it round here) can soon spread through your bed. The 'special' powder I applied back in February has obviously not been 100% successful so I'll need to apply more in the autumn.




The 'cu' is a mystery....but I find cu's usually are! They're fickle creatures at the best of times. I'll just have to hope my other 4 plants continue to thrive.




The whitefly in the greenhouse needs careful attention. Once they take hold your plants can soon become invested and get covered in a black mould caused by their excretions. I usually grow marigolds next to my tomato plants but this year haven't done so. So far they appear to be confined to one leaf.....hopefully a zap of pesticide did the trick.




Whatever is digging in my garden is a bloody nuisance. I think it's a fox or a badger. Anyone who thinks foxes and badger in towns and cities is good news wants shooting in the middle of their face.

RIP Bill & Ben !

What a few days ! In the grand scheme of things my two 8 year old ferrets (Bill and Ben) both dying within 4 days of each other may not seem that important.....one had to be put down last Saturday and the other one went downhill fast and I had to finish him off on Thursday night. (Above is the only pic I have of one of them......I could never get them to stay still long enough to take a decent photo!)

On Friday I learnt my step sister had been diagnosed with MS........

On Saturday afternoon my brother had checked in at Glasgow Airport 20 minuytes before those Muslim scumbags tried to blow them to kingdom come.........

On Sunday morning I learnt that someone I know and can't stand has somehow managed to afford to go abroad on a foreign holiday with his second wife and kids despite being a workshy git who says he cannot pay for the upkeep of his 3 kids from his first marriage (Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

But on some lighter notes.....we can now all go for a pint and not come out of the pub stinking of some other dirty bastard's faggy breath. And my daughter Heather has started her job at a solicitor's today.