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.