400 up!

Again not many successes at Sileby on Saturday, but my winning tomatoes signalled my 400th 1st place since I started showing in 1996. It's a very small show in only it's 2nd year after a break of ten or so years, but is going in the right direction with the people involved and will hopefully go from strength to strength.

Apparently many years ago it was a huge event and the whole village would turn out in their Sunday finest. We're a long cry from those heady days and I can only imagine what the local rivalries must have been like and I bet the quality was amazing, especially among the crysanth growers. I only know of a couple of local growers who show chrysanths these days and it seems to have become a bit of a dying art. As usual it was Mick Mills from East Leake who took all the awards at Sileby as he did at Seagrave with his superb 'crissies', pot leeks and potatoes. He's the man to beat as far as I'm concerned.

My '1sts' were for cucumbers, tomatoes, longest runner bean and pot plant. I managed a rather pleasing '2nd' for runner beans and a 3rd for my onions. With only one show left this season my tally of 35 wins so far is going to mean I will finish well down on last year's total of 62.....unless everyone else fails to turn up at Sturton! Having said that in many ways it's been a successful season despite the difficulties as my leeks, parsnips and onions have been my best ever so far. Some of my carrot entries have also been exceptional if lacking in uniformity from time to time. The important