Planning for Sturton Show

No shows this weekend....a chance for a bit of a sit down perhaps? Not very likely though seeing as we have builders in and our house currently resembles the American mid-south dustbowl!

It's now a case of keeping my tomatoes, cucumbers and beans ticking over until the 6th October when I compete at my last show in the Lincolnshire village of Sturton by Stow. My cucumbers have been a real success story this year and they've obviously enjoyed the moist, warm conditions. At Sturton the class is for a single 'cu' so I don't need to match them up and will probably make 2 or 3 entries.

I picked a Tesco carrier bag full of runner beans two nights ago and there are plenty more beans around 2-3" long. These should be ok for Sturton and I'll keep a close eye on them from now on to make sure they grow straight and don't go 'beany'.

Sturton has several classes for cacti and succulents so I need to make sure they are all looking good. The pots need cleaning as several of them have spent the summer outside. I find this makes the foliage and flesh look clean and healthy and keeps mealy bug at bay. I have a bag of granite chippings that I use to cover the surface of the compost and give the plants a professional look.

The dahlias are now starting to give up some decent looking blooms and with Sturton in mind I must continue to disbud them so that I have plenty of good sized flowers in 2 weeks time. Hopefully we won't get an early frost between now and then. Since I've been growing dahlias for show the first frost has always been in early November so I should be ok. I've been very pleased with the variety Emma's Coronet which I first saw at Malvern last year (see pic above of the vase in question). It's a really 'zingy' pink...if there is such a thing!

My large onions are starting to wrinkle on their outer skins and some have actually cracked. Last night I removed one of these on a single onion and was quite pleased to find a nice, tight, reasonably ripe looking skin, so I shall do the same to all of the others and hopefully they'll look ok for Sturton.