Dressing onions Part 2

Here is one of my smaller onions for the 8oz class, the variety Tasco. On these I favour a shorter raffia 'tie' of no more than 1/2 an inch.

Note how symmetrical the onion looks also......the judge will imagine a line going down through the onion and will not want to see a bulbous specimen that is bulbous or the main stalk not central.

How to 'dress' onions

There was a letter in Garden News last week from a lady asking how she should tie and display her onions. The picture at the top (one I found on the internet) illustrates what I consider to be a poorly presented pair of onions. The shame is they had great potential to be an excellent exhibit but the necks have been cut far too close to the 'shoulder' giving them an awkward appearance. They are also far too 'green' and should have been lifted earlier so that the skins had time to ripen.

The bottom pic shows one of my onions tied with raffia and cut a quarter of an inch or so past the top of the raffia. Some exhibitors bend the tops over and tie raffia over this double thickness of stalk but I don't think that ever looks very neat. As you can see the nut brown colour is more appealing although this onion has been lifted since early August and is now starting to wrinkle and show its age. I just pulled it out of our veg basket to illustrate this posting.

Onions should be exhibited on specially made stands with rings to support the bases and black cloth thrown over the lot to hide the often ugly contraptions. Alternatively, trays of DRY sand can be used....if you use wet sand the onions may start to root or rot can be induced into the base. Again the pair at the top doesn't quite work on the shallow silver tray somehow......although having said that it did win.....the rest of the entries cannot have been up to much.

Besiktas 2 Liverpool 1

Hehehehehe....once again I'm soooo happy.

p.s. I WILL get back to veg growing very soon but at the moment I'm desperately trying to get our house back into some sort of liveableness (is that a real word?) after our recent building work. I'm still finding bits of brick dust in my arse crack......it gets absolutely everywhere!

Just a reminder to get those seeds, tatties and onion sets ordered asap before they get sold out. I'm told that leek pips

More time for walking

Had a fantastic day's walking yesterday in Derbyshire, the first time I've managed to get out since before the shows started. The pic shows me inching towards the edge of Long Cliffe above Speedwell Cavern, trying to ignore the shouts of 'a bit further' from my mate taking the picture.

From here we went onto Mam Tor and then completed the ridge to Back Tor and Lose Hill back to Hope near Castleton for a well-earned pint, a total distance of about 8.5 miles. The sun shone and the wind kept away making it a stunning day for walking.

A marrow escape

2007 was an awful year for me as far as marrows went. They've always been a strong point for me but I didn't win a single card this year. In fact, I only really managed to grow about 4 or 5 small, weak looking fruits that didn't match up.

The plants didn't like all the rain in July as they just sat in waterlogged soil just after planting time and the foliage suffered from mildew badly.

The variety I grow is one called Blyton Belle raised by Les Stothard, and I've been reselcting my seed from my best fruits for about 4 years now. Obviously having poor fruits this season means I don't really want to harvest seed from this year's crop. I do have several seed left from last year's best fruits which I could easily grow next year as they should remain viable for a year or two yet, but in consideration I think I'll just get some fresh seed.

Sweet Candle

This is a new variety of stump carrot which I saw for the first time at Malvern and which won the National title for a Mr. J. McCartney. They were very large....about 10" long and 1 1/2" in diameter.

They're available from Medwyn's seeds but you need to hurry as they're sure to sell out soon.

Pot black !

Back in March I sowed some parsnips in these old sections of drainage tube that I'd managed to acquire. The intention was to 'show' them at Sturton where I'd noticed that the judge always seemed to go for shorter and fatter specimens, and the metal tubes I'd grown them in for several seasons had started to rust quite badly.

However, when harvested the roots had forked several times about 8-10" down and were useless for showing, although the foliage was lush and strong. The reason for this is quite obvious and I should have known better.......black absorbs heat. The compost must have dried out too much.......indeed it was dust dry and hence the roots had forked in order to go off in different directions looking for moisture.

If I use them again next season I will have to give them a coat of white or silver paint to reflect the heat, or else wrap them in some of that silver material that builders use to insulate walls. Ho hum......I hope you all appreciate me telling you about my cock-ups so that you don't make the same mistakes as I did?

Pablo can't 'beet' the trusty old favourite

After very successfully growing the beetroot variety 'Red Ace' for many years I inexpliquably decided to grow the variety 'Pablo' this season because it was the winner (and 2nd/3rd/4th and 5th) at last year's NVS Midland Championships held at Malvern.

Well, all I can say is it certainly doesn't like my soil as it's failed to make much of an impression on me. I have had some success with it....a first at Seagrave and two '2nds' at Littleover and Sturton but I've really struggled to get matching sets and most of the roots have hardly got beyond walnut size. Whether the poor summer has had an effect I don't know, but other growers seemed to manage to grow it well enough and it was prominant at the National.

What I do know is that 'Red Ace' used to get me 3 or 4 wins per season and I sowed the 'Pablo' seed on the same weekends and in the same manner as I always have done.

The weakest links

Sad, sorry sod that I am, I keep a spreadsheet of all my successes since I started showing in 1996. Over the years I can now see those veg that I've had most successes with, notably:

Cabbages 26 wins

Parsnips 25 wins

Long carrots 24 wins

Potatoes 23 wins

Beetroot 22 wins

Tomatoes 16 wins

Cucumbers 15 wins

Marrows 15 wins

However, it also shows some glaring failures on my veg showing CV:

Shallots 7 wins

Runner beans 6 wins

Caulis 1 win

Celery 0 wins

Large onions 0 wins

I've decided that next year I really have to rectify this situation if possible so I'm going all out to try and improve my record on caulis and celery in particular. To do this I'm going to grow far less cabbages as they take up far too much room for the trouble involved. I shall also be growing less 'novelty' veg such as peppers, aubergines, chard and okra and really concentrating on the 'serious' show veg.....onions/leeks/spuds/carrots/parsnips/tomatoes/cucumbers

Rugby World Cup (I love this!)

Forthcoming fixtures:

Saturday

England meet France at the Stade de France.

Sunday

South Africa meet Argentina at the Stade de France.

Monday

Australia meet New Zealand at the airport!

Seed orders etc.

Assuming our postmen fancy doing a bit of work and can drag their sorry arses out of bed then the seed catalogues should start falling through my letter box soon. Here is a list of websites and email addresses for the suppliers I use:

http://www.medwynsofanglesey.co.uk/

http://www.exhibition-seeds.co.uk/

http://www.mammothonion.co.uk/

and my main seed supplier (email only)

shelleyseeds@chester137.fsnet.co.uk

For dahlias I'd recommend Station House Nurseries:

http://www.eurodahlia.com/

I also get the odd packet from Dobies and T&M if I win some of their vouchers during the course of the season but find germination very sporadic. Specialist giant seed for marrows and pumpkins may be obtained by sucking up to one or two of the growers on the Giant Veg website...see link at side

Collection of succulents

Here is my winning tray of succulents from Sturton. I think I won (I presume) because of the wide variety and condition of the plants and the fact that most of them were labelled.

The class calls for a 20" square display of cacti OR succulents. That means it has to be either/or and not a mixture. The more eagle eyed of you may observe what appears to be a cactus in my exhibit but in fact it's a spiny euphorbia which is classed as a succulent.

A cactus grower at Malvern told me that all cacti are succulents but not all succulents are cacti. I still don't fully understand that!

Bloom carrier

If you're going to 'show' dahlias then you'll need a sturdy and efficient method of transporting them to the show. Dahlia growers employ all manner of ingenious contraptions that work well for them, usually involving specially adapted buckets or milk crates.

Working in the steel trade as I do I've made myself a metal carrier with a handle that fits in the back seat of my car. Plastic bottles with the necks cut off are screwed to wooden battens and act as the water reservoirs. Two more wooden battens act as feet to support the whole structure. Malliable wire encased in soft plastic (you can buy this from most garden centres) is attached to metal rods and used to wrap round the flower stems to keep them upright.

Gone now are the days when I used to drive to a show constantly looking in my rear view mirror to check that my dahlias were surviving the journey. Often I used to arrive with the odd broken stem that meant it was useless for showing. Now the only awkward bit is getting them in and out of the car, but before and after that it's an easy job to cart them around

A good cucumber year

I won my last 3 shows with my cucumber exhibits culminating in this monster at Sturton. The variety is 'Femdam' which I've grown for a number of years and it seems to suit me. At all the top shows you see the variety 'Carmen' to the fore but I tried it only once and struggled with it.

The trick is to train your plants along horizontal canes to allow the fruits to hang down in order to grow straight. You may have to shield them from the coarse leaves which can easily mark the skins. I use pieces of polystyrene sheet for this purpose. And whatever you do, don't knock off the flower from the end.....the judges will prefer it left on as it shows the fruits have been grown fast

Thinking about it, I applied quite a bit of horse manure in the Spring to the greenhouse border soil mainly with the intention of helping the onions I was going to plant there. This must have helped the cucumbers which were also grown in that border after the onions had been harvested. They obvioulsy liked getting their feet into some well rotted horse muck.

Transportation logistics

Memo to self......your company car is up for renewal in June. When that time comes remember that BMW's are not designed to transport 60 entries of veg, flowers, cacti and pot plants. Go for the new Mondeo....that big boot would eat everything up

And that's it for another 12 months :o(

I had an excellent day at my last show of the season at the village of Sturton by Stow in Lincolnshire, winning two trophies for most points in the produce section for the 6th year running and also most points in the whole show for the 4th time in 6 years. My roots were not of the same quality as previous years and best exhibit in show went to a Mr. W. Croft for a superb set of parsnips.



I was particularly pleased to win the cactus dahlia class with my vase of Kenora Sunset (see pic) and also the blanch leek class (see pic). Wins in the cactus section and also the pot plant section for a flowering clivia meant I ended up with 9 wins, 14 '2nds' and 13 '3rds'. This meant I ended the season with 44 '1sts' which is my lowest tally for many years and yet in many ways my produce has been far better overall than it has ever been. This is largely down to having stiffer competition coming to my local shows from far and wide and is something I welcome. It can only be good for the overall spectacle and will make me try even harder to improve on things in future.

I'm in 'The Times' no less!

Further to my recent posts on cheating by fellow competitors here is the newspaper article that was subsequently written by the journalist who contacted me. I think it's quite a fair and balanced piece of writing.

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/gardens/article2543444.ece

Like I've said before I hope this sort of thing isn't widespread and I for one don't believe it is. Most 'showmen' are gentlemen (or women!) who go to great lengths to help out

Stunning collection

This is Mark Roberts' incredible winning collection from last weekend's National and every single 'dish' was far in excess of anything I've produced before. He was quite rightly very proud of his efforts and stood by his stand all weekend chatting to the public and passing on tips and information. The celery in particular was awesome and would probably have won the individual class.....it was so fresh and clean it looked like it had been scuplted from green ice.

They have a collection for 6 different veg at Sturton and I'll be hoping to win this class for the 2nd year running, but it's on a much smaller scale in as much as you only need one specimen of each of the 6. Therefore, I'll be showing an onion, a leek, a tomato, a carrot, a runner bean and a cucumber. The runner bean will be substituted for a parsnip if I have a decent one spare once I've pulled my remaining 8 pipes this afternoon.

I have cut several dahlias and they are in my special carrying frame which I'll post a picture of in the next few days. I shall be loading the car this evening with this and all my veg and cacti so that all I have to do in the morning is drive off, after having checked the schedule several times to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. 54 miles is a long way to come back if I have! I always find it a relief to get to Sturton safely with everything intact and I then find that I actually enjoy the staging....especially if I know I have some good stuff to display. Several new exhibitors came last year which was good and this year the show has been posted on the NVS website so there may be even more newcomers.

Whatever happens, come 10am tomorrow morning my season will be over and I'll have to start planning for the next.

Amazing runners

The winning beans at the National really bought home to me how far I have to progress on some veg particularly carrots, parsnips, onions and especially runner beans. The picture doesn't do them full justice as they all about 18" long and looked as if they'd all come out of the same mould. They were so perfect and there wasn't a sign of a bean bulge anywhere. My beans tend to start showing beans at about 12-14" and can be all different shades of green.

I haven't won any classes for beans this season so Sturton will be my last chance. I've already picked a few that have reached 15" and they are in my fridge. They will keep quite happily there for about a week. As I pick more in the next couple of days they will be added to these so that I can make my final selection on Friday night. I will leave them on the table in my kitchen to go a little bit limp then attempt to straighten any that are slightly bent (more on how to do this on a later post). I cut a little piece of stalk off each bean leaving at least 1/4" and then place each bunch of beans into a tall glass with some water at the bottom. The beans will take up some water and stiffen up (hopefully!)

The judge is looking for straight beans 12-18" long (but all your beans should be the same length) that are fresh looking with no beany bulges showing. He will attempt to snap one of your beans (he'll choose what he suspects is the weakes looking) and if it doesn't snap cleanly but is stringy instead he'll downpoint you.

Brussels

Only a couple of days to Sturton now and my brussels are not as good as they should be. Sturton is the only show I know where there is a class for (9) brussels and I've managed to win it on only one previous occasion.

You need to exhibit reasonably large 'buttons' with a good length of stalk and no sign of pest damage or disease. Inevitably this will require the removal of at least one of the outer skins but it doesn't want to be overdone. I only grow 4 plants (enough for our family) and it's quite difficult finding 9 buttons that are similar in size and condition from such a relatively small number.

Still, it's another entry and if no-one else enters (as has been known) then I'm guaranteed a card of some description although not necessarily a 1st if the judge doesn't think it's quite up to scratch! I sent my entry form off yesterday and have managed to muster up 64 in total although 10 of them are in the cactus classes and 3 in photography. I've won most points in veg at Sturton 5 years running but I'll be hard pushed to do so again this year because of my failure to grow any decent potatoes this year. There are 6 potato classes at Sturton and one year I won 5 of them.

However, I'm fairly confident that most of the other stuff I'll be showing is well up to scratch especially my cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, celery and leeks, and so I should pick up points to make up for the losses elsewhere. I only have about 6 long carrots and 8 parsnips to choose from. I'll only know if they're any good when they're pulled on Friday afternoon.

The car will be loaded up on Friday night and I'll set off at 6am as 'staging' is only allowed between 7.30 and 10am. My car will be absolutely loaded to the gunnels and there won't be a spare inch left.......Leesa has to meet me in Lincoln at 12.30pm after coming on the train! And if you're travelling along the A1500 at about 11 o'clock Saturday morning and see a black BMW parked on the grass verge keep the noise down.....I'll be having a well-earned kip!