Happy with my onions

I shall be harvesting my biggest onions this weekend. They're not monsters but have a decent shape and form and I have 6 or 7 around the 2.5-3lb mark.

The tops will be cut off at about 6" and any loose and split skins stripped back. The roots will be cut flush to the base plate and the first whole skin will be washed, dried then dusted in talc. I'll then immerse them in boxes of fine sawdust until the evening before the first show when they will be tied in the same manner as my shallots.

First marrows swelling nicely

At this time of the year I like to be getting one or two show entries 'in the bag' so to speak.

By that I mean making sure my shallots are tied (see previous post) and graded into the various sets, onions are lifted, cleaned and ripening and that plenty of marrows are growing well.

This one is about 4" long and there are 3 others so that makes 2 entries for my first two shows. I'll cut them when they're about 10-12" long (although my daughter's boyfriend may have to do that when I'm on holiday). Once one reaches the desired length it'll be stored in the garage away from direct sunlight and then bought out daily to compare against the others still growing. I find that marrows keep fairly well once cut although the stalk does tend to wither, but if you cut a long stalk you can trim it at the show to give the appearance of that 'just harvested' look.

And keep that crinkled flower on if possible!

First shallot tied

I like to get these done well before the shows so that I'm not rusking too much. The last loose skin is rubbed off hopefully leaving a uniform nut brown appearance all over the bulb.

The top is tied with raffia (I like a nice long tie) and the top cut off just above it. All subsequent ones will then be tied according to this first sample.

Tossers!

To the thick, pox ridden workmen clearing next door’s overgrown shit heap of a garden on Parklands Drive in Loughborough, whose bonfire has just showered red hot ash all over my vegetables and ruined a whole season’s work….thanks a f*cking bunch you cow shagging remedials.

What’s the betting your digger doesn’t work in the morning?

Found this on t'interweb......very good!

How many times have you been to a Flower Show and said to yourself, “I’ve got as good (or better) growing in my garden!” Have you ever considered showing, but felt slightly intimidated by the exhibits on show? Does the name Horticultural Society frighten you? Fear not, look no further – we have a 10 point plan for you to blow away the mystique!

Read the Schedule – carefully!! Know what is being asked for in the relevant classes which interest you.

Note dates & times – for receipt of entries, staging exhibits, times of judging, Show opening & closing for uplifting exhibits.

Consider your entries – complete the entry form with care.

Avoid making too many entries – (tell me about it!) Enter items you are reasonably sure you can stage well; trying too much can be stressful.

Prizes are not everything – there is more honour in exhibiting well in a strongly contested class without winning a prize than getting a ticket where there is little or no competition. There is however also good educational value of a high standard exhibit in a poorly contested class. (It’s not your fault if there are few entries)

Encourage others – you might know someone who is a successful grower of flowers or vegetables, an excellent baker or photographer or have children who could enjoy the involvement. Persuade them to ‘have a go’.

Allow ample time for staging – avoid a last minute rush, when mistakes can be made. Show Stewards are always available to help you, just ask.

Pay attention to detail – label entries if possible, make sure entry cards are in position correctly at your exhibits and are the right class. Note numbers of specimens required and pay attention to uniformity in exhibits.

Be a sporting exhibitor – the judges decision, whatever it may be, should be accepted with good grace. Seek out answers to why your exhibit didn’t win, calmly & patiently. The Show convener will always help you here. Do this & you will achieve better results another time.

Enjoy – take pride and pleasure in your exhibits - Show what you grow, share what you know! I

Come on & have a go – we know you’re good enough.

Caulis not great

All of my caulis have now been planted. I lost most of my first planting of the variety 'Bruce' to the maggots of the cabbage root fly despite a squirt of insecticide at the base of each plant after planting. I replanted those stations with plants of 'Cornell' and these seem to be ok. The bed I'm growing them in is probably not ideal as it doesn't get sun from late afternoon but we shall see.

My last word on the matter!

Talking of workshy ponces……….slap this delusional, narcissistic, blackmailing tw*t in the reserves and make him sweat until the January transfer window when we should sell him for £70m and then buy Torres (Liverscum will be all but out of the title race and Europe by then and he’ll have long since realised that he was conned when he signed for them!).

However, should he manage to come to his senses and start scoring at the same rate as he did last season then of course he’ll be the best thing since sexy women who love sex, cooking and ironing and who don’t nag were invented…..and this post will be deleted !!!

Wasters!

If I don't get my bins emptied this week because of those striking, workshy commies at my local council I'm going to dump the whole lot on a grass verge somewhere!

Dahlia update

My dahlias got a spurt on as soon as they were planted.....they really do have an amazing will to grow. I will put canes in the corner of every plant this weekend and then put some string between each one at one foot and two foot heights so that each plant is surrounded by a 'cage'. There can be a tendency for whole branches to break off if they're not supported in this way.

Onion update

As I said, I've lost one onion to white rot but it was one of the smaller ones. Here's one of my larger ones that is about 4 1/2" diameter. I'll give them until the end of July then I'll be looking to get them up so that I can get them ripened in time for the first shows at the end of August.

Marrow update

Here are 3 marrows planted at the foot of 8’ canes. They will be tied to these as they grow (going off in opposite directions) and then along further canes or strong string suspended horizontally when they reach the top. The idea is that any developing marrows (the variety is Blyton belle bred by Les Stothard) will hang down and be uniform in colour all the way round. An added advantage is they are out of the way of the coarse foliage which can mark the skins. Grown in the traditional way along the ground the fruits always have a side that isn’t coloured like the rest of the skin where it actually sits on the soil. One method was to raise the fruit off the ground on a pane of glass rested over two bricks, but growing them up canes and off the ground is better as it frees up soil for planting with other things.

The 2nd pic shows hows this works later in the season.

Points make prizes!

Most of my veg and dahlia plants have now been planted but there's no time to rest and a little planning ahead can pick you up some 'cards' in other classes. I have split several clumps of different succulents and potted them up into 3" clay pots and topped them off with a granite chipping mulch. These will hopefully fill out a little and look good for Sturton at the beginning of October when there are several classes for cacti and succulents. For the sake of a little time and effort I may be able to pick up a 3rd, 2nd or even a 1st in the class for 3 succulents in max. 3" pots. Make sure you pop in a label if possible, give them a good watering and you can more or less forget about them for weeks at a time as they really can look after themselves.

Another class at one of my local shows is for a small basket or vase of various herbs, and with this in mind I gave a lemon balm plant in my veg garden path a good haircut as I know that by early September there'll be plenty of fresh young shoots for picking and arranging with other veg such as thyme, rosemary, chives etc. If I left this plant it would flower and go to seed and would look very straggly and totally unsuitable for exhibition. Again, with a little effort and creativity you can create an attractive display which can pick up an extra point or two in those shows where there are trophies for most points in show.

At most shows I tend to pick up points not just in veg but also for dahlias, fuchsias, herbs, cut flowers cacti and even for baking a cake in the 'men only' section!

Bugger (pt II)

Cock, knob, b*ll*cks, shitbag and w*nk! Lost one of my onions to white rot yesterday. Luckily only one of the smaller ones but there's bound to be more to follow. I need to keep a close eye on all the others now and as soon as the foliage shows the slightest sign of wilting I'll be pulling them up. I did this last year and after stripping the outer skins most were ok and lasted the showing season. The key is to pull them before the rot has gone too deep into the onion.

Another pumpkin punt!

I just couldn't resist....despite 2 seasons of abject failure the lure of trying to grow a large pumpkin was too great once again. Once you do get one to set it can be quite incredible how quickly they grow and I've been bitten since I grew a 100 pounder several years ago. A couple of seasons ago I had one that was growing at over 2 inches a day but then mice deciding to use it as their own personal larder and it stopped growing.

I haven't exactly given it the best conditions and it's going to have to scramble over a gravel path for several yards until it gets to soft soil again so if a fruit sets over the stones I'll have to make sure I put something under it to stop the stones piercing it. I have 4 or 5 small pumpkin fruits growing but I'll reduce to 2 and then the strongest one in the next couple of weeks. They'll get plenty of water and feed once it has 'taken off' !

Runner bean update

Last year wasn’t a great year for runner beans……not for me at any rate. I set the beans late due to the fact that the previous summer had been so warm and my beans were not lasting through the season. However, as we all know last summer was a complete washout and as a result I hardly had any beans setting….presumably because the bumble bees weren’t venturing out into the rain to do their pollinating. I know of one grower who grows beans in a polytunnel and who actually captures bees in a jam jar to release into the tunnel!

This season my beans are a lot more advanced. They were sown in pots in late May and planted out the middle of June against 8’ canes. I angle my canes so that the beans can hang down unobstructed by the foliage. If the small developing bean touches a leaf if can start to bend and be useless for showing. All beans are planted over a backfilled trench that had plenty of scrunched up newspaper and vegetable waste from the kitchen piled into it. This gives the bean roots plenty of moisture retentive material to get into.

I have had a few infestations of blackfly to deal with (sprayed with Bio Provado) and I always scatter some slug pellets to the soil around the plants as soon as they are planted. Remember that in the wild runner beans are a bog plant so they need plenty of water to their roots, and I often leave the hosepipe trickling water into the trench for an hour or so.

Runner beans are one of the crops I wanted to devote more time to this season. A fortnight before the show the beans need to be an inch or so long so you need to pick all those longer than that and any misshapen ones. However, I’m going to have to trust to luck for my first couple of shows as we’re away the fortnight before and I simply won’t be here to tease any tangled beans from the foliage to ensure they grow straight. Usually I start to pick and store my beans up to 4 or 5 days before the show to make sure I get a set all at exactly the same length, storing them in my fridge in a damp cloth against a straight wooden batten. However, once those first two shows are out of the way I have another 2 weeks to the next so I’ll be starting again.

Remaining carrots gamely hanging on.

As I've lost the bulk of my carrots I have consequently lost interest in tending those that remain. The foliage should be twice as high as this by now so I don't hold out a lot of hope of exhibiting any monsters this season. However, if I can get a set of 2 for Sutton Bonington and seagrave I'll be more than happy. If they're in good condition and uniform in size I may just pick up a place card or two.....but I shan't be holding my breath!

Dahlias set out at last

A few days ago I finally set out my dahlias after they seemed to take an age to root and then make big enough plants to be planted.

However, experience has taught me that they will grow fast from now on although I may only have a few flowers in time for the first shows at the end of August. Thereafter though, I usually have plenty to choose from for the September shows if we get a decent bit of sunshine in the next month or so.

The varieties I'm growing are Kenora Sunset, Jomanda and Emma's Coronet. I didn't manage to get any poms this year and I decided not to bother with Lismore Moonlight again as it was a bit shy in throwing up blooms last season.

Show organisers need to help the exhibitors

I really do hate to criticise show organisers as I know the enormous amount of hard work that goes into them. They do it in their spare time and without their dedication we wouldn't have any shows. But in my monthly piece in GN I've appealed to the show organisers and schedule makers to show a bit of imagination when they're deciding on what classes to include.



For instance, if the cauliflower class hasn't been well supported for several years then ditch it.......people can always enter them into the AOV (any other veg class) if they wanted to. And try to include classes that might get newcomers entering. At Sutton Bonington we have a class for tomatoes/runner beans and round beetroot (2 of each). As most people grow these it has always been well supported and a full bench is always a better spectacle for the viewing public.



And how about reducing the quantity needed. 5 carrots is ok at National level but is totally inappropriate for a village show. And after a few year of dwindling entries in the parsnip and long carrot classes we reduced from 3 to 2 and got quite a few more entries as a result. Obviously getting a matching pair is a lot easier than matching 3.



Finally, a schedule popped through the door last week for a show I entered for the first time last year. It's quite a large, prestigious show and was certainly a step up in class for me. But I had a few of my entries stolen from the tent as I was loading my car at the end of the show. I mentioned it to the organisers and then sent them an email thanking them for a marvellous show but asking if they might do something to stop further thefts from happening in future. I never received a reply and fellow exhibitors have told me they have suffered similarly in the past.



They, like myself, shall not be bothering in future which is a great shame.

Cucumbers ready for planting

The variety is 'Carmen' grown famously by Charlie Maisey of Wales who is virtually unbeatable with cuc's, tomatoes and runner beans. I've never grown Carmen before but had to give it a go as I couldn't get hold of my usual variety 'Femdam'.

Any other veg ?

For the second year I'm growing aubergines in large pots but I'm giving them more attention this season and they seem to be better for it. Aubergines are worth up to 18 points as they are quite difficult to grow and so are worth it for entering into the 'Any other veg' class if there is one at your show. I read that whilst they like lots of water they don't like to be sat in it so I plant them on a bit of a mound so that excess water can run off. The pots are on the greenhouse staging and the compost is drenched each day. There are no flowers yet but as soon as there are I shall pollinate with a soft brush to facilitate the process.

Sweet candle stumpers

This is one crop I'm dead chuffed with this year. Sold solely by Medwyn's stump carrot Sweet Candle caused a stir at last year's National. I must say I'm very impressed with the foliage which is very waxy and firm.

The only slight concern I have is that I didn't sow it early enough in order for it to develop the distinct stump end as some growers say it needs to be sown by late April. Mine went in mid May.

Bedding down shallots

Celery update

I'm quite pleased with the way my celery is growing so far in a raised bed that I'd slapped plenty of well rotted horse muck into. One problem I'm having to watch carefully are little maggots that burrow into the foliage and can cause devastation. It gives the leaflets the appearance of having large blisters if unchecked and looks very unsightly so I'm regularly inspecting and 'popping' the little maggot before they spread too far. Before exhibiting celery any individual leaflets showing pest damage can be carefully snapped off without spoiling the appearance.

Celery is a bog plant so must not be allowed to dry out. Indeed I regularly drench the bed with a bucket of water. This also means the slug pellets have to be re-applied as they will get washed away by the drenching.