Back at the wheel!

Yup....I'm back. Tanned, rested and raring to go! However, one thing is for sure. As long as I remain partial to a foreign holiday in July or August I'll never be a top showman. The really top growers would never leave their plots at such a critical time. My daughter has done a stirling job.....well, at least considering her previous attempts.....but I have come back to quite a few problems none of which she could have done much about. If I had been here I could have done something about things sooner.

My runner and french beans are severly infested with blackfly and will need to be sprayed over the next few days to bring things back in line. My Vento onions succumbed to thrips and stopped growing a while ago by the look of things. I may get a set or two but I'll be lucky if I do. Most of my long beet have been infested by leaf miner and appear to have stopped growing.

However, t'is not all doom and gloom. My Sweet Candle stump carrots are going mad and the foliage is positively bursting out of the enviromesh frames. I couldn't resist a scrape at the top of one and was nearly creaming myself at the size of the shoulder. I just need to keep an eye out now and make sure they don't push themselves upwards out of the sand which can cause the shoulder to go green.

My cabbages are still very healthy and the green netting has stopped any cabbage whites getting in. Growing off the ground in the large bottomless pots appears to have helped also, giving good air circulation.

And checking back in my diary I realised it was 12 weeks since I set my Winston potatoes away, which is plenty of time for that particular variety. The foliage was yellowing off and flopping about all over the place. I had a bit of a furtle in the compost in one of the bags and felt a few good tubers, so tonight I cut back the foliage from all the plants. Under no circumstances should you empty out the bags at this point. The skins will be far too soft and any handling will render them useless for showing. No matter how tempted you are you have to leave the bags for at least a week to let the skins harden. Tomorrow I will bring all the bags into my garage and forget about them for a couple of weeks. Then I will empty them out one by one and sort them into sets, putting them back into pots of dry compost fully labelled. I will wash them a day or two before the show. My other varieties need a few more weeks and the foliage is still nice and lush with no sign of blight

More on the plot later when I can hopefully include a few photos.....seeing as our youngest daughter conspired to leave our camera on the plane on the flight out to Rhodes I may be a few days before I can fire up the old camera which is more of a chore to download from. Anyone waiting to see holiday snaps of my semi naked body is going to have to make do with a few grainy shots from our mobile phones......unless of course you beg me not to publish them!

It's nearly over!!

As you keep texting me to see how your babies are (not meaning his two daughters he has left behind at home!!) I've taken a few photos for you so you can see for yourself. Now go enjoy the end of your holiday and stop texting me asking me to send you a picture of your onion!!

This is the cucumber you said was dead in the photo of your onion earlier in the week...I got it to come back to life :)

Ribbit!

I had a little help doing the watering today -->

Dad wanted a picture of his big onion...it looks pretty big to me as my hands are only small!

Greenhouse of tomatoes and onions...looks ok doesn't it dad??

Cucumbers are growing too much! Have 4 and a bit now!! How do I stop them growing??

Think I'm coping!

Heather's taken over!!

First day of looking after dad's garden. I know you'll be checking this in Rhodes so I'll try to keep this updated as best I can!

Anyway we've had loads and loads of rain over the past two days so it's been quite easy for me today. I just gave the greenhouses a good drenching of water...that's ok isnt it?! Lol not!! I watered the tomatoes, aubergines and something else (forgotten what it was but it was whatever was on the list!!) with the red mixture.

Hope its not too hot there and you're not having too much fun!

Anyway must dash....people are arriving...musics blaring...booze is a flowin'.........

That's it, i'm off!

Well that's it. I shall be up at 5am tomorrow morning to plant the last lettuce and a few dahlias and then it's off to sunnier climes (at last it's pissing down here). My chest and back have been shaved to match my head. For the next 2 weeks I shall be flat on my back reading Kitchen Garden and Bill Bryson and not worrying about the Smithyveg plot (yeah right!).

One sad task to do yesterday was to lift and discard these leeks that had gone to seed. I had mixed feelings as I would only ever show these at village level so I took the unscheduled opportunity to sow some more beetroot 'Pablo' and a few turnips in this newly spare land with a view to perhaps showing these at Westminster in October if they grow in time.....some 10 weeks away.

As you can see I already cram a few crops into this long raised bed. The beet and turnip seeds have been sown down the middle as mentioned, but I'm also growing some french beans down the left and in the short sections of plastic piping are some stump carrots. I hope these will be ready in time for Sturton in October. The variety is 'Favorite' so that I don't have to dip into my Sweet Candle and can save these for Malvern, Westminster and Derby.

So long folks. I hope you find my Assistant Crop Waterer reasonably interesting in my absence !

First red cards!!!

I got 7 firsts, a second and a third at Keyworth Show in Nottinghamshire yesterday. This is the earliest in the year I have ever won with veg (discounting rhubarb at Spring Shows) and I very impressed with the quality on display and organisation of the committee.

Despite only having 5 beetroot to choose from I got a first. They were quite small but fairly well matched and had decent tap roots. I also cleaned them in the usual the smithyveg patented way.....rubbing the corkiness on shoulders lighly using a scouring pad and soaking overnight in a weak vinegar/salt solution. Never fails.

I pulled 3 onions that had stopped growing due to thrip damage and won this class. This is the first time I have ever shown onions 'as grown' so I didn't really know how best to present them. I cleaned the roots and trimmed to the same length, peeled off any loose skins and snipped off the worst of the foliage. The onions to the right of me were in far better condition foliage wise but I think were downpointed as the necks were a bit thick. This guy could have left them for several more weeks and got much bigger onions.





I got best veg with these carrots. Not the best carrots I've ever seen by a long chalk but for 'Early Nantes' variety they were ok I guess. I need to sow earlier next season I think.

Personally I think my Kestrel spuds deserved best veg, but perhaps the lack of uniformity counted against them. In a class of 15 or so dishes they shone out like beacons against tubers that had all been grown in the ground rather than bags. Not being known in the village it's quite funny to walk behind people and listen to comments, usually complimentary. But one old guy stunned me when he said "Ah well, he's obviously watered those". I haven't a clue what he meant by that.....what does he do to his then?

The collection class called for a tray of garden produce, maximum of 12 items. As it was in the veg section I put 12 items of veg but as you can see other exhibitors included fruit and eggs. I shall know better for next year. I still won though.

My biggest smile of the day came when I saw I'd won a photography class out of some 30 or so entries. My snap looking back at Crib Goch as a guy reached the top behind us in clearing mist still brings a tear to my eye. My wife Leesa who is a qualified photographist entered 4 photos (including two in this class) but won nowt. I'm saying nothing.....much.

I will probably regret this but.......

.......I'm going on holiday on Wednesday for two weeks and my fox-loving eldest daughter Heather will be in charge of the Smithyveg plot. I have also agreed that she can have access to this blog to make postings. A 'guest writer' if you will!

She must post photos so that I can log on in Rhodes to see how my babies are growing but I have agreed that she can write whatever she wants, in whatever style she wishes, so regular readers may have to get used to 'text speak' for a fortnight. Like I said before.....I am very nervous.....

Impassable......

....the enviromesh netting that is. The Sweet Candle foliage is almost bursting out of the frame and there is not a sign of pest or disease within. I have about 60 plants in this frame and 24 in a smaller one which I am growing specifically for Malvern. Sweet Candle takes about 20+ weeks to develop the stump end profile that judges like so has to be sown late March/early April if you want it for the September shows. I've kept these beds fairly moist during the recent heatwave which is different to the way you treat your long carrots of course. The consensus is that if you keep the Sweet Candle beds too dry you get enormously long stump carrots which look a bit odd. 8-10" is ideal.

One problem with stumps is that as the stump end forms later in the season, it can force the carrot upwards and expose the shoulder. Now, I'm all for a well-exposed shoulder on a good looking lady but on a show carrot it spells disaster as the top of the carrot will turn green and cause the judges bollocks to explode in his trousers. It's a real no-no, so you have to keep a close eye on them and pull some sand over the shoulders as soon as you see this happening. As soon as you water or it rains this sand may well be washed off so you have to keep doing it.

Tomato feeding time

Not mentioned my Cedrico tomatoes for a while, mainly because I think they're exactly where I'd expect them to be at this point in time. Strong looking plants are being tied to canes at intervals and I started feeding a couple of weeks ago when the first tomatoes on the bottom truss reached the size of a pea.

I'm alternating the feeds as usual, with a proprietary tomato feed followed by a homemade nettle feed and then a homemade comfrey one.

Once again I'm thinning out the fruit on each truss leaving every other one so that they don't get too crowded when they get bigger. This allows those left to round up properly and not get a flat side where they touch their neighbours.

I have another experiment on the go, this bucket of soot water, basically the sweepings from a friend's chimney. Charlie Maisey the great NVS tomato champion swears by this as a feed for keeping his calyces fresh and green later in the season when night temperatures drop. I shall start applying this during August, just a dash in a watering can after it has been passed through a fine sieve to remove the big lumps of ash. Growing in a cold greenhouse my tomatoes start to show a yellowing calyx during mid to late September. I shall also attempt to get a bit more insulation on the glass at that time also.

You can't keep motormouth quiet!

It seems there's more than one thick git up our road. Whilst this week's star letter in Garden News (wrote by moi!) is a piece of literary genius the fact remains that I forgot to give them my name and address so it's down as 'name and address supplied'. What a tit.

Oh dearie me, that's a bit of a shame old chap ***

Last night was a bad one. It was then that I noticed this entire row of blanch leeks had gone to seed. If you look closely you can see the pointy seed heads popping up through the centre of the foliage. I bought them in from a fellow grower in April and have had good plants from this guy before but for some reason they're a complete failure this time around. I know he only has a cold greenhouse with double insulation but I guess the hard winter was just too cold and the check in growth has resulted in the plant doing this.

*** (Not what I actually said!!!)








After a good few weeks I'm starting to have one or two problems. My shallots have now been topped and tailed and are on trays of sawdust ripening, but a lot of them (in the blue trays) have gone out of shape during the drying out process. The ones in the wooden tray are pretty good however and certainly the best I have ever grown.





Yesterday I harvested the spuds growing in the buckets for the early show this coming weekend. I managed to get a reasonable set of 3 Kestrel but was disappointed to find the Winston were pretty scabbed up even having been grown in peat based compost.

The last apple fruitlet fell off my apple tree yesterday after a very poor fruit set. Late Spring frosts caught the blossom and only a few managed to bear fruit but these have all gradually succumbed. A popular class at some shows in my area is one for a single veg, single bloom and single fruit and I've always relied on my Cox (easy!) to give me the fruit for this class. I shall now be relying on a grape vine I planted a couple of years ago and which has a few small bunches like this one in amongst the foliage. Whether they'll be big enough for the September shows is doubtful as October is a more likely date for outdoor vines in Britain.

And finally, the bloke who lives 2 doors up from me has sold up and left which is good because he was a jumped up little knobhead who put stupid little officious tickets on people's cars if they parked slightly in front of his house. Tonight, before he left for his new abode he lit a bonfire in his fox infested overgrown back garden at 7pm and promptly buggered off leaving the smoke to annoy everyone.

Unfortunately, the fire got out of hand and spread two gardens up (away from us luckily otherwise the little twat would be dead) and this was the scene outside our house as the fire brigade attended the scene. Thick git.

Future plans, and holiday prep

Now that Andy Murray has skulked off back to Scotland to work how he can stop letting England down in future my thoughts are turning to my impending holiday. Being away for a fortnight means I shall scarily be relying on my eldest daughter to water my beloved plants and quite frankly I'm very nervous. Last time I entrusted her with this task for a short weekend walking break I came back to a greenhouse full of dead and dying plants. All I can say is that should I come back to a similar scene of carnage I shall devote this blog to naming and shaming her, including posting several embarrassing photographs from her youth. You have been warned! This is a big year for me and I don't want to put any pressure on but rest assured my success or failure all depends on you! And stop leaving anonymous postings sticking up for foxes!

I shall be leaving a daily instruction rota for the different watering and feeding which should be simple to follow even for a non-hort! In previous years my small onions have needed to be harvested once they reach 3.25" dia. whilst I have been away, but as they were planted later this year I should be back home in time to carry out that task. The main thing is making sure the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines in the greenhouses get watered each evening. The tap roots are now well down and can manage on water that falls from the sky so they can be left well alone. Everything else will be given a good drenching before I go and unless you get a scorcher whilst I'm gone (I sincerely hope not!) then they should last until I return with my gorgeous body tanned and relaxed.....but no doubt quite a bit fatter!

Thanks to modern technology she can text me a photo of any potential problems so that I can advise her whilst I'm lounging in the sun reading Kitchen Garden or on the beach looking at the various pairs of Table Daintys on display and assessing them for size, shape, colour, condition and uniformity.

Talking of marrows, this weekend I do need to get my Blyton Belles planted against stout sticks and frameworks. They are small plants as I have sown them later this season to cater for the likes of Malvern as I have found the plants running out of steam by mid-September in the past. Les Stothard used to sow in early July for an early October show but I think my mid-June sowing will suffice. I shall place each plant onto a dollop of well rotted muck and leave a shallow 'dish' in the soil so that the water gets straight to the roots. The plants are trained up the poles and then along horizintally so that the fruits hang down away from the foliage. More on this in August.

I hope to take a few photos from the allotment tomorrow evening where my pumpkins have been planted. I also have a 100 or so onions of various variety, some sweetcorn, courgettes, and butternut squashes. The ground has been baked hard these last few weeks and watering is a problem so anything harvested from there is merely for the pot.

Finally, here's to Germany. If they beat the Argies tonight I'll be one step closer to winning my 11-1 bet on them reaching the final. Should be a nice little lump of seed money for next season!

Spudsilike

Once again I have some cracking foliage on the spuds growing in the bags. I have 6 rows of spuds here, approx. 12 bags to a row, with Kestrel, Maxine, Harmony, Camelot and Blue Belle. It takes between 12 and 16 weeks from planting to harvesting but the beauty of growing in the flexible bags is that you can tell when your tubers are coming up to your required size. You can actually feel the tubers through the plastic by having a furtle around them somewhat akin to fiddling with your bollocks through your trousers.

The likes of Sherie Plumb, Peter Clark and John Branham grow hundreds of bags and will actually sacrifice a bag when they think they are approaching size. If the tubers they find are at the right size they will harvest all of them, otherwise they will leave them awhile longer. I don't have the luxury of being able to do this so I will have to fondle a few bags before I decide whether to harvest, but this won't be until August. In the meantime if you spot me fidgeting with my tadpole sacs I'm merely keeping my fingers nimble for this hugely important upcoming task.

The optimum size for showing is about 7oz or big enough to fit in the palm of your hand but this isn't set in stone. A set of 8 oz or 6 oz tubers that are well matched and in good condition will still be more than acceptable, and at village level I think size is less important.

Aint nececelery so!

I vow each year to improve my performance with celery having never won with this crop before. Last year started well but towards the end of the season they succumbed to celery rust and the plants soon looked terrible as the disease took hold. So far this year my plants of Morning Star are ok apart from the odd sign of leaf miner spoiling some of the leaves. When spotted I find the maggot beneath the surface and squidge it between my fingers. Strangely satisfying. Just like shooting a fox.

I digress. Before the season gets too far advanced I hope to get a cover on these plants but one thing you must do is keep them well watered and fed with a fertiliser high in nitrogen. To this end I've been giving them regular foliar feeds with ammonium sulphate but will now change to a soil dressing of nitrate of soda. A fresh scattering of slug pellets every couple of weeks is also a good idea. The plants are in the bottom corner of my garden in quite a shady spot that doesn't get sun at the hottest part of the day.

Oh cock!

Bugger! They might actually challenge now!

I much preferred it when that Spanish lunatic was in charge!