Touching toes and tickling bums

At the risk of receiving a torrent of ridicule that no man should ever be subjected to I thought I should recount the totally brilliant way I've discovered to get my stump carrots out of the sand beds with as long a tail as possible. I reckon carrots displayed with as long a 'whip' on as possible look far better than those where it has broken off only a few inches below the stump. My bed is only about 24" deep and I find the tail often breaks off half way down or even just below the stump end whilst you're pulling upwards as it anchors itself into the subsoil. These look a bit naff in my eyes when 'benched'.

When pulling my stumps the other night I decided I wanted a way of checking they were near as dammit all the same length so I hit on the idea of sinking a core hole next to each carrot. I was able to get my hand down and feel for the stump end of the first carrot which I used as my template by marking my arm with felt tip pen where the sand surface was.

I then tried to feel for carrots where the depth to the stump end meant the mark on my arm matched the one i'd just pulled and so on. Here I am demonstrating my 'test tickle'. It reminds me of something I used to do but my memory isn't what it was and I can't remember what.

Those that were slightly longer or shorter to the stump were left in the beds to grow on for later shows. I was then able to carefully feel the thin tap root down as far as I could reach, gently extracting it from the core of compost as I went so that I could gently pull the very end away from the subsoil. It was then a very easy task to pull the whole carrot dry and reveal a very satisfying long tap on each one. You do however need to be a supreme physical athlete like myself to perform this task as you have to contort yourself into the shape of a shitting dog for several minutes.


All my Sweet Candle were barely at 20 weeks so I was dead chuffed to see how much they'd stumped up. These will only get better as they go past the 22 week mark that most growers recommend for Sweet Candle. Also I only needed to pull 10 to get my set of 5 plus two spares to take to the show, so I now have over 60 to go at for Harrogate, Malvern, Westminster and Derby so I'm looking forward to using my Smithyveg unpatented carrot's bum tickling method in future weeks to get even better sets of stumpers.

National Championships one day, baby's toy the next!

National conspiracy scandal rocks NVS

Llangollen 2011

Well I've finally dipped my toe in and exhibited at my first ever National and what a fabulous weekend me and Leesa had. Setting off at half past midnight early Saturday morning I got to our hotel in Chirk just before three and installed Leesa at the hotel before setting off for the Royal Pavillion in Llangollen to stage my 7 exhibits. Believe me there's no more magical place than a hushed National venue at 4 in the morning. Virtually every exhibit is covered with sheets of paper or dampened towels until just before judging.

As for me I did brilliantly, all of my entries coming in equal 6th! This National was all about fulfilling a dream and actually getting some stuff on the benches to compare my stuff against the best to see how far I have to progress. And in truth it aint that far, my stump carrots in particular being unlucky not to get a ticket......not my words but those of Ian Stocks (this year's champion) and Medwyn Williams. As you can see it was a widely contested class. My set is nearest camera.

Another class I was keen to get an entry in was the 3 sets of two 20 pointer veg class, as I felt this was a good class to be able to compare my long roots without wasting too many. I scored 15 out of 20 for carrots and 13 for parsnips, coming 11th out of 20 entries which I was pretty chuffed about. With a total of 40 out of 60 I was only 8 points behind the winner.

There were some new names among the tickets, perhaps signifying a changing of the guard as the likes of Jim Thompson, Trevor Last and John Branham all failed to get a red card to their names. Star of the show for me however, was fellow blogger Owain Roberts who managed to beat Sherie Plumb in the coloured potato class with these Kestrel. An amazing achievement in his first National, and he also won the Banksian medal for most prize money.

I managed to bench spuds in three of the four classes and was pretty happy that they didn't look out of their depth. Skin finish was pretty good, I just need to get better size and uniformity now.

The rest of the weekend became a huge social event and I appear to have been adopted as a mascot for pisstaking by my Scottish, Welsh and Cumbrian chums. After dinner last night Medwyn banged the table and called for order as he had a 'special award' to make to an NVS member. Soon turned out that I was the member in question, as I was presented with this wooden spoon for spectacular failure, my big gob over the last few years putting me in the firing line for several minutes of seat squirming embarrassment. I f****** loved it and I shall treasure it forever. But they better watch their sodding backs from now on! Bastards!

Next stops for me are a couple of local shows for the next two weekends and speaking with Ian Simpson last night he is as passionate as I am about keeping your local village shows alive as they are the life blood of the bigger shows and where we all learn our trade. So congratulations today to Helen Vincent from daaan saaaf who won best in show with some excellent celery at her first attempt. Well done Helen.....National at Malvern next year? I'm sure you'd be invited into the 'Wee Jimmy's tour crowd' (you had to be there to understand what that means!).











And last but certainly not least, happy 24th anniversary today to my wife Leesa who wasn't in the slightest looking forward to this weekend as she feared I would be lost in veg talk with my fellow exhibitors, but thanks to the WAGS is now seriously looking forward to future Nationals, and especially Dundee 2015!

Here's to us!

Mark Perry WPC WCC

Just a quick diversion from my blogging sabbatical to say well done to my southern chum Mark Perry (aka 'Ciderman') who won parsnips and celery at the Welsh Branch Championships at the weekend plus a few 3rds. To win one class let alone two at the Welsh is an awesome achievement against the likes of Don Owens, Andrew Jones, Charlie Maisey, Jim Thompson, plus the usual english contingent of John Branham and Trevor Last.
 
So well done Mark....game on for Malvern?

Lockdown

Right then, I won't be on here all next week as I need to spend my precious time making sure all my exhibits are prepared to the optimum for the National Championships. What i'm trying to say is that I can't be wasting my time talking to you lot! And i'm also treating the whole experience as a mini-holiday with some walking planned for the Sunday.




I've over-ambitiously entered 14 classes at Llangollen namely;



White spuds

Coloured spuds

NVS Sherine

NVS Amour

French beans

Runner beans

Shallots

Pickling shallots

Peas (yeah right!)

Long carrots

Stump carrots

Parsnips

250g onions

3 x 2 class (20 pointers)



If I actually manage to get 6 of those on the bench I'll be a happy man. I'm still miffed that I made such a dog's dinner of my tomatoes as they would have offered me the best chance of a ticket...but there's always next year! Therefore, I have zero expectations in terms of tickets but consider this a must-do exercise in order to compare my stuff against the very best growers in the land. A single 5th place ticket would have me creaming my pants and kissing Dave Thornton and Ian Stocks which is highly unlikely (thank f***!) when you look at the cast list of suspects, but as long as i'm not disgraced then all will be well with the World.



I shall certainly be taking at least two entries of spuds and will be interested to see how my skin finishes compare to the likes of spud specialists such as Sherie Plumb and John Bebbington, whose entertaining talk I attended last night at North East Derby DA. I already have sets of 5 Casablanca and 5 NVS Sherine set aside, with my Kestrel and NVS Amour to be emptied out this Sunday and graded into sets. I am absolutely itching to empty them out and have a look but you MUST resist any urge to do this as you have to give the skins time to set. I stopped watering two weeks ago, cut the haulms off 3 nights ago, then got the bags into the garage two nights ago so that no more rain can get at them. Most growers are tending to try and get the bags as dry as possible towards the end of their growth to give them spuds in the best possible condition. Ideally i'd like to leave them longer (7-10 days after lifting) before emptying out for the skins to set but if i'm gentle I should be ok. They'll certainly be set by next Friday evening when i'll be washing them. I had a sneaky peak into the bags and couldn't spot any scab on the Kestrel or Amour so I'm hopeful of also getting an entry into the coloured potato class (with Kestrel) and the NVS Amour class sponsored by JBA.



Now then, about these peas..........

Flag carnage

I'm not very proud of this photo but in many ways it appears unavoidable when growing exhibition blanch leeks. All of these flags had split right down the blanched barrel of the leek to the root plate, sometimes 4 or 5 layers deep. I think it might be due to intermittent watering which is something I'm often guilty of when it comes to my leeks. I resolved this season to try and keep the soil moist at all times but the path to Red Card City is littered with good intentions. As I hadn't uncollared my leeks for several weeks (again very naughty...try and do it every couple of weeks) I did so a few nights ago and it's a good job I did. As well as the splitting problem a few plants were infested with aphids that I hadn't noticed hiding away deep down in the DPC collars. As they were merely sucking sap from a loose skin attached to a base plate no virus appears to have been transferred and no permanent damage done it would seem. I also noticed a few barrels were not as straight as I would like and when they're a couple of inches diameter it's not as easy to straighten them as when they're an inch. Oh well.....should still be ok for local shows, but it just goes to show that even though everything appears to be ticking over there is often something hidden and it pays to be as vigilant as possible.

 

 

 

I left one split skin ( a guard flag) on each leek, replaced the collars (now 20") and squirted some Polysect down the inside of the collar. A couple of growers were saying to me at a show last weekend that they find it very difficult to get Pendle Improved to 'pull' upwards, but I've never found this a problem.

 

One surprise plant this season is this variety of pepper called Hungarian Hot Wax, which has been fruiting its socks off for weeks now. I even got a 2nd place with it in an any other veg class at a show in July which is by far the earliest I've ever had peppers ready. It's an attractive plant and like most hot peppers I find the foliage is often unpalateable to caterpillars, presumably because the heat of the fruit must somehow convey to the leaves. You tend to get the odd tiny hole that never develops, presumably because the caterpillar has f***ed off in search of a bucket of water.

Don't be a dummy

On Saturday night I was able to visit a local show and assess my local competition, and some that I am likely to come up against at Llangollen as Mark Roberts was in attendance. He has had to admit defeat in his aim to stage a collection as his leeks all went to seed but he is hoping to enter the 3 pairs of 20 pointer veg class like me. I am hoping to stage a couple of long carrots, two parsnips and two potatoes and if my long roots are any good I may carry on pulling and enter a set of five long carrots and a set of five parsnips. However, if I'm in any doubt about the quality of the roots after the first couple of 'pulls' they'll remain firmly in their growing positions and be saved for later shows. I met one of my blog followers at the show, a guy called Phil Burgess who had plenty of tickets including a very nice set of Sweet Candle. Nice of you to say you find the blog entertaining Phil....it makes all the crap I get from certain quarters worthwhile! Best in show however were these superb gladioli. Stunning.

I emptied out my NVS Sherine yesterday afternoon and was able to get a reasonable set of five set aside for Llangollen for the special class sponsored by JBA Seed Potatoes, plus a few sets for other shows. Not bad from only 10 bags of this variety grown. I was very happy to note that was absolutely no sign of scab anywhere to be seen so it looks as if I've got the watering cock on this year, as the 15 bags of Casablanca I emptied out a couple of weeks ago were also superb. Contrary to popular belief scab cannot be transmitted from the seed tuber as that is merely the mark left by the scab mycellium attack during the growing season. Scab is only soil borne and as it prefers warm, dry soil you need to make sure your bags do not dry out, especially at tuber initiation which is when the haulms are about a foot high. I washed one of my 'reject' Casablanca on Friday night just to see how they clean up and here was the result. I'm happy.

I have labels already written out ready to put on each set which is graded and re-bagged in dry compost until the night before each show. That way I can go straight to the set or sets I need. I still have my NVS Amour (class also sponsored by JBA) and Kestrel to get up yet but I already have more spuds for showing than the whole of last season from just 25 bags emptied thus far. I never sieved the lumps out of the peat when I was filling the bags back in April so I'll continue to adopt this lazy method from now on. After the results I've had so far I'd be mad to mess about sieving umpteen 200 litre bags when I obviously don't need to. I think leaving the lumps in allows plenty of air pockets vital for good root production. I would stress however that you need as good a quality peat as you can get.

My parsnips 'Polar' are confusing me. The foliage is pretty ordinary but I've excavated a few inches down and can feel some fairly large shoulders so hopefully these will be ok. Three years ago I had poor tops but pulled my best parsnips ever, getting best in show at Leicester. I'm now of the opinion that for the past few years I wasn't suffering canker attacks but carrot fly as this pest also targets parsnips if it cannot find its preferred meal of choice, namely carrots. Growing in a free-draining growing media as we do, canker shouldn't be a problem as it usually manifests itself in heavy, poorly drained clayey soil, so as well as the black material membrane to stop the canker spores getting down I've also been applying Phorate granules at regular intervals which deter carrot fly. I'll only know whether this has worked in a couple of weeks of course.

I haven't had any more leeks go to seed so hopefully the 6 that went out of 22 plants is an end to it. I pulled one of them for the pot. Good blanch length and girth and clean foliage so they should be good for local shows as well as one part of my set of 6 for the Harrogate Bullshit Bloggers' Challenge against the Yorkshire rent boys.

A veg i've always done well with is french beans 'Prince' and I hope to get a set of 15 for Llangollen. For this i'm growing them in 12" pots, three plants per pot planted into my own homemade compost with nutrimate added, and the plants are very lush and healthy. This method allows you to bring the pots indoors if adverse weather is forecast in the days leading up to the show and stops the beans getting marked.

They're cropping already but there are plenty of tiny beans to come which will hopefully give me plenty of choice for Wales. In the 2 or 3 days leading up to the show I will be measuring the beans and cutting them as they reach my desired size which I will decide upon when I cut my first bean at the right shape and condition. This will be my template as such and will hopefully be about 7 to 8". All beans reaching EXACTLY this size will be cut and stored in a damp cloth in the fridge until final selection the night before.

And I'm still keeping half an eye on later shows such as Westminster. I have similar pots of french beans at earlier stages of growth as well as these pots of turnips, a trial variety called Goldana. I also have a few rows in the greenhouse soil vacated recently by the disastrous onions.

I am also growing pak choi, intermediate beet, fennel, radish, lettuce, spring onions, swiss chard any many others, much to Dave Thornton's consternation in my attempt to get more cards than him this season at the shows we both enter. There's 20 quid riding on the outcome this time around. I don't intend to fail and suffer another year of his smugness!

And finally as the height of show season approaches make sure you're well organised and have all your show paraphernalia to hand. Read the schedules carefully and make sure you're not daft enough to show 250g onions when 8oz is called for (227g).....no names mentioned....or that you fill out a variety or exhibitor card and leave it against your exhibit if the rules of that particular show require it. Again no names mentioned as I don't want to embarrass two friends.

Go go goch

With my first ever foray into the upper eschelons of the National Championships now less than three weeks away I've just about finished my transportation boxes so that I will at least look as if I know what i'm doing when I turn up, rather than some ill-prepared oik. In truth i've been promising myself I'd do something like this for several years after many near flattened veg experiences and stressful journeys to shows. I now have separate wooden boxes for shallots, 250g onions, peas, cucumbers and tomatoes. Before Llangollen I am also going to be making myself a larger, longer box for my long carrots and parsnips and will be trying to make it in such a way that the other boxes fit inside it so that I only have one box to carry into the show, although I may need the Welsh Guards to help me carry it! Now I can drive to shows like Lewis Hamilton rather than Lady Hamilton, knowing my veg is safely packed and cannot roll about or have other objects fall on them. It will be a huge relief.

As for the veg I intend to take it would appear that I was a liiiiiittle hasty threatening the Scots with total pea domination. Despite my marestail brew and suffering a bollocking off the missus for using her best saucepan to produce it my peas have started to get mildew! I will now have to eat humble pie in Llangollen and polish Mr Stocks' shoes with my tongue each morning at the hotel. He has told me to pick off any mildew infected leaves and hope that it doesn't get to the peas before the show. Personally, I think the mildew will win the race.

I've almost tied all my shallots but I have a dilemma with the picklers. I have 18 from which to get my set of 15 but I fear one or two may be going a bit soft and I don't want to risk a 'NAS' (not as schedule) card at Llangollen. I have some other really good shaped solid bulbs that are measuring about 30.4mm on my digital micrometer so I'm going to try and get an NVS shallot ring to see if they pass through. They have to pass through easily under their own weight and the use of a hammer to get them through is strictly frowned upon apparently. I'm hoping that the ring is machined to over 30mm and as I noticed several winning sets at last year's NVS and RHS shows where the bulbs appeared to be well over 30mm so I'm hoping I'll get away with it. In theory the judge will pass each shallot through the ring and 'NAS' any exhibit with any non-conforming bulb. Indeed, I've asked Dave Thorton if I can go over to his house and put my bulbs through his ring!

I also hope to be taking a set of french beans and runner beans with me. The runner beans are already cropping fantastically well so it's a case of picking off all the eatable pods before they get 'beany' which means the plants stop cropping so productively. Those that are a couple of inches long this weekend should be perfect in two weeks time so I'll earmark at least a couple of dozen with bits of string and tease them to grow straight, maybe even cutting off their near neighbours so that all the energy in the truss goes into just one bean and that they hang down clear of the foliage and don't go bent, which is easy to do thanks to my sturdy angled bean fence. I shall need a set of 15 anything up to 18" long, all like peas (sniff!) in a pod. It's a long time since I won with runner beans even at local level so i'm being an ambitious arsehole yet again!

As I have drastically cut down on my local shows I'm also going to try and pull a set of 5 'Sweet Candle' stumps. If the foliage is anything to go by then I should have some good'uns deep down in yonder sand bed.

Sadly, without x-ray vision I'll never know until Friday 26th August long after my entry form has been posted! I just hope the stump ends have formed by then as these would only have been in about 19 weeks by Llangollen weekend when in an ideal World they take between 20-22. A fellow NVS grower (and another Scot) is hoping to table a set of 'Abaco' stumps which are the old 'Favourite' shape and have potential to beat 'Sweet Candle'. We shall have our exhibits independently judged after the proper judging (surely neither of us will win a card?!) and the loser buys first pint. It could well turn out to be a weekend of severe Smithyveg buttf***ing at the hands of the Scots, but my pride will hopefully remain intact. Now, I wonder what boot polish tastes like? And does anyone know any good chat-up lines for sheep?

I am here to serve

I like to keep my fans happy and sometimes I'll even do requests. So in response to Dickie Nine Inch here is a close up of a white rot infected onions. You can see the fluffy white mould at the base which ruins the first few layers of the onion making them useless for show. In severe cases it goes a lot deeper.

And ok....the pink shower cap was mine. It hangs up with my gimp masks, codpieces and nipple clamps.

Downs and ups

Sometimes the veggie God taketh away then he giveth. It's been a diappointing few days on the Smithyveg estate. A couple of nights ago as I was uncollaring  my leeks I noticed that at least 6 of them were going to seed. The rest of them (16) seem to be ok but I'll have a nervous few weeks waiting to see if they go to seed too. I can only assume the recent hot weather and complete lack of rain has stressed the plants.

Today I pulled up all my large onions and took them into the kitchen. I'd been expecting this for 3 or 4 weeks since the foliage started going yellow. They all have white rot. The bases are mouldy but the tops of the onions are perfectly edible but it means I won't have any to show this year. I shall need a drastic change of plan next season. The disease is widespread on my land and despite regular applications of Basamid I don't appear to beating it so from next season I'm going to have to grow them in large pots with fresh compost and soil.

A few weeks ago I pulled some Caradec F1 carrots that i'd been growing in short pipes in the greenhouse for a local show. At the time I was disappointed as they hadn't stumped up but today I pulled a few more and was happy to see they'd mostly formed a stump end.  The skin finish was also excellent but they did lack uniformity somewhat. I snapped the largest one trying to see if it would straighten.

I've got about 20 of these left so I'll leave them now for my local show and hopefully get a matching set of 3. I cleared the compost from around the shoulders of my Sweet Candle in the outside sand beds and (touch wood) they appear to be 'fang free', with no sign of the mass of large side roots that afflicted me last season. I have about 60 to go at and am tempted to enter a set of 5 at Llangollen.

This afternoon I spent a highly productive few hours emptying out my bags of Casablanca white potatoes. I was worried that I didn't have any decent tubers after a few crafty feels into the bags as they were growing. How wrong I was as each bag yielded  several showable sized potatoes with superb skin finishes and only a few tubers having minor scab marks. I had labels with each show and class already written out so I was able to sort about 40 spuds into various sets which were put into pots of dry peat until the night before each show when they will be washed. I was even able to earmark a set of 5 for the white class at Llangollen, although i'm sure that if I am able to grow Casablanca so well there will be several growers who will be able to grow them to exceptional standards. I think Winston's days as the top white show spud are numbered.

And finally Oscar is progressing nicely and is almost back to his normal cheery self. He needed a bath today but the daughter needed a shower cap to keep the water off his wounds so her elder sister bought him this rather fetching pink number.

I look forward to showing this to all his mates at his 21st birthday party!

Odds and sods

Being a competitive sod it's always been my inclination to try and enter every class at any given show. Charlie Maisey told me last year that I should try and concentrate on a few veg that I can grow well and specialise in those but I've always attached a certain kudos to winning most points in show at local level. And to do that you have to grow lots of other vegetables so that you pick up points in lots of classes that your competitors might not necessarily bother with. It makes me a jack of all trades but master of none!

The Harlequin cherry tomatoes have been cropping for a couple of weeks now and the fruits are a uniform plum shape with attractive calyces. They're also quite tasty and very meaty for a small tomato.

The only thing about this variety is a very weird leaf habit. They really do twist and curl up far more than any other tomato i've ever grown. I've been on the verge of pulling them up a few times as they look as if they're dying but other growers have reported the same on their plants.

I've managed to grow my best ever aubergines this season after several years of failure. I harvested 7 'Bonica' yesterday which Leesa made into a blinding mousakka.There are several more smaller fruits forming on the plants which will hopefully give me fruits to enter in the any other veg classes at local level. Be careful on the calyces however as they have incredibly sharp spikes sticking out of them that pierce the skin very easily and deeply. They bloody hurt!

There are plenty of crops that can be sown between 8 and 12 weeks before your show so I like to sow little and often crops such as lettuce, french beans and kohl rabi. For the first time this season i'm growing pak choi as there is a class at Westminster for a collection of salading vegetables.  As space becomes available I shall plant these out although I shall make sure my lettuce gets planted where my broad beans were to take advantage of the nitrogen fixed in the soil by the bean roots.

As well as veg I usually like to grow a few dahlias for my local shows only. Thanks to Kev Broxholme I'm growing Blyton Softer Gleam this season which was raised by Les Stothard of the marrow Blyton Belle fame. The first bloom has just opened out and it's a lovely apricot coloured small ball. I only have three plants of three varieties so getting three matching blooms isn't going to be easy.

As i've said in the past growing a variety of veg for show is like one of those plate jugglers that used to appear on the Generation Game. Getting them all timed to perfection for the same date takes some doing and it's inevitable that some plates come crashing to the ground. Perhaps I ought to consider just growing 3 or 4 things to perfection? Nahhhh.

Total relief

Many thanks for all your comments, texts, emails and messages of support on what has been a long and worrying day. However, i'm happy to report that Oscar's op went very well and although he's swollen and bruised the worst is now over. Hopefully in a month or so he'll be able to hear for the first time.  Can't wait to give him a hug tomorrow. Grandad loves you and the Guinness is in the fridge boy!

♫Holding on to every little thing so tightly.....♫

I enjoy tying shallots. I find it quite therapeutic. A well tied set of shallots can be elevated above the competition. I very often see a set of excellent shallots spoiled by bad tying so I like to take my time doing mine and make sure that they are all tied in exactly the same way, at the same height and cut all the same.

Today I started doing my pickling shallots as the tops have now dried out and you don't want to be leaving this very fiddly job until the last minute. I have a method that involves no knots which is a bit difficult to explain, but I do find it leaves a nice finish. These will stay in place for the entire show season, as I don't take them off and re-tie between shows as is often recommended. I simply don't have the time or inclination.

I need a set of 15 for Llangollen and I'll try and do a couple a day, with some spares which I will then store in boxes of vermiculite. At this point I won't take off the last of the loose skins as I believe these keep the first whole skin below them to continue ripening. To take it all off now will expose an unripe skin that never fully ripens.

This is now my template for all my other picklers, and I will use a digital vernier to check all the others are tied the same.

I have some nice uniform 'exhibition' shallots with nice round profiles. They aren't the biggest you will see but I got mine up in the first week of June rather than get tempted to wait for them to get bigger. I've heard stories of some growers having some humungous shallots which if they stay round would make them phenomenal, but the first NVS show has been and gone and the winning shallots looked to be a similar size to mine so I'll be entering Llangollen confident they won't look out of place.

I've only lost three to going 'pregnant' this year whereas I lost a couple of dozen at least last season so I may well continue to get them up sooner than is recommended in future, i.e. the longest day.

This is how they look when they go double and means they are useless for show, but i'd still have no hesitation about planting these next season. I've taken the loose skins right off this one so you can see what I mean about the bottoms being unripe as yet.

Whilst watering my runner beans this afternoon I noticed this bean fairly low down. It was a good 16" long, ramrod straight and still growing with no sign of bean bulge. I'd love to stage a set at Llangollen but getting 15 beans to match is a real tall order. Still stranger things have happened and runner beans is one of the poorer supported classes in NVS shows mainly because of the amazing beans staged by Sherie Plumb and Andrew Jones who tend to dominate. Someone somewhere has got to come forward and try and give them a challenge.

And in response to the request from Mr S here are my pea plants. I've had a few flowers appear already and was tempted to remove them but the current national champion advised me to leave them be. I'm not very happy with how these plants are looking so I'm a bit dubious about my chances of taking a set to bench at Llangollen. Still, one good thing.....the marestail brew seems to be working as I have no mildew as yet!

My grandson Oscar will be having his cochlear implant operation on Tuesday so as a little treat tonight I let him have some of my Guinness.

He should sleep well tonight!