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?