Biblical!

Just so that the Yorkshire pudpullers don't accuse me of having soft weather conditions all year, I can quite honestly say I've never seen rain like we've had in Loughborough the last few hours. It started with daylight virtually disappearing. It was very eerie, like the end of the World. Then the rain started.....this is the view from my office window......

....then it started creeping under the door in our reception area.....

....until in seconds it was under an inch of shitty water off our yard. The gutters over the factory couldn't cope and all the electrics had to be turned off in a hurry!

Fuck knows what my veg is like. I wonder if the NVS might consider a class for rice next year?

Onwards, upwards, outwards and backwards.

I've decided that shallots are evil little things and that anyone who can grow them to the highest standard deserves to be tied to a dunking chair for they are surely practitioners of witchcraft most foul! On checking mine yesterday I found that a couple had already started to go out of shape and these were ones that I got up first so it obviously doesn't follow that they start to go out of shape when the new growth has stopped. Perhaps some just have it in their genetic make-up? I managed to harvest about forty at 48mm diameter so hopefully I'll be left with plenty to make a set or two. I'm also trusting that the red tinge to most of them will go once the loose skins and first complete guard skin are rubbed off come show time. Purple skinning has been much more prevalent this season and indeed if you are exhibiting in a marquee and they are left overnight this colour will start to appear even on the brownest of bulbs unfortunately. It is actually a fungus.

I have been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast as conditions are getting very close on occasions to being perfect for potato blight. When temperatures are above 10degrees C and there is 80% humidity for two consecutive days , then conditions are potentially perfect for the blight spores to start bouncing up into the atmosphere and landing on your precious potato foliage (and outdoor tomatoes!). This is what is known as a 'Smith Period' (fine name but a shite disease). As rain is forecast again in the next few days, with temperatures in the upper teens I took the opportunity of a dry evening to spray my spud foliage as a preventative measure. As the Irish once found out to their cost, when your spud foliage shows the first signs of the dark blotches signifying they have been infected then your spuds will be dollops of ground snot within days. As Dithane is no longer available to the amateur gardener I used Bayer Disease Control which several growers reported good success with last season. I used a single sachet of the blue/green powder in a one litre sprayer and gave all my spuds a good covering, making sure I also squirted into all the nooks and crannies of leaves lower down rather than just spraying the canopy. I shall repeat this process every 10 days whilst conditions persist.

It has been one of the worst summers I can remember for the large black slugs. Walking down the garden on damp evenings there are literally hundreds of the damn things, some as big as mice. I've read that these large slugs are actually carnivorous but I don't believe a fucking word of that and have been liberally scattering slug pellets across the plot. On a Facebook Allotment Group I belong to one chap called me 'clueless' for advocating the use of slug pellets, which I shall remember with huge smugness when I'm tucking into my roast carrots and spuds this autumn and he's no doubt crunching up more eggshells, stockpiling branflakes and nursing his bad back from his nightly rituals of bending down to pick them up by torchlight. Fucking twat.

I did buy some Slugclear which you water in, with the intention of using it on my celery. Last year, because of the huge amounts of water you have to give to celery, I found that slug pellets were being washed away and I did suffer a few stick nibbles, so I felt Slugclear could be the answer. However, when I read the instructions (for once!) on Slugclear I observed that you should NOT use it on edible crops. The 'not' was highlighted in bold black letters with the address of an undertakers in the smallprint beneath. Now, I can't stand celery and neither can the rest of the family, but my mother-in-law does so despite the very real temptation I decided to stick to pellets for now. My celery is still looking good and about 20" tall on average. I have been feeding Chempak no.2 at half strength and dribbling calcium nitrate solution into the plants to prevent celery heart rot. A regular spray of Decis prevents the celery leaf miner rendering them useless for show.

My onions are averaging 14 1/2" diameter ***(I mean circumference of course!) and put on a 1/4 of an inch overnight. I have a dilemma in that I now don't know whether to pull them at 18 1/2" which is what Dan recommends for the 1.5kg class or let them grow bigger and have a go at the large onion classes. I think I may be biting off more than I can chew by doing that so I'll be content with 3 pounders this season and try and aim for good uniformity for the 1.5kg option. And still no sign of bolting, white rot or botrytis. Surely this cannot continue?

My long beet 'Regar' were all thinned to one per station a couple of nights ago but I fear I made my sowing way too late to have any chance.

And as well as having some long rows of globe beet 'Pablo' I have also sown 16 stations in cored holes in sand, filled with the same mix as for the long beet (it was left over!). Mark Hall grows all his globe beet this way and he certainly does get some nice round roots with long taps. I've always felt it was a lot of trouble to go to but I'm giving it a go in this small trial and see how we get on.

Not sure I'll be able to exhibit any cherry toms this season as little eyes have found them and finds it very funny to flick the flowers!

About time!

Land of the Giants 2012

I took a night off from the plot last night and decided to take my wife for a night out instead. The best advice I can give to any man is that it's only fair you give your better halves some attention from time to time and I think Leesa certainly appreciates being first in my thoughts now and again.


So we went over to the village of Halam near Newark to visit giant veg man Peter Glazebrook's garden, along with several other NVS members from the North East Derby District Association!

I visited Peter's last year at this time of year and I would say his onions were on a par with then. Of course he went on to smash the World record, but Peter reckons they're actually slightly behind this season, unsurprising given the poor weather we've had recently, with low natural light levels. Even so they'll be there or thereabouts come Harrogate and I took this photo of Leesa in front of Peter's onion house to prove that I did indeed take her out for a treat.

D'ya wanna be in my gang?

Well now, I've really been enjoying the European Football Championships, although I'm glad Poland have been knocked out as my car is fucking filthy! England are playing that shite and having that much luck they might even bloody win it! I'm glad there's a couple of days grace from it all now as there is much stuff to be done on the plot!



When I started showing locally I was viewed with an awful lot of suspicion by the established order of 3 or 4 (at most) geriatric bastards who had been contesting the local shows for many years, sometimes decades. These dinosaurs really didn't want any upstart coming into their cosy little 'club' and so I struggled to glean even the smallest snippet of information out of them to the point where I was very much on my own and struggled to make an impression for a few seasons. I vowed there and then that if ever I was in their position I wouldn't be a complete and utter cunt like them and would open myself up to anyone else and hand over as much knowledge as I could give them if I was asked. Sadly these arseholes still walk among us.


One of the benefits of the internet and various gardening forums such as that of the National Vegetable Society, is that we can all fast-track our learning curve and indeed if I go back 3 years the quality of my produce bears no resemblance to what I've been producing more recently. There is now quite a large gang of new-ish 'showers', many of them still quite young, who are improving at a good rate of knots and who will start to get into the tickets at Branch and National level before too long I feel. They've been networking knowledge and experiences for a couple of years now, guided by several top notch NVS growers who have been happy to give their time, expertise, seeds and sometimes even plants, and i'm proud to have played my own little part in that. However, I sincerely hope the established pecking order will embrace this influx of enthusiasm and realise that the future of the Society is in their hands. We may not do things their way but we're keen as mustard and want to have a laugh and a giggle along the way. Life isn't all about rules, regulations and constitutions. Sometimes it's about sharing drunken evenings and fucking fruit cakes!



One of the good things about keeping an online diary (blog) is the ease with which you can look back at previous years to see how things compared, whether you're ahead of the game or trailing behind, and what you were doing differently then (and often wrongly!). I was surprised to realise i'm now approaching 6 years of writing this garbage, and my thanks to those of you who regularly dip in, even those of you who think I'm a wanker and who I now know are avid readers!!! I can also look back at photos of my exhibits in years gone by to see how much I have (hopefully) improved, and also by taking photos of my competitors' entries to reassure me come showtime that I can compete, especially when you start stepping up a level.


One of the things that doesn't seem to change every year is the great British weather. It's regularly shite despite our rose-tinted glasses that summers in years gone by were gloriously temperate during the day and it only rained at night when we were in bed. The truth is we have to be prepared for the worst, and take precautions accordingly, as no-one will have any sympathy for you come showtime i'm afraid. I'm hearing many stories of slow-growth, produce cooking, produce rotting, polytunnels being blown away, lack of rain, too much rain, bolting, botrytis, fluffy mould, anal rape, pillage and chipped finger nails. As I write it is raining steadily and more is forecast over the next few days, and some parts of the country, mainly in the south and west, have been subjected to severe flooding. Luck of the draw plays a large part in your results especially if you happen to live in a part of the country that has escaped the worse excesses of Mother Nature. I also think I may have played a blinder this year by sowing late to time things for the end of September as I haven't suffered any growth checks, although as there is still a long way to go pestilence may yet descend upon me and make my face as miserable as Dave Thornton's currently is.


At the weekend I put my large onions in pots outside as the tomatoes growing behind them needed tending and I needed to plant some potbound aubergines where the onions were resting. This is not an ideal situation as I am putting them at greater risk of botrytis by growing outside, but my greenhouses are bursting at the seams. Luckily, my financial controller and under-gardener has already suggested that we acquire a top of the range polytunnel in time for next season, meaning that I shall be able to grow my onions to completion indoors. For now though they will have to take their chances outside which will be fine if we get a sustained period of dryish weather until late July. All in all though I'm ecstatic about how they're looking and with at least another month for them to grow i'm set to have my best ever onions.

The first tomatoes have now formed on the bottom trusses meaning I shall start feeding with tomorite, nettle soup and comfrey soup in rotation, adding sootwater from July to bring out the colour. The roots are well down by now as I can see them at the bottom of the bottomless watering pots so I will do most of my watering and feeding through these in order to keep the soil surface as dry as I can.

My Kestrel spuds are only about 10" high, and my Amour only just breaking the surface as I have delayed setting them so I don't have to have them in store too long before my shows in late September. Once they reach about a foot high it's very important to keep the bags moist at all times as this is the critical stage in the possible development of scab, which thrives in dry soil. I'm also giving the foliage a spray with Maxicrop and they really seem to gleam afterwards.

And finally, I've decided that I shall probably have engraved on my headstone 'Who the fuck has he upset now?' As many of you know I'm a bit of a diplomat. We have lovely neighbours, a young indian couple who regularly swap curries with us for veg over the garden fence. Sadly they are attached to a pair of monumental tossers, another young couple, childless, who are constantly moaning at them (via TEXT!) to keep their kids quiet, inspite of the fact that they're quite happy to let their boxer dog bark loudly without shutting the fucking thing up. He is a big bully who has been seen beating his wife up but she seems to take it like an idiot. After our neighbours had told us about yet another upsetting text on Saturday evening (not late) to keep their lovely children quiet (only a bit of bedtime boisterousness), I decided to erect this spiffin sign in my garden so that the wife-beating wanker two doors up can quite clearly see it. I have now witnessed him walking up and down his garden several times, smouldering with anger but like all cowards he's too scared to say anything to me, but I live in hope of a street brawl before too long. I'll keep you posted on how I get along as I think he'll start as a clear favourite but i'm a dirty little fucker with a few nasty tricks up my sleeve.

Give and take, ups and downs

I've often said that when growing veg for show you have to accept that some years you are the pigeon and some years you are the statue! Some years you are both on alternate days and you have to be prepared for the inevitable problems.

I went to swap some pepper plants with Dave Thornton yesterday and found him in a very melancholy mood. He reckons he has given up on this year already, and was complaining about how the weather has set his growth back several weeks. His long carrots were certainly a little on the small side, he had lost several stumps to willow aphid, and his parsnips had a strange purple mottling that even he hadn't seen before. I tried to point out that there were still three months to the shows but there was no shifting his malaise and I left him looking very glum and dejected. It was very funny and made me feel very, very happy on the drive back, even more so when I got back home and realised my leeks, celery, long carrots and parsnips looked better than his.

Then in the afternoon my daughter Jennifer introduced us to her new boyfriend. He seemed nice enough, but after some intense interrogation he revealed that he is a Liverpool fan, thus illustrating how one's emotions can reach intense heights of pleasure and trawl the depths of despair in but a few short hours. She seems quite keen on him so I may have to kill him.

Dave mentioned in the morning that he is intending to show lettuce and turnips this season, such was his lack of faith in being able to compete with his usual strongpoints. Both can be sown 10-12 weeks before your show. Another crop he could try are marrows, as there is still time to sow seed for Malvern. The NVS have introduced a new class for the National Championships this season, for three marrows. They are usually shown as a pair and it's going to be a real tall order to get a matching set of 3. Today I set up a framework of metal poles securely attached so that they won't fall over under the weight of the plants. I'm growing 5 Blyton Belle, and will be training them up the poles as the leading shoot grows. I won't allow them to fruit for the first 3 feet of vertical growth, but then the poles start to incline so that the fruits can hang down, away from the coarse foliage to minimise the possibility of any skin marking.

48mm

After getting back from Blackpool tonight I decided to start harvesting the large shallots having assessed the position of the larger bulbs in the bed. A couple were at 48mm, with many bubbling behind around the 45mm mark, so I grasped the nettle and decided to start the process, harvesting the two biggest and aiming to get the rest up as soon as they reach size over the next few days. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up about 53-55mm after drying out, as the large healthy tops die back into the bulb. Any flat sides will also round up.

I was also pleased to harvest another 7 picklers at 27mm, with another dozen or so not far behind. Hopefully I won't lose any to botrytis this year, having dipped them in Rovral powder before planting.

I started the day by inspecting the steelwork at the top of Blackpool Tower and ended it with the first harvest for the coming show season. My shallots looked in better condition I have to say!

Famous faces meet their hero Smithyveg!

Amazing who you bump into on a Monday morning in Blackpool. I managed to give Wayne a pep talk before tonight's match and took Titchy to task over his organic principles. Even met my all-time hero Benny Hill. None of 'em spoke much though!

Blackpool

Yet another few days away from the plot....took Oscar and his mum to Blackpool for a few days. Anyone know how to do a knotted hanky?

27mm

A significant measurement for me at the moment, as I harvested the first 3 pickling shallots today when they got to this size. Last season I got them all up at 28mm and found that they all swelled to well over the required 30mm . If they don't go through the judge's 30mm ring (ooooh matron!) then you'll get disqualified, so this season I decided to get them up smaller still.

I have laid them in a tray in my conservatory to dry out and ripen, complete with tops and roots for now, on some soft foam. I have also covered them with some white polystyrene sheet so that they don't 'cook' in hot weather.

I just need to keep checking the rest in order to get a set of 15 for Malvern.

Cauli wobbles and sparsley parsley

It has been a strange season thus far. Whilst I'm happy that the majority of my stuff is looking good I have had some issues, the main problem being that I am really struggling to get some seeds germinated. I've now had 4 attempts at getting some parsley on the go. I put it down to old seed and having purchased some new last weekend I now have the first seedlings popping up at long last. Parsley is important for garnishing Leesa's trugs as she pokes it into the gaps between each veg so that the judges cannot see the scrunched up bits of newspaper, old bras, suspender elastic and broken dildos that she uses to prop up the veg on show.

I learned a while ago that lettuce will simply not germinate in temperatures much above 25 degrees so I generally have pots of seeds in a shady corner outside. I can only assume the recent heatwave was a factor but I've had three attempts at germinating some and still no success, despite using fresh seed.

But most disappointing of all are failures to get some cauliflour seed to pop up. I sowed a first batch of 'Boris' 3 weeks ago when it was really hot, and another batch a week ago. There is nothing so far from the first sowing but the second batch is now starting to come through but does seem very patchy and the seedlings don't look that strong. I was hoping to grow quite a large patch of caulis this season with a view to trying to get some staged at Malvern but it looks like that plan will have to be shelved. It's a bit late to be sowing fresh seed now so I'll have to run with what few plants I can muster up. I may buy a few in from a local garden centre.

In the past I've suffered from my caulis suddenly collapsing a few days after planting out. As far as I can tell I don't have a club root problem on my land so on closer inspection I discovered lots of tiny grubs eating the roots which I assume were those of cabbage root fly. However, I never seem to have this problem with my cabbages so that has always confused me. Thankfully though, problems with cabbage white butterflies are now a thing of the past as I use something called Decis on the leaves of all my brassicas (and celery to ward off leaf miner). Two or three sprayings a season are enough and the cabbage whites simply avoid the leaves and don't lay their eggs.

Apparently Decis is a highly toxic substance (as are the phorate granules I used against carrot fly) and according to Greenpeace you need to don full body armour, preferably an XC55 (Mark IV) Turbo Charged Patented Spunkmaster Sprayer with integrated cock wipe attachment and apply a minimum of 6 million miles away from any other human being, and you need to go to horticultural college for the duration of 3 lifetimes to acquire the necessary certification to be able to use it. I prefer to spray on sunny days in a T-shirt and shorts with my bollocks hanging out but I do take the rather unusual and perhaps radical precaution which I'm sure many of the organic grass chewers might find a little hard to accept....OF POINTING IT DOWNWARDS AT THE GREEN THINGS AND NOT SPRAYING IT IN MY FUCKING FACE!

Boogie roots....

Last year Shelley Seeds sent me a trial packet of a stump carrot called Caradec with my order. I liked the name as it reminded me of Caer Caradoc, a superb hill in Shropshire that I walked 4 years ago and keep meaning to go back to. I was encouraged by the results even though they grew ridiculously long and a bit ribbed, although I did manage to win a local shows with them. I nicknamed this one Dirk Diggler.

The ribbing and length was down to a poor watering regime and the fact that I grew them in black plastic drainage pipes in the greenhouse, but the skin finish in general was excellent and the stump end very good come September so I thought I would grow them 'properly' this season to see if they could compete with Sweet Candle in any way. I took a couple of plank frames off a long carrot bed and converted it into another stump bed and sowed the seed just after my Sweet Candle was sown, as I found they took a similar timeframe to develop the stump end. These were thinned down to one per station yesterday and i'm looking forward to seeing what they look like come show time. They appeared to be a thinner variety than SC, resembling its predecessor 'Gringo' which ruled the roost until 'Candle' came along. I definitely think it has potential .....but of course I could just be wasting my time. I often do!


I mentioned last month that you needed to be patient with your roots after several of you felt yours were just sitting doing nothing. As I said, June is usually the month that the blue touch paper is lit and so it has proved. My parsnips have really perked up in the last week and this season i'm making sure I sprinkle a few grains of phorate powder around the bases as a precaution against carrot fly. I've always assumed the brown lesions on the skins are canker but after reading up on the subject I've realised that canker shouldn't like the way we grow parsnips (in free-draining media with added lime) so I think it might actually be carrot fly damage. Carrot fly will happily lay their eggs at the base of parsnips if there are no carrots to hand, and as mine are all under cover I guess they might have gone looking elsewhere. We shall see come harvest time if my hunch is right.

 

My Sweet Candle stumps are also growing away nicely. These are contained within a wooden frame and polythene structure with an enviromesh top so the plants are really cossetted against strong winds but rain can get through. I water them a couple of times a week in dry weather and the 'cups' concentrate about an inch of water straight at the roots rather than just draining away into the surrounding sand. I found I got much more refined roots doing it this way last season.

I'm happy to report that I have no problems so far with tomatoes (Cedrico) this season. Although a little elongated the plants look very healthy and the first fruits have formed on the bottom trusses. Since planting i've only watered a couple of times in order to encourage the tap root to forage deep into the border soil. I'll start feeding as soon as the first fruits are pea-sized.

I also have 3 plants of Sungold which have to reside in my conservatory due to a lack of space elsewhere. This way runs the gauntlet of my middle daughter Jen nicking the fruits near showtime as she loves them and Oscar has also shown a huge interest in the canes, wafting them from side to side on occasion and causing me some palpitations. Leesa reckons it shows he's a gardener. I reckon it shows he's a demonic little hooligan. Hopefully they'll survive as I do get lovely clean fruits growing them indoors like this.

I am also growing a single plant of a beef steak variety. At Harrogate there is a class for a collection of tomatoes (with decent prize money) where you need 5 medium fruited, 6 small fruited and 3 beefsteak. Getting a matching set of 3 off one plant is perhaps a tall order but I only have room for the one. I sent the following photo of a funny shaped beef-flap variety to David Allison, editor of the NVS magazine but for some reason he says he can't publish it!

My cactus and succulent collection has now been placed outside in a sunny spot for the Summer and Autumn. This really freshens them up before their Winter hibernation. I bought the creamy cushion cactus 'Echinocactus Grussonnii' (common name Mother-in-Law's Cushion...if only!) for 8 quid at Malvern about 5 years ago. In Tenerife they were growing wild everywhere, and were the size of space hoppers!

Evening Star

Venus passed across the sun last night and apparently that won't happen for another 100 years. Damn! Wish I'd gotten out of my warm bed early instead of having to see the footage on the news instead!

All my celery 'Evening Star' (I don't just throw this fucking blog together you know!) have now been planted and encased with a very loose 10" dpc collar to draw the plant upwards.

I've got 30 plants set up and i'm growing them in these 12" bottomless pots that i've pushed into the surrounding soil. I've never seen anyone else growing them thus, but I hit on the idea last season and found it a very effective way of directing water straight at the roots. I threw what I thought was a ridiculous amount of H2O at them but still found the soil to be surprisingly dry when digging them up. It showed me that you can never give celery too much water as they are a bog plant in the wild. And I made sure I scattered a few slug pellets around each plant....already they are all surrounded by the rotting, snotty carcases of several slugs and snails that would have rendered my plants useless at such an early stage in their growth.

Cool Brittannia!

I have to say I felt really proud to be British this weekend. We had a spiffin street party and all the kids in the street had a day that will live in their memory forever. There were millions cheering the Queen in London, and only a hundred 'strong' shower of shite protesting Republicans among them. That's that argument settled then! Long live the monarchy and all our strange and quaint British traditions that the rest of the World envy.

And there's nowt stranger than the British pot leek grower! I've always vowed never to grow pot leeks. There are no classes in any shows for pot leeks around me and to be honest i've never quite seen the point of them....why grow dumpy little leeks when you can grow a blanch leek?

But i've actually got 5 plants growing away having acquired them at a talk given by John Soulsby in February. They were actually meant for someone else but I ended up keeping them and growing them on. When it came to planting out I realised I didn't have anywhere suitable, so I chopped some old barrels in half and filled them all with a mix of garden soil and M3, with added Q4 and seaweed meal. They've been planted a month now, covered in a wood and polythene framework and as far as I can tell they're doing ok, but having no previous point of reference I don't know if they're good, bad or mediocre!

One thing I do know ( and my thanks to former National pot leek champion Gareth Cameron for this) is you only start to blanch them with a dark cloth 8 weeks before the show. Pot leeks should be no more than 6" to the button so the last thing you want is for them to start pulling upwards like you would blanch leeks.

Am I hooked on growing pot leeks? I'll let you know in September!

60 years and counting.

God bless her!

Doubling up?

If you pop over on Dan's site he's been unlucky enough to have several of his large onions go double through stress bought on by the now long-forgotten heatwave, thus severely hampering his preparation for the yearly BBC (Bullshit Bloggers Championship) at Harrogate.

After repairing my severely split sides and wringing my pants out of piss, I thought I'd best check my own onions and as far as I can tell everything is ticketybooboo thus far. Each new shoot is emerging from the centre of the next two youngest leaves, rather than from elsewhere indicating that you are going to have a double-necker.

Onions don't need large amounts of water in theory, but I have been watering every day during the recent hot spell, especially as they are growing in pots and hopefully i've successfully steered through it and won't suffer a similar fate as Dan. This is a typical example....

Thinning down!

I've been quite lazy so far this season and putting some timber on apparently, although I weighed myself this afternoon on my works' industrial scales and was pleased to see i'm a very svelte and nimble 10 stone 61 pounds. Need to be careful I don't waste away! But now I really need to motor as there are many things to be doing each and every day if you want to be in with a shout of winning those red tickets!

I'm only growing three drums of long carrots this season (although I've crammed 7 in each) and I thinned each bore hole to one yesterday evening.

With a mix of simply F2 with added sand (couldn't source F2S) and calcified seaweed it will be interesting to see if I can get back on track with long carrots after several years of disappointing results. I think my borehole mixes just got way too complicated down the years and looking back at previous years long carrots used to be one of my strong points. I found this photo from about 10 years ago when I got a best in show with these meaty (but far from perfect) roots at Sturton Show.

Only 6 or 7 years ago I got another best in show with these.

So I'm at a loss as to how my long carrots seem to have regressed although I have been getting excellent skin finishes. Last season I had absolutely enormous tops and was quite excited at the prospect of pulling roots in proportion, but they turned out to be way too small to be competing against the likes of Dave Thornton and Ian Simpson. Having said that I did score 15 out of 20 for this pair in my 3x2 collection at Llangollen, and these were reasonably heavy.

I think the variation in sizes throughout the season means I'm not getting my mixes uniformly mixed up, so the simpler mix i'm using this season should give me better uniformity if nothing else.


I have a lot of plants to set out in their final positions this coming week, including celery, a pumpkin (for fun) some sweetcorn, butternut squashes, courgettes and much more, but a word of warning. In the mid-90's I remember losing many tender plants to a very hard frost on the evening of June 6th and I am always very wary about planting before this date for that reason. Clear, frosty nights are often associated with a full moon and we have one on June 4th this season, although statistically full moons don't tend to have more frosts than any other day in the cycle. Even so I'll be keeping a close eye on the night-time weather forecasts for the next few days.

My shallots have excelled my wildest dreams this year and are swelling very nicely indeed. I emailed National Champion Dave 'Annoying Twat' Thornton a photo a couple of days ago for his opinion and he said 'yeah they look about right'. Believe me, this amounts to as high a praise as it's possible to get from him, so I'm quite excited that I'll be able to compete this season and have plenty of bulbs from which to make a set or two.

I shall be spraying them with Rovral this evening and then hoping for no more rain until harvest time (it's wazzing down as I write!). I'm measuring a sample bulb at 12.30 each day with a digital caliper and jotting it down for use in future years, and they are currently swelling by over a millimetre in diameter per day. At this rate I'll be harvesting around the 12th to the 16th as and when each bulb reaches a size which i'm hoping to be around 50mm, but will be quite happy with 45mm (Dave somehow manages to get about 65mm). I will part each bulb from the clump carefully, leaving the others to grow onto size but only as long as there are still new green shoots emerging from the centre of the bulb. Once this fresh, green centre growth has stopped you need to harvest them all, as they will surely go 'double' if left in the ground any longer, because they are now preparing to go onto their secondary growth cycle, which is splitting again. Many growers will leave theirs until late June in the hope of getting even bigger bulbs but I firmly believe you should bite the bullet, set yourself a target and get them up as soon as they reach that target, and don't be tempted to give them a bit longer. Be content with what you've got, not what you want. They will actually continue to 'grow' several millimetres during ripening as the foliage dies back into the bulb, and any flat sides will round up no problem. By harvesting like this when they're still on their initial growth cycle you shouldn't have too many problems with them going 'pregnant' in store thus:

My best year was 2010 when I got 3rd at Malvern and 2nd at Westminster, both times behind Faceache Thornton.