Simply superb!

Was that acceptable Mr.Romney you yankee twat?

Simon says

Here is a photo of one of my pot grown onions, currently at 19" circumference which should be about 3lbs+.

I thought they seemed to be running out of steam but seeing them daily lulls you into thinking this, and when you actually measure them they are still increasing by an imperceptible 1/8" per day, so I'm going to let them carry on growing until mid-August or perhaps a bit later, settling on a measurement then harvesting them as and when they reach it in order to give me several to hopefully making some matching sets. Every few days I pull off any dried out leaves and the connecting film of brown papery skin that is attached to it to leave a nice green bulb with the attractive vertical lines. I shall certainly be growing them this way next season. I'd never have felt it possible to grow such large bulbs in such relatively small pots if I hadn't seen it and done it for myself.

Over on Dan's allotment diary website (in between incessant northern moans about the weather that apparently only he has been suffering from) he is growing a giant marrow which he has christened 'Simon', because it is 'short, stubby and fat'. Oh how my fucking sides split with laughter when I read that on Facebook! However, I hope it keeps growing as I would like to meet up with my namesake at Harrogate when no doubt Dan will be entering him in the heavy classes. Dan has a long history of entering marrows.

And whilst on the subject of Harrogate this year's BBC (Bullshit Bloggers' Challenge) will be the 3x2 class rather than the 6x1 class that I won quite magnificently last year from Dan and Paul Bastow. We actually came last, second to last and third to last out of 10 entries but no matter, we all had fun and it allowed us to put an entry into a class that normally only the very best enter and we weren't disgraced so if you fancy the craic then why not challenge us this year? £10 entry, winner takes the spoils. To be honest I need the competition as it's like taking candy off those two muppets.


Meanwhile, over at the Olympics you ask those bloody Scots to do one tiny little thing...........

Honestly, I'm carrying out vital tasks down there darling!

It's a sad day that I have to report the death of Paul Bastow.....i'm assuming he's dead as he hasn't posted anything on his fucking blog for nearly a month now the lazy northern homo fertiliser. (If you are dead Paul can I have your polytunnel? Ta xxx)

For many of us there's still a few weeks to go until showtime. You should have planted pretty much everything you might need so from now until your big day you just need to keep an watchful eye over everything and try and spot problems and act accordingly before things get irretrievably bad. My wife calls it 'faffing about' but I prefer to call it vital observation. We have a few areas in our garden that have been allowed to go wild with weeds this season whilst we draw up new plans to re-arrange the plot to allow for a chicken house and more veg growing space. Rather than get to grips with these areas she will very often find me quietly looking at my plants and apparently achieving fuck all, but i'm actually observing how plants are growing, what the insects are doing and checking for the first signs of any disease. Here are a few things I might be looking out for at this time of the season.....

Carrot tops......make sure the shoulders aren't becoming exposed to the light, drawing more soil or sand around them if possible to stop them going green. Also, look out for secondary growths on your carrots and snap them off cleanly before they get too big. See my previous post for what this looks like http://smithyveg.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/secondary-growth-on-carrots.html?m=0

Beetroot foliage......can get infested with leaf miner and these little critters can quickly ruin a bed. I spray with Decis but if you 'pop' the burrowing maggot before it does too much damage you can halt their march.


Celery foliage......celery leaf miner. Treat as for the beet miners. Best to take preventative measures as the foliage is part of the exhibit, unlike beetroot, and any sign of pest damage will result in you being downpointed.

Tomatoes......look for droppings on the upper surfaces of leaves, an indication you have tomato moth caterpillar chomping away at one of your fruits. Locate the culprit which will be somewhere above the droppings, pick off the fruit and destroy.

Parsnips.......the past few years i've had red spider mite despite them growing outside, mainly because it had been so tropical....not something i've had to worry about this season! However, I have had one or two snails rasping their way up a few stalks. Damage is superficial but you want to pick them off and boot them over next door as soon as you see them. I'm still hugely pleased with my parsnips, and the foliage is already as big as when I've pulled them in September the last few seasons' shows so i'm hopeful of a good year if I can keep those pesky carrot fly off.

250g onions......I've fashioned a simple cardboard 'prong' gauge set at 82mm so that I can go along the rows looking for any that might be approaching that diameter. Once they reach this size they should be bang on 250g (for the varieties I grow, Vento from seed and Setton from sets) and I will strip back any split skins and leave them to grow on for another couple of days. This allows any 'ribbing' on the base of the bulb to flatten out.

Marrows....if training up vertical supports do this every 3 or 4 days as they will start extending out quickly and you don't want a flappy bits that are in danger of being broken off in high winds. I am also taking off any immature marrow fruits for now and any side shoots are taken back to the first pair of leaves.

Peas.....look out for marauding tartan clad pea moth grubs. Spray with Bugclear when in flower. I shall be planting mine on the 31st July, 27 days after sowing which is following Ian Simpson's timeline. I'm growing Dorian and although this variety will have a snowball's chance in hell of doing any good I am determined to get a set of peas on the bench at Malvern somehow, to prevent another year of ridicule from former champion Ian Stocks of Scotland. Ian is currently on holiday in the Baltic so don't be surprised if we are soon at war with Russia. Dorian is supposed to be mildew resistant, something Show Perfection is not, and I'd be wasting my breath growing it in September.

Leeks....where do I start? You are looking for little lime green caterpillars of the leek moth munching on your flags. When startled they roll themselves up and tumble down into the growing point and are a complete fucking bugger to pick out. Leek rust can quickly decimate your chances if left to go unchecked. I spray with Bumper as a preventative measure. Aphids will also rapidly colonise the barrel inside your collars so keep checking inside them regularly during the season. And this year is a bad one for leeks going to seed prematurely. So far 16 of my 23 plants have succumbed and I can only really blame the weather as many people up and down the country appear to be suffering.

Potatoes......despite regular sprayings against blight i'm not taking anything for granted and I monitor the foliage daily to check for the first signs. If you're fast enough you might get away with picking off the affected leaflets but more probably you'll have to get your spuds up immediately and use them up before Winter as they usually won't store as well. I'm told that even Sherie Plumb has got badly hit by blight this year and didn't sweep the spud classes at the Southern Branch Show as she usually does, so there may be a chance for someone else at this year's National Championships at Malvern. I bet Owain Roberts is chomping at the bit!

Brassicas....check for tiny eggs of the cabbage white butterflies on the underside of the foliage. Despite spraying with Decis I still get some kamikaze butterflies who manage to lay the odd egg and these need squishing before they hatch. My cabbages are well behind and haven't even begun to think about hearting up yet.

You also need to be regularly checking your stored shallots that none have gone rotten and bin these immediately to stop them spreading onto others. I went through mine again yesterday and discarded another pile that had gone double, leaving me about 30 to make a set of 12 from, but they don't look great, another product of this crazy season's weather.

The last couple of days have been hitting 30 degrees here so the season has just gone from one extreme to the other, and i've now used virtually all the water from my two large butts to keep the tomatoes and cucumbers ticking along. This season really has tested the mettle of anyone who grows to show so we may have to give it up as a bad job and look for something else to amuse us this Autumn.

"In this month's GW magazine......

......Monty Don explains why gardening without chemicals is, for him, the only way to create a beautiful, well-balanced, wildlife-friendly garden."

And check out those manky, flea-bitten cabbages. Yik! I want wildlife in the countryside, not in my garden!

Has beans

With but a week left until the Olympics comes to our glorious shores I'd just like to say a big thankyou once again to the miserable snot-snivelling public sector workers who keep threatening to go on strike during the greatest event we're ever likely to witness. If it was up to me I'd put the greedy fuckers in prison and each morning send in some heavies to pour freezing water over them and give them a few well placed slaps until they promised not to be such pricks ever again.

I've had a blight alert every day for about a week now and the red dots on the Potato Council's blight incidence map seems to have affected virtually every county in England except Leicestershire. I've been tracking it for several weeks and it has steadily been creeping inland from coastal areas, but thankfully it still hasn't reached us. It's the one piece of good news I've had in a horticultural capacity!

We had another huge downpour here again today although the forecast is for two whole days of sunshine over the weekend, but with the ground so waterlogged you are a tad limited as to what you can do. With 9 weeks to go until Malvern, last night I sowed a tray of french bean seeds 'The Prince' with seed kindly furnished to me by Northern Branch Champion Ronnie Jackson. Ronnie has just undergone a hip replacement operation and is recuperating so best wishes to him. I actually exhibited a set of 15 beans at last year's National just to see how they looked compared to everyone else's. Locally I don't think I've ever been beaten with french beans but as you can see when you compare my National set......

.....against the winners grown by David Peel....

....you can quite clearly see I have some way to go to get even close. Mine were on the 'beany' side and didn't have the condition of everyone else's. Admittedly I did grow them outside and you do struggle to get a blemish free pod, so this season I shall be growing them to completion in large pots in the greenhouse. Once the pods have set and are an inch long they can be the optimum 8" long within a week or so. I believe they need to be grown 'fast' so they are picked at their optimum length before they start bulging out, so hopefully, with Ronnie's special seed and sowing time I'll be nearer the mark this time around. However, knowing this year's weather there'll be an August heatwave and they'll have fucking gone past their best well way before Malvern!

Will you PLEEEEASE stop f***ing raining!

A month ago I thought I was in for another disastrous tomato season as the plants went all spindly and the foliage started going yellow and mottled. At the time I thought it might be down to my soil becoming toxic, a lockdown of the nutrients caused by not having Winter rains wash through any surplus fertilisers. However, as I religiously pour several buckets of water over the borders during Winter I was disappointed to think that might be the case and not looking forward to the inevitability of having to replace all the soil next Spring. I fed the plants with strong solutions of comfrey and nettle brew, as well as regular doses of Tomorite, and sprayed the foliage with Epsom Salts and gradually it seems to have worked and the plants have started to look much healthier and getting to look something like i'd expect, albeit they are still a bit spindlier than i'd like. It appears the larger than usual differences between daytime and nightime are the probable causes of the tomatoes looking so poorly, although I'm sure the poor light levels have also played a part.


One of the problems with most modern tomato varieties is the sheer weight of the fruit causing the trusses to collapse or even snap clean off the plant. I find this a particular problem on the lowest truss whilst the plants are still quite small, so I solve this by threading string around the central stem of the truss and tying it to a horizontal cane that runs just below the eaves, and which I use to tie all the vertical canes to for stability. It's a bit awkward but it does work and gives you an extra choice of fruits for earlier shows. As a 'vine ripe' variety Cedrico will stay on the plant in very good condition for 2 or 3 weeks.

I am now methodically going along each plant and examining all the trusses in order to thin out any fruits that are either malformed or that I think are growing too close to its neighbours. By taking one out the two either side have more room to swell out and grow nice and round, and you avoid any flat spots that a judge can use against you in close competition. It can look a bit drastic on some trusses and requires a leap of faith but it will be worth it.

I tend to leave the cluster of fruits at the ends of the trusses on. These never grow very large but I think they act as a buffer and stop the main fruits on the truss getting too large. I've actually won a heaviest tomato class with a Cedrico. To all intents it looked like a beefsteak variety although every other fruit on the plant was normal sized, and on occasion I find you can get a few oversized ones forming.

I am also growing a single beefsteak type plant, the variety Marmande, and this appears to be growing pretty well. The reason I'm bothering is to be able to get an entry in the Northern Horticultural Society's side of the Harrogate Show, calling for a tomato collection whereby you need 3 beefsteaks, 5 medium tomatoes (Cedrico) and 6 small fruited (Sungold). There is good prize money on offer and there wasn't a lot of entries last year so I hope some of you reading this will have a crack. I know Bastow and Thornton are intending to enter so as you can see there's not a lot to beat.

When I win the lottery i'm going to buy a huge walled garden, cover it over with an Eden Project type dome, install thermostatically controlled heating, day-length controlled supplementary lighting and then I will guarantee winning every show I enter. Until then I have to struggle on like most mortals and this season has surely been the most successful ever at making you realise just how mortal you are. A few weeks ago I started thinking I had played a trump card by sowing late to cover the late September Shows as I didn't intend showing any earlier. At that point I considered that the sun MUST start shining sooner or later, and the rain would surely stop at some point and my small plants would soon catch up with everyone elses'. But the Jet Stream still resides south of GB and means we're getting all the moist, squally weather that is being dragged from the Atlantic and getting mixed up with warm air from the Continent. Plants are simply sitting still in the sodden ground although recent news suggests that it is starting to move its sorry arse northwards back to where it should be. However, as I write it's still sodding raining heavily and feels like it has been for weeks. It is getting serious now as no plant can thrive outdoors in this for much longer.

The Jet Stream is an amazing thing. The Japanese first cottoned on to its existence in the 1920's and utilized it during the early part of WWII to send balloons packed with explosives across the Pacific to the American mainland. A few landed successfully and caused the deaths of some inquisitive kids. It took the Yanks a bit longer to work it out (doesn't it always?) as they couldn't understand why their bombs were overshooting their targets on Tokyo and landing in the sea when dropped from high altitude but when they did nail it they bombed seven buckets of shit out of the slitty-eyed little fuckers and the rest is history. There are actually several Jet Streams around the globe and of course they are fluctuating things that can change shape, course and direction as we are finding out to our cost at the moment.

It has meant that several country shows have already been cancelled or severely curtailed and you have to wonder about the possibility of the main August and September show season being affected as well, with the likes of Harrogate and Malvern being susceptible, their large public parking spaces being on grassland rather than hardstanding surfaces. It may well stop raining but it will take a while for the ground to dry out enough to drive thousands of vehicles over. It would be a travesty of justice if I was denied my opportunity of winning the National Pea Championship because of the weather. Jet Stream...please go home!

Bloke grows huge parsnip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86rnuE8YrMo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Killer sheep

When I told Dave Thornton a few months ago that I intended to grow my 250g onions in some wooden planters, filled with Levington M3, he told me it was a stupid idea and that I would never be able to get enough moisture to them. Well thank God I never listened to him as without them I would not have any onions to an acceptable standard this year. I made them out of offcuts of wooden planking with old compost bags stapled to them, black side facing out to protect the wood for several seasons to come. The main idea behind my thinking was to ensure I got some onions through the season without them succumbing to white rot, something that I have to accept as pretty much inevitable in my infested soil. However, as moisture hasn't been a problem in this washout of a season I've got my first crop of Vento swelling, all of them looking pretty uniform and I'm guessing about 2 or 3 weeks to harvest.

I also have these Setton (sets) which are also starting to swell......

When you compare them to these Setton grown in waterlogged ground you can see the difference. The ones in the ground are a pale imitation of those in the planters, the foliage being quite sickly looking and the bulbs have barely started to swell. Some have also gone to seed. I always expect about 60% to succumb to white rot but that's if they don't rot off in the boggy ground first. On this occasion then it's Smith 1 Thornton 0. I shall be making more of these planters over Winter and growing them all this way in future.

If you can escape blight then the potato is one crop that revels in plenty of moisture and I should be harvesting these Maris Pipers for the kitchen in a couple of weeks time. Despite the recent deluges i'm keeping a close eye on the show spuds in bags, as they can still dry out if you're not wary. Just because it's been pissing it down for several weeks don't assume your bags are getting drenched too, as the dense potato foliage can stop rain getting to them. As my spuds were planted late and have only just started to get going the compost in the bags is as wet as the surrounding soil and so Mother Nature has done the hard work for me. When the haulms are a foot high or so (as mine currently are) it's critical to make sure you water them well, as this is when the tubers are forming and most susceptible to scab if the bags are dry.

Yesterday was the best day weather-wise in ages here in the Midlands so instead of taking the opportunity of a day in the garden I thought 'sod it' and we decided to have a day's walking around Derwent and Ladybower dams in Derbyshire, made famous as the training ground for the Dambusters. The museum was open and it contains quite a poignant tribute to the air crews who carried out the raids, many of whom never came back. There is also a superb display of charts, diagrams and photos about the making of the dams at the turn of the 19th Century. Well worth a visit. However, we are both suffering a bit today as we first hiked up to Alport Castles into the wind, a dramatic rock slip that has left a 100' high rockface and rock stack, seen here behind Leesa with the brooding plateau of Kinder Scout in the background. This was just after we'd finished our packed lunch surrounded by glorious countryside, cut short because Leesa was convinced one of the many inquisitive sheep in the area was about to kill her because.....and I quote....."it's looking at me funny! Tell it to go away!"

Triumph and disaster

At last we've had a couple of dry days and that hot yellowy thing in the sky even put in a few sporadic appearances. It only served to illuminate a growing disaster on the leek front, as I went through the bed and counted 10 that had definitely gone to seed. This equates to just under half my crop and if any more go then I won't be making many entries of leeks at shows this Autumn. They certainly haven't gone short of water and I think in view of tales of woe being recounted to me from all four corners of the land this is most probably weather related. A very warm Spring followed by a deluge of water over the last month or so, continuously low-ish temperatures, dull, miserable days have all contributed to sending the plants out of kilter so they don't know whether they're coming or going. You have to be philosophical about it and at least we've got some early leeks for the kitchen now!

One of my four cucumber plants wilted over night and closer examination revealed a rotting stem close to soil level. This could be cucumber wilt which I was recently fascinated to learn is a virus that overwinters in the belly of a little striped beetle so it could be that I lose the other three plants as the beetle traverses across the greenhouse border. I haven't spotted any beetles and to be fair when i've lost plants in the past it has only ever been one rather than all of them, so perhaps I just have a considerate little chappie who wants to be my pet? When I find him I shall pop him in a box and call him John.

I had a few Sungold cherry toms ripening in the conservatory. HAD! The conservatory is temporarily an Oscar-free zone as I also have my onions in there for now. Whilst Leesa and the kids were watching a recent deluge from the conservatory door, unsupervised little fingers were helping themselves to my ripe Sungolds behind their backs. Quite funny now I grant you, but woe betide if it happens in 2 months time......

I said a few days ago that I was going to leave my shallots in a pile and leave them to it, but the recent cool, moist weather meant that the tops just weren't drying out properly and I was concerned they could all rot if I didn't do something about it. So I topped and tailed them, having first checked that any decent ones had rounded up and any flat sides had disappeared. I was still left with quite a quantity of split and misshapen ones that will be used for pickling or cooking.

However, all is not doom and gloom. I have a decent selection of pickling shallots this year although I doubt very much I'll be giving Sherie Plumb, Andrew Jones, Ray Bassett or Ray Sale sleepless nights. Despite harvesting at 27mm I still had quite a few that swelled to larger than the 30mm maximum, a few that just about went through the ring with some pressure, and others that were evidently still at the 27mm mark. Weird.

And my Dorian peas have germinated so I'm hugely looking forward to showing Andy Murray how to beat the odds at Malvern in September. Remember Kipling Andy! I may have joked about winning the National with peas last year, but this year I really, really mean it.

Rain still hoggs the headlines.

This just goes to show what bollocks organic gardening is. On Gardener's World Friday Night, a special feature from Hampton Court Palace, avowed ecomentalist Monty Don was interviewing a beardy weirdy organicalist who put forward the idea that ants hate mint, and that if you put a sprig or two of mint near an ants' nest they'll fuck off elsewhere (that bit was bleeped out...honest!). I bring this up because I uncollared my leeks at the weekend to turn the DPC collars round 90 degrees to the next length, and inside one of the collars, more or less the full length of the leek barrel was a perfect column of soil surrounding the plant, an ants nest with an intricate system of tunnels and hundreds of large ant eggs. It did look magnificent I have to say but I washed it off with a dilute solution of Jeyes Fluid expecting the ants to bugger off but they started to rebuild the nest almost immediately. Remembering the advice proferred by Bill Oddie's mate on GW I went to my mint patch to be greeted by....yes you've guessed it.....ants crawling all over it! I think companion planting and organic gardening is a bit like Chelsea FC........it all looks rosy on the outside but when you delve deeper you see what a rotten, stinking thing it really is.


As for my leeks I am mildly happy with their progress although I have noticed a seed head starting to emerge from one of them. I had expected this as the growth at the top started to elongate (see photo below). This can be due to a sudden growth spurt induced by a deluge of water i'm told, but is also a fair indicator it's about to go to seed, and the latter has now happened.

I may have another 3 or 4 that appear to be going the same route, but the majority look sound thus far. Earlier in the year I attended a talk by John Soulsby and he ventured that leeks go to seed because of a lack of water and not because of temperature extremes. Well, these leeks certainly haven't suffered a drought recently, so I can only assume I didn't give sufficent water to some of them when the were under the lights in Winter or in the greenhouse during Spring. I can accept this small failure rate and the rest of them look good, and I now have 18" collars on them.

My ground is absolutely sodden, wetter even than a whore's knickers, and I had to run for cover to escape another amazing downpour Sunday afternoon. This is now quite comfortably the worst year weather wise that I can ever recall for growing exhibition veg and as I write I'm awaiting yet another deluge after yet another 'amber alert' was issued for our area. Lots of growers all over Britain are bemoaning the lack of sunshine so anyone winning a red ticket this season will have done exceptionally well. I'm now starting to fear for onions in the ground, the Vento and onions sets 'Setton' that I'm banking on for a set of 4 for the Millennium collection class at Malvern. Everything else should be fine (certainly anything under cover) but I don't think we need much more precipitation, and when the sun shines you can almost hear the plants growing. My Blyton Belle marrows have started to extend and I am now tying them to the vertical supports. I won't be allowing any fruit to form for the first 3' or so. The NVS have included a class for marrows in this year's National Championships, and despite the fact they've made a huge error in calling for a dish of 3 rather than 2 and expecting novices to enter, I shall be attempting to bench a set.

My runner beans were sown late with half an eye on getting a set for Malvern but it won't be the end of the World if I fail as i've always considered runner beans a bonus entry. These are just starting to get going now.

My globe beet 'Pablo', another requirement for the Millennium class, are at the seedling stage in this old water tank. I have other rows alongside my leek bed so I should have plenty to choose from.

My phone has been bleeping like mad with email blight alerts so i'm really glad I sprayed with Bayer Disease Control as a preventative measure. In dry moments (!) I've re-sprayed the foliage and so far so good. It's quite interesting watching the online blight map as the little 'x marks the spots' creep ever closer to your postcode area. So far we've only had notifications of full Smith periods rather than confirmed cases in LE11 but it's nice to know you're prepared.

I had set up my usual yearly crop of Kestrel potatoes in buckets for a local show last Saturday, the idea being that I could bring them indoors if frost was forecast in Spring. In the end time issues prevented me from competing in the show but as it's been 14 weeks since setting them away I thought I'd best start drying them off as the compost is absolutely sodden. I have 8 buckets in all and I laid them on their sides to let any surplus water run out and prevent any more rain getting in. A quick furtle in the compost failed to reveal any decent tubers anyway, but they may be a little deeper so we'll have to see. I don't get great shaped spuds in the rigid buckets but they were always good enough to win locally, so these may end up in the kitchen or for trug displays.

And my onions in pots continue to swell and the foliage still seems to have a fair bit of vigour so I'm wondering how these will end up as I'm currently averaging 16.5-17.5" circumference. I've never had onions this big at this stage of the season before and I've been advised to forget about the 1.5kg class and just let them grow. The only concern I have is being able to get a matching set shape-wise, as when you look at them all closely there are a variety of different forms, some squat, some rounded and some a more elongated flask shape (the shape I personally prefer). There is one that is bigger than the rest and I think could end up 4 or 5 lbs which will make up one of my set of 6 at Harrogate where you only need a single specimen. I've cut right back on the watering now to encourage ripening and swelling, and also to minimise my chances of them getting botrytis or other soft rots. Having the foliage supported with no chance of it flopping over and thus ending all future growth really allows you to squeeze out every last drop of weight potential.

And finally, I have to say that I was unashamedly rooting for Roger Federer in Sunday's Wimbledon tennis final but Andy Murray's tears at the end almost had me getting my glass eye out for a polish. If he'd only say sorry for wearing that Paraguay shirt before the 2006 World Cup Finals I might even start to support the miserable little snivelling sod. I mean....I always support Scotland when they get to the World Cup Finals! When I say I support Scotland......I mean that my grandad once told me that his great grandad supported them in a World Cup Finals once.

Are they taking the piss?

Make a date

The show season will be kicking in soon and from about the middle of this month you could pretty much exhibit somewhere in Britain at a show every day of every weekend until November. So get on Google and look for your local shows and try and support them if you can. For those of you who want to see the very best vegetables on display anywhere in the World then here is a list of the National Vegetable Society's various shows as well as a few others that attract some of the best growers up and down the country. The National Vegetable Society has an annual National Championships (this year at Malvern) and each of the five branches hold their own regional championships. There is a more comprehensive list of many other shows on the NVS website http://www.nvsuk.org.uk/horticultural_show/Horticultural-Show-2012-UK.php


Tuesday 24th July to Thursday 26th July
NVS Southern Branch Show at New Forest Showground, Hampshire. Contact Chris Neel 01425 629694 or email c.neel1001@btinternet.com

Friday 10th August to Saturday 11th August
NVS Midland Branch Show as part of Shrewsbury Flower Show. Contact Pat Brown 01782 566395 or email patbrown59@uwclub.net

Sunday 26th August
NVS Scottish Branch Show at Tait Hall, Kelso. Contact Grant Cathro 01382 580394 or email jgrant.cathro@sky.com (WARNING; you may have to mingle with ugly and/or hairy men from the north)

Friday 31st August to Sunday 2nd September
Dundee Flower and Food Festival at Camperdown Park, Dundee. Main attraction British Potato Championships. Email flowerandfoodfestival@dundeecity.gov.uk (WARNING; see above)

Saturday 1st September to Sunday 2nd September
NVS Welsh Branch Championships at Bryngarw Country Park, Bridgend. Main attraction British Taproot Championships. Contact Mary Thomas 01691 780420 or email maryfron2005@yahoo.co.uk. (WARNING; sheepfiddlers abound and they speak funny)

Sunday 2nd September
NVS North East Derby District Association Show at Glapwell Village Hall. Contact Dave Thornton 07778 622628 or email davidthornton969@btinternet.com (WARNING; David Thornton. Nuff said)

Friday 14th September to Sunday 16th September
NVS Northern Branch Show at Harrogate Showground. Main attraction Heaviest Onion Weigh-off, UK Carrot Championships and Annual Bullshit Bloggers Challenge (BBC). Contact raymondorme@live.co.uk (WARNING; Unsworth and Bastow may hold hands in public again)

Saturday 29th September to Sunday 30th September
NVS National Championships as part of the Malvern Autumn Show, Three Counties Showground. THE BIG ONE! Contact Pat Brown 01782 566395 or email patbrown59@uwclub.net (WARNING; Upsetting sight likely of Scotsmen crying when I win peas)

Tuesday 9th to Wednesday 10th October
RHS Westminster Show, at the RHS Horticultural Halls, Greycoat Street, London SW1P 2PE. Contact lucindacostello@rhs.org.uk (no relation to Abbot or Lou).

Saturday 27th October to Sunday 28th October
Derbyshire Horticultural Association Show at Royal School for the Deaf, Ashbourne Rd, Derby. Contact petercooke@ntlworld.com or phone 01332 553429

Pipe dreams

Whilst relaxing over a cuppa the other day Leesa asked me the following question. If I had a choice which crop would I most like in my wildest dreams to be National Champion with? Apart from the huge unlikelihood of it ever happening, she was very surprised when I said without hesitation...parsnips! She was sure I would say long carrots and so asked me to explain myself, and I think it's just that since I exhibited parsnips that won best in show at Leicester two years running I've always felt that along with tomatoes, they were the two crops I was most likely to get anywhere near a ticket at National level. As parsnips are 20-pointers they therefore trump tomatoes which are 18 pointers under NVS rules.

To be in with a shout you need skins that are as unmarked as possible. At Leicester in 2009 I pulled a set of three 'Pinnacle' that absolutely gleamed and didn't have the slightest blemish but I've struggled to repeat that since (although length and girth are excellent) and my thoughts on carrot fly damage have been discussed in previous postings. I shall be scattering more phorate granules around the crowns shortly to catch the second wave of carrot fly, having hopefully seen off the first hatchings in May. At Harrogate my parsnip scored the highest points in the collections, beating even the great Peter Clark so if I can get a matching set of 5 then why shouldn't I think about entering this year's National? Certainly, the foliage on this year's crop are looking as healthy and uniform as I've had in a long time. The variety I favour these days is 'Polar' although I understand this variety will not be available from next year.

I'd lost interest in growing a lot of long carrots this season after suffering a few disappointing seasons, but the few that I am growing are looking good so far. Last year I had enormous foliage but this didn't equate to huge roots. In contrast, Dave Thornton had some of the sparsest foliage I've ever witnessed and yet when he uncovered a crown they were huge. If I hadn't seen it for myself I wouldn't have believed it, so it just goes to show that with long roots large tops aren't everything. I'm growing 18 stations in 3 drums and I'm happy with this so far.

It certainly helps with condition growing them in a polythene surrounded wooden framework with an enviromesh top as the rain can still get in but nasties cannot. And the cossetted atmosphere keeps them nice and snug and away from any battering winds that could snap the leaves. I'll be very interested to find out if my simplified mix (F2S and calcified seaweed) gives me bigger specimens this season.

I wish I hadn't bothered trying long carrots in pipes in the greenhouse again. Watering is quite awkward and I do keep forgetting to do it so I'll no doubt end up with large roots again that are forked about 2' down. I also had a few that developed double crowns during the May heatwave and these will no doubt have oval shaped tops and be no good for showing, that is if they don't go to seed which I think is more likely. I could have used this space much more productively.

My stumps are still growing away very nicely, and the ones in this bed with polythene sides are growing too well if anything, as the tops are fair bursting out of the enviromesh top.

With over two months to go until my first show I am hopeful of having some decent stumps to show. As well as this bed I have a larger bed of roots where the foliage is only half the size, grown in a frame with enviromesh all the way round, so it just shows the difference of having polythene sides as they were both sown close together.

A couple of nights ago I planted 4 'Carmen' cucumber plants in the greenhouse border. Last year I tried planting in grobags on a raised wooden platform and this turned out to be a bit of disaster. This year I've gone back to my tried and tested method with one slight change. I've put a bottomless plant pot around the plant which will be filled with more compost when the plant is well up the cane, and another pot will be placed on top of this and the process repeated, encouraging the development of more roots from the main stem of the plant to give a stronger plant in theory. This is the way Sherie Plumb grows hers apparently so I shall be giving a whirl to see how we get on. I won't be allowing any fruits to form until the plant has reached at least 3-4' tall and I can start training it horizontally along wires, giving the plants plenty of nitrogen feed in the meantime, as well as soot water to enhance the colour.

The square pots in the blue trays are my one and only sowing of peas, sown yesterday evening (86 days from Malvern), the variety being Dorian. The usual show winning variety is 'Show Perfection' but trying to grow this variety in England in August and September is akin to trying to catch a fart in a colander as they will undoubtedly succumb to mildew. Dorian seems to have some resistance to mildew and is my only hope of benching a set of peas in late September, which is something I am determined to do even if it kills me. They will be smaller than 'SP', and have less peas in, but as you only get 3 points for size according to NVS rules then assuming you have good shape, condition and uniformity then in theory there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to compete against the usual Scottish contingent with their blemish free sets of large SP's. In fact, during the writing of this small paragraph I have managed to convince myself once again, that come September I will be crowned National Pea Champion. Proof if ever it was needed that whilst I get older with each passing day, and ever more handsome.....i'm still stupid.

And now for the weather.....

I love my wife!

Every now and again, just when you're thinking of trading her in for a polytunnel, the missus does something wonderful to remind you why you married her in the first place. Because the Jet Stream has decided to fuck off on its holidays to the South of France we're getting the many millions of gallons of the water that is normally meant for Scotland dumped on us. Scotland is used to it. We're not! And as there is no end in sight according to recent forecasts I was getting very concerned that my considerably swelling onions would get botrytis or rot off, when I really needed to start drying them off by decreasing the watering.

My wife has travelled this journey with me. We had a weekend away to collect the onion plants that had been grown for us by Helen Vincent and she helped pack them carefully in the car for the return journey. She has watched them grow with me and makes the daily walk down the garden to watch me wrap a cloth tape measure around them and jot the circumferences down in my diary for reference in future years. As we woke yesterday to yet another grey day, with no sign of the Jet Stream going back home, I was bemoaning the fact that my onions would undoubtedly start to split or worse. What happened next proves miracles do happen. She suggested (nay, insisted!) that I bring them up into our conservatory, one that we had recently cleared out of collected crap so that we could sit each night looking at the sunset with a drink in hand. This is what we share it with now!

Shitbits

I always try to avoid the danger of only putting the good stuff on here but to publicise my many failures also, so that those of lesser gardening skills (mainly from Yorkshire) can see that even I am not brilliant all the time. I've not mentioned my tomatoes for a while and that's because at one point I feared they were going a similar direction to last season, the foliage being very spindly, and the lower ones mottled and yellowing. I could rule out the cause of last year's disaster, namely cold, as I resisted planting until last May so I was left with a few options. The first one is that greenhouse border soil has become toxic. This is not as dramatic as it sounds, merely that a lack of Winter rains has caused a build up minerals which causes more harm than good to the plants. Dusting the planting trench with Q4 and Nutrimate may well have worsened that problem and is the reason why you should consider emptying out your border every 5 years or so and replacing it with fresh soil.

Now that is a lot of hard work and having spoken to former National Champion Gareth Cameron who has experienced similar issues in his onion beds, he offered me some alternatives. Gareth has researched this huge subject and I'll be speaking to him in more depth about it at Malvern shortly before he drinks me under the table, but he has been looking at 'compost teas' on the recommendation of compost guru Mick Poulteney. As a result I have been flooding the plants roots (via the watering pots) with dilute comfrey and nettle stews....not a compost tea exactly but a quick substitute as I needed something quick. I also sprayed the foliage with epsom salts just in case it was a magnesium deficiency, and i'm happy to note that the plants appear to be responding to this double-pronged treatment. In the Winter I will take some of the soil in the borders away and replace it with sharp sand, mixing it with the remaining soil, which is a practice recommended by the soil testing industry as an alternative way of negating the effects of year's of nutrient abuse on indoor growing media.....I guess on the basis that nutrients leach out of a sandy soil much quicker.

Despite harvesting my shallots before the secondary growth cycle had commenced (I think!) I've had many of my best ones either go double or split completely like this one. My apologies to any neighbours in the vicinity of my plot when I discovered this as some naughty words may have tumbled out of my mouth.

I can only assume this is weather related, as the scorching temperatures of May were replaced by the wettest June since records began. Ideally you want dry conditions from the beginning of June to aid ripening until the shallots are harvested, but it rained pretty much incessantly, causing many neolithic Yorkshiremen to consider suicide. The bulbs must have taken up so much water that this was an inevitable consequence. I do have quite a few that still look sound but to be honest I've now shoved the boxes into a corner of my garage and won't worry about them now until nearer showtime, when I will go through them and select the best, if there are any. What will be will be.


And finally I've been getting a little brassed off with my brassicas. I only managed to get 12 cauli plants to germinate although these continue to grow well and will be planted out soon enough. However, my Brigadier cabbages have been very slow to get going. They were planted out in the heatwave which made them sulk for a start, and then the cooler temperatures and incessant rain means they didn't really start growing so the plants aren't much bigger than those I planted out, although I'd have thought conditions should have suited them perfectly well. On top of that pigeons have located them and despite my dangly CD scarers I have had a couple get nibbled quite a bit, thanks to the feathery little fuckers.

Next year i'm going to look into the viability of pigeon traps using brassicas as bait as I am rather partial to a roast pigeon so I may as well get my own back and consume a few. If there's a glut the local cats will get a bonus. Wonder what fox meat tastes like?