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.