Making concrete plans

Despite this season being the worst in living memory for growing veg you really can't be too downhearted, especially when you see the paralympians doing their stuff against all the odds. No man has any right to feel sorry for himself when you compare yourself to them. For that reason I will always try and enjoy the actual growing part and see each season as a different set of challenges, and if you get something on the benches then all well and good. If you don't, then as my Scottish Man Utd supporting pal Frank Taylor would say....there's always next year! (He says that a lot actually as his wife keeps beating him).

Similarly, winning is not the be all and end all......EXCEPT when it comes to next weekend's Annual Bullshit Bloggers Challenge at Harrogate for which the clock is now ticking! I could happily accept my wife beating me, but to even consider being beaten by the Yorkshire ferret fiddlers makes my knackers quiver. All summer they've been going on about the amount of Yorkshiremen winning medals at the Olympics but they soon shut up when I pointed out that most of them had to be trained at Loughborough University! Similarly both the Yorkshire backward boys have learned all they know from me so beating them should be easy enough.

This year's BBC is being contested in the 3 x 2 class, where you have to bench 3 sets of veg, 2 specimens of each and unlike the National they don't have to be 20 pointers so you can use good 18 pointers such as tomatoes, stump carrots and cucumbers. I already know what my set of 3 will consist of, and it should be good enough to beat the banjo playing hicks. Each set of 2 veg will be scored by the judge, giving a total points value so even though we're unlikely to get in the tickets (like last year in the 6x1 class) at least we can deduce a 1-2-3 from our own little competition. If anyone else fancies competing it's 10 quid in, winner takes the pot. You don't have to be a blogger, just talk complete and utter bullcrap like we do!

Here is the winner of the class in 2010 grown by Ian Simpson.

Harrogate also holds the UK Carrot Championships where the requirement is for 3 stumps and 3 long carrots. I came a creditable 8th last season so I'll be having another crack this time around. I've only grown 21 long carrots so I may well have to pull half of those to get my set of 3, although the others may well go in my 6x1 and 3x2 entries. I used Ian Simpson's simple mix this year so it will be interesting to see if I've improved on the efforts of recent years. The tops aren't great but the shoulders seem promising.

There is also a class for 3 tap roots, chosen from a parsnip, long carrot, long beet and stump carrot, one specimen of each. These type of classes are a great idea for using up those single specimens that don't match any others and would otherwise go to waste and for that reason it's a very popular class. In 2010 tap root specialist Graeme Watson won with this entry.

I'm going to have a crack at runner beans at Harrogate as my bean fence is heavily laden with developing beans, so they should be cock-on for next weekend. I shall start cutting them in the next few days so that I have plenty to make my final selection from. I won't try and get them too long, but will settle for 16" so that they are fresh and haven't started getting 'beany'. You only need 9 so it's a lot easier than the National where you need 15.

Having snipped off all developing cucumber fruits until I had large plants, trained 4' vertically before they started being trained horizontally, my plants are now absolutely dripping with fruits, so these should be coming good for Harrogate and Malvern also.

The trick now is to make sure they don't come into contact with the foliage as a small scratch now will be a large blemish when the fruit is fully formed. I pack bits of polystyrene sheet between some fruits as they develop to protect them from getting scratched.I also need to remember to duck when i'm in the greenhouse so that I don't knock the flowers off, because I shan't be able to stick them back on with superglue 'cos that is like cheating dude!

I've now just about settled down after our holiday and back into the humdrum daily routine of normal life and work. I've mentioned my bowel movements on here from time to time and I know you all like to keep up to date with them so I'll just mention the iffy toasted sandwich at Marrakech Airport that caused me some close calls at the weekend. There were certainly some interesting psychedelic botty yodels I have to admit. Still, I would rather have it that way than the other, and I well remember the severe constipation I used to suffer from many years ago when I worked with my dad in the building trade. It got so bad that in the end I had to go to the doctor. He advised me to stop wiping my arse with the cement bags.