Whilst the Sun God Helios was paying homage to my magnificent body last week, back in Loughborough we had a hailstorm that made the kids turn up the television very loud as Oscar was frightened. If I'd been at home I would also have been very frightened...for my celery mainly! When I got back in the early hours of Saturday morning to be given this information it didn't immediately register, but on inspection of the plot Saturday afternoon I was horrified to see a lot of damage to the leaves, with many marks, rips and in some cases holes where the hailstone has gone straight through. I spent 30 minutes carefully snipping off any ripped leaflets and with the best part of 4 weeks to go til Malvern hopefully they'll recover a bit by then.
I have huge concerns also with my parsnips. A few growers have reported that growth seemed to stop back in July and mine did to a certain extent when the foliage went a bit yellowy. Now growth has pretty much stopped altogether and much of the foliage has gone brown. I assumed it was red spider but can find no trace so it's another disaster I can only put down to this year's disastrous weather patterns.
I had one very small specimen that was a re-sown station so I decided to pull this one to check on skin finish, and I was delighted to note it was very clean with no sign of carrot fly damage so hopefully the rest will be the same. However, plants don't seem to know whether they are coming or going......I even have a sole wisteria flower. Wisterias flower in May for crying out loud!
We didn't get in back until 3am Saturday morning but I had no chance of a lie in as I judged a small show at 11am in a local church. It was quite a small scale affair and to be honest there wasn't a great deal of quality but it was an enjoyable couple of hours and the organisers made us a decent lunch for our troubles. They told me that entries were well down on previous years, a situation that is being echoed up and down the country.
On Sunday it was my local show at Sutton Bonington and it was nice to be able to enjoy the day as a spectator although I did do my stint on the front desk. Here too entries were down a bit, mainly due to me not entering this year. Although it was a bit strange not being called upon at presentation time to collect a trophy or two I am glad I decided to have a 'gap year' and a few other growers enjoyed their day in the limelight. I even signed up a nine year old boy into the society. His mum said he was mad keen about growing veg to show so I shall be keeping an eye on him over the next few years and mentoring him as much as I can. No doubt he will lose interest during his late teens when he discovers girls but hopefully a spark will be lit that will never go out and he'll return to the hobby when he has his own garden or allotment.
Winner of best veg was my old adversary John Barton with a plate of excellent speckled french beans.
Meanwhile I took a stroll round the showground with Oscar and we put the World to rights.
I emptied out 20 bags of 'Amour' potatoes yesterday evening. I'd cut the haulms off before we went away and stored the bags in the garage to they didn't get wet and the potato skins could set hard. I was very disappointed to uncover a pretty poor crop although I was expecting it as growth had been so poor. If I'd planted in April instead of May I'd probably have done a lot better as the roots would have been down sooner. As it was young plants sat in puddles of water for weeks on end and the die was cast. It just goes to show that Lady Luck plays a part and i'm hoping that another 10 bags planted later as yet still growing will yield me 4 tubers that I need for the Millennium Class at Malvern (4 potatoes/4 tomatoes/4 globe beet/4 stump carrots/4 250g onions). I have set aside a set of 4 but they are a little on the small side but if needs be I will have to go with them. However, as my 250g onions are also on the small side (nearer 190g!) I really don't want to have 2 undersize crops out of my 5 sets if I can avoid it. It might all be academic anyway as I may well struggle to harvest a decent set of globe beet because these too are very small at the moment, and I will only have 50 or so to choose from as I really struggled to get germination during the June deluges. Mother Nature really does have us all by the testacles at the moment and for now she aint letting go.
It is however reassuring to know that even the best are having problems and Medwyn now has a blog that he is regularly updating so I do recommend you have a look-in from time to time.
http://www.medwynsofanglesey.co.uk/blog/
Maybe this year will prove to be the year of female domination. Despite early setbacks I understand Sherie Plumb has returned to form and the Scottish Branch Championships saw success for my friend Helen Vincent with caulis and celery in only her second year of showing, and Sue McCall won blanch leeks at Welsh Branch in only her second ever show I believe, both pretty amazing successes. They make me bloody sick!
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