Manna from heaven

At Westminster there is a tap root class calling for long carrots, parsnips, long beet and stump carrots, 2 specimens of each. This is always well-contested and several of the North East Derby lads compete in this one. I only had the stump variety Caradec left over, a carrot I'd grown last season in pipes in the greenhouse and was so impressed with it that I decided to grow it in stations in a sand bed in the standard way to see if it might be a contender against Sweet Candle. I can report that it most certainly isn't! I struggled for uniformity and many of them were quite bent after pulling. I tried straightening them by applying gentle pressure but after snapping a couple I had to go with what I had and made a reasonable entry with my best two long beet, a nice set of long carrots but a pair of parsnips that were unfortunately touched by carrot fly. When I pulled for Harrogate none of my parsnips had been affected but the action of pulling them had obviously attracted a 3rd generation of the flying pests and I had several roots affected for Malvern and Westminster. In future I really need to make sure I re-apply some phorate around the crowns in September or else construct some form of barrier to prevent them access.

I was reasonably pleased with the third placed ticket behind John Goodall in first and Dave Thornton in second, both ex-National Carrot champions, but I didn't really look at the class in great detail as by that time we'd been up all night and I was absolutely fucked to buggery.

When I returned on Wednesday I took a closer look and couldn't help noticing that Dave's collection seemed inferior to mine at first glance so I started to compare the scores to try and ascertain how the judge had arrived at the totals. It was then that I noticed a glaring error on behalf of the judge.See if you can spot it?

Needless to say I complained immediately and the tickets will be reversed, although Dave says he's never speaking to me again!