Squeaky bum time

On Monday evening I thought I’d get the schedules out for Malvern and try and work out what classes I wanted to enter at the National and over on the Malvern side too, as (in my head) entries had to be in by the end of this week. That’s when I nearly soiled my silky Calvin Klein knock-offs, for the closing date for the National was Tuesday. After dancing around the kitchen for a few moments effing and jeffing I eventually calmed down and quickly emailed my entry off to the show secretary Pat Brown who acknowledged receipt the next day. Damned spiffing bird she is too, very hard working and all shows need a Pat Brown or else they’ll die out.

I wasn’t going to enter another trug class ever, ever, ever, after coming second last season with a trug that needed a squadron of the Royal Engineers to lift the fucking thing but as I was writing my entries on the Malvern entry form then ‘5A’ somehow managed to dribble out of my pen and onto the paper. Why the thundering fuck have I done that for fuck’s sake? Ah well, when it’s in thee blood tha’kno’s! It’s now called The National Trug Championship no less and i’ve already started assembling it in my garage by placing a marrow and some onions to get a basic structure and more veg will be added as it becomes available during next week when I start lifting for Malvern. The key is to get as much of the big stuff placed so there are no big gaps and they support each other during transportation. ‘Flowery’ bits such as small tomatoes, brussels and chillis can be added once it’s on the showbench to fill any smaller gaps and then any holes are filled with parsley to hide all the foam packing beneath. Hopefully I can go one better than last season when I was actually disappointed to only come 2^nd. I’d thought I’d got it but hey ho, I won one or two other things elsewhere so I shouldn’t grumble. I've since been told the judge wouldn't have liked my big marrow at the front!

A first for me is going to be the Giant Veg Championships held on the other side of the showground, where I’ve entered a carrot in the heavy class. It’s actually one of my ‘quality’ carrots that has grown way too big, some 11 inches around. When I tried to pull it last week thinking it might do for the 6x1 class in Wales I couldn’t budge it so it has probably carried it’s weight well down too and has a lot of surface area so it’ll take a bit more excavating. It’s proved to me that New Red Intermediate can certainly be used for the giant heavyweights where they will dig the seedlings up early in its life and cut the tap root to encourage forking. I have a vested interest in this class now I know that a certain grower in Wales has a potential world beater and has used my seed. The Giants go down to 6^th place so you never know I might get a ticket.

I’ve entered cucumbers at the National and I finally have a few likely suspects growing well having not exhibited a cucumber yet this season. Indeed I cut my first cu this morning before coming to work, carefully wrapped it in clingfilm and popped it carefully in the fridge to await another couple of the several other suspects to catch up. I made a cardboard template to check the lengths against over the next week. When the National was last held at Malvern in 2012 I broke my National duck by coming 4^th (below) with 3 large fruits but I’m going for smaller ones this year as they can lose a bit of colour if you leave them on the plant too long. I’m also straightening the fruits as they form and it’s best to do this at the end of the day when they’re a bit less turgid. You need to be careful in your manipulation mind. Think wanking a sore knob and you get an idea of how gentle you have to be. In theory you no longer have to exhibit them with flowers still intact but everyone still does so if yours falls off just stick it back on with a tiny dab of superglue. Every fucker still does it, some even glue totally fresh fucking flowers on!

I’ve also gone and entered celery where you need a set of 3. Having gone through all the remaining plants on Monday and removed any split outer sticks they are all looking quite healthy and relatively slug damage free although I find it almost impossible to grow them perfectly clean, as do many other growers it appears. There was a very nice set of celery at Carmarthen grown by Jim Thompson but I don’t think I was a million miles from the other ticket winners. However, at the last Malvern National celery was an incredibly well supported class as shown below, so anything less than exceptional isn’t going to get a look in.

I have entered stumps at Malvern on both sides of the marquee, more of a just in case than anything else. My stumps so far this season have been awful, I’d actually go as far as saying completely shit, either pointy, too thin or having large holes in them. I have a 2^nd bed growing that were set away a week after the first and these have appeared much healthier all season for some reason. The shoulders seem bigger too so who knows. My main aim is to get a set of 4 for the Millennium collection and anything else would be a bonus, so if I also get a set of 5 for the National and/or a set of 3 for the Malvern side then I’ll have been a very lucky boy.

One class that I won’t be entering is for 5 onions 1-1 ½ kg as I simply cannot get them ripe. 2 are ok and will appear in my trug but the rest are as green as the day I lifted them. Pity, as well ripened I reckon I may have had an outside chance of a ticket and indeed one of the ripened ones went into my Welsh 6x1 entry and scored quite well.

I have once again entered the 3x2 class, where you need 3 different 20 pointer veg, 2 of each. Back in 2011 at my first National I came about 14^th out of 20 with long carrots/parsnips and spuds and if I’m honest I was a country mile away from the tickets, along with many others I guess it has to be said.

I think I was 11^th out of 20 or so at Malvern in 2012 with long carrots/parsnips and celery but it was certainly a higher scoring exhibit.

7^th out of 14 at Harrogate would appear to be a similar result but I think my parsnips were the highest scoring of all the parsnips in the class so I was getting closer. Weird lighting at Harrogate!

At Dundee in 2015 I was a mere half point out of the tickets but I don’t feel this exhibit was as good as my two previous efforts.

This year I’ll be going for long carrots/parsnips and celery as per Malvern 2012, so I’ll be hoping to go that final push and get into the tickets. If my long roots score as highly as they did in Wales then I might just do it, but this class is always a hugely popular one so it’ll be a massive achievement if I could.

And finally, Dan Unsworth texted me in a tizzy the other day as he’d just woken up from a dream where the blonde one in Abba was giving him a blow job, and he was understandably annoyed that he’d not finished the dream. Dan had only woken up because his beard was tickling his bollocks.