Cauli wally

Strange, unexpected things will always happen. Not a Labour win in the election tomorrow obviously, the British aren’t that stupid. Nor even Liverpool winning a cup, the Klopp bottlers will always be second best from now on. No, I am of course talking about the World’s worst cauliflower grower getting a ticket at the National Championships. This really happened to me in 2013 when I was placed 5^th at Harrogate. Prior to then I hadn’t grown a cauliflower worthy of the name. Every plant I’d ever put in the ground had succumbed to club root or cabbage root fly, often within days of them being planted out. I’d tried collars at ground level and various insecticide and fungicides all to no avail. I was about to give up attempting to grow caulis ever again when I heard about a product called Perlka at an NVS talk which was supposed to combat club root. A natural by-product of industry it claimed to sterilise the soil and was also a source of nitrogen, so I duly purchased some from Medwyns and decided to give it a whirl.

You have to be sure to apply it to the soil at least two weeks before you plant out your caulis so I’ll be doing my first bed today, doing the 2^nd/3^rd/and 4^th beds where I intend to grow successional crops over the ensuing weeks. I dig a hole where I intend to plant each cauli and sprinkle a spoonful of the Perlka granules in it, marking each position with a label. When I did this for the first time in 2013 the growth was immediate and unprecedented for me. I’d personally never seen such big caulis, they were actually bigger than my cabbages so it was an amazing turnaround. Being able to stage a set of 3 at the National Championships was something I could only have imagined previously, to actually get a placing and beating a multiple ex-Champion in the process was totally mental.

The problem with caulis is getting them timed for a particular show. Often you’ll get them hearting up the week before and they don’t last long before they start blowing, but all is not lost. After advice from a fellow grower I cut them with a 3” stalk, and trim the foliage so it’s an inch or so above the curd. The final trim level with the curd is done at the show. After a good wash with a hose jet to remove any dirt I immerse the whole thing in a sink of salty water. This causes any hidden slugs and snails to come to the surface gasping which can then be disposed of. After an hour in the water place them face down on dry towels for all water to escape. Once dry place a couple of sheets of kitchen towelling over the curd, wrap the whole thing in clingfilm but leave the stalk exposed. Then put it in your fridge, but not too cold as they can freeze if you’re not careful. You’ll need a very understanding better half as the fridge fills up with caulis in the days leading up to a show! They’ll last in good condition this way for a week or more.

Carrots at dawn. And dusk. And lunchtime. Great book, buy it.

It’s a long time since I’ve been this excited by my long carrots so early in the season, and it’s an excitement bordering on a semi, a hurdle that Liverpool seem to fall at these days. My long carrot tops are contained within a wooden frame with plastic sheeting stapled to the sides, and enviromesh to the top and bottom. The mesh allows air flow and rain to get through and the polythene creates a wind free, cosseted environment that the carrots do seem to thrive on. We had strong winds yesterday that have absolutely battered my parsnips but the carrots are safe and cosy in their enclosures. I have a total of 8 drums with 7 carrots in most of them. Looks like Steptoe's yard but the carrots don't seem to mind.

This season’s crop are from my own seed from roots I put down to seed after they came 5^th at the Dundee National in 2015. They were big heavy roots, noticeably the biggest in the class, but in actual fact not that refined, so I was ecstatic with a  5^th,  but I’m hoping I can grow them a little more carefully this season.  I’m growing more than I usually do as I really want to get an entry into the National at Malvern where there is sure to be a lot of top class competition.

Since I started showing I’ve always loved the long roots in particular. It’s that not quite knowing what you’ve got for months on end until the night before the show when you find out if you’ve got something special or else whether you’ve wasted several months growing. You always have an idea whether they’re going to be good or not from the way they’ve grown, whether the foliage has been good, what diameter the shoulders are when you have a bit of a ‘furtle’, but until you extract it from its dark borehole you never really know for sure (p.s. I wouldn’t recommend having a ‘furtle’ if your roots are grown outside as it can attract carrot root fly …unless you use a systemic insecticide like me).

My fascination for long roots stemmed from a visit to my Uncle’s in County Durham in the late 80’s. One evening he announced we were going to the local pot leek show at the local working men’s club. At the time I certainly wasn’t into showing or even gardening that much, and tagged along reluctantly to show willing. As I now know, it was an incredible sight but at the time I was bored shitless by benches and benches of prized northern pot leeks, several little groups of men (no women allowed back then!) all standing around discussing their season and the relative merits of each set of leeks. However, I do remember being highly impressed by a couple of tables literally shoehorned into a corner on which were piled all the other classes in the show, and on that table was a set of long carrots which mesmerised me and I wondered how they might have been grown. In the early 90’s there was an episode of Gardener’s World where Medwyn was pulling his long roots for the British Championships so I now knew how it was done, and when I got into showing long roots were always going to be something I wanted to grow.

I still remember pulling that first set of parsnips in 1996 that won me my first ever red ticket at a local show and the way I held my breath as the tap root just kept coming and coming, and it’s a feeling I still love. There’s also the sense of wonder/bewilderment/pity on the faces of bystanders when you walk into the marquee or village hall with a 4 or 5 foot long set of long roots that still gives me a buzz to this very day. And I do like to stand behind people when the show is open and listen to their comments about them. I remember one woman going to great lengths to tell her husband that ‘the grower would have grown those long carrots by drawing up the soil over the course of the season as it grew in order to draw it upwards’. She must have somehow had visions of all these termite mounds like stalagmites littering my garden!

Over the years I’ve tried all manner of borehole mixes for my long carrots and chopped and changed them many times to try and improve the results. In 1998 I won a local show with this set that also got me on the front page of Garden News.

At the time I thought I was a total genius, which is not uncommon when you have a bit of good fortune like that so early in your showing career when all you’re doing is copying what others way more experienced have told you to do. Any tit can do that. Truth is I just got very lucky that season and I never grew such good long carrots for several years. But at least I quickly realised it and didn’t go around passing myself off as an expert in search of undeserved or false accolades. By 2011 I was seriously struggling to get any sort of weight or skin finish despite using the very best seed. Having witnessed how good Ian Simpson’s were at Harrogate that year I cheekily emailed him and asked him what his mix was and it was to his great credit that he had no hesitation in telling me. However, when he said it was just sieved Levington F2S with added calcified seaweed I was amazed as there didn’t seem to be enough nutrient content in it, but Ian was adamant that carrots don’t need a lot of additional nutrient so I decided to give it a go as I felt I simply had nothing to lose. Therein was the first problem, I couldn’t source any F2S, the ‘S’ standing for silver sand, so I mixed F2 and silver sand separately at a ratio of 4:1 and ran with that. The carrots I had in 2012 were the best I’d grown in many years and bought me a 5^th in the UK Carrot Championships at Harrogate, with Dave Thornton a place behind me much to his disgust. I was greeted with the following email on Monday morning “Who grew those fucking carrots for you?”

Buoyed by my first ever success over the Derby Cockwomble I went on to beat him again at RHS Westminster 2012 with another decent set.

I now felt I was starting to understand what makes long carrots tick. Watering is always going to be key and it’s easy to get it wrong. Too much and you get disproportionate roots as I did in 2007 when it seemed to rain non-stop all Summer and even the sand in my drums were permanently waterlogged. I had big shoulders that I got really excited about but when they were pulled they were very squat roots and only carried their weight for a foot or so and looked a bit odd as a result. As I write it’s pissing down and forecast to do the same for several days so that’s not great news. Water too sparingly and the skin finish is wrinkled rather than smooth and you are liable to get large side roots developing.

In 2013 I grew some carrots in long pipes as an experiment and it was these that I exhibited at the Harrogate National of that year. They were heavy roots, but didn’t have great uniformity and were a little ‘wavy’, but I decided to throw them in rather than risk those I was growing in drums as I didn’t have many of them at the time. Whilst I didn’t get in the tickets and didn’t expect to, it did at least allow me to get a set on the bench at the highest possible level of showing and I felt they looked ok if nothing else. It certainly convinced me not to try long carrots in pipes again.

It was later in the month when I pulled those growing in the drums for Malvern that I had my best result to date for long carrots, winning the Midlands Branch Championships and beating the likes of Mark Roberts, Andrew Jones and Jim Thompson in the process. I remembered back to those early roots I’d grown in single height drums and how it had been my ambition to compete with and beat the very best. It had taken me nearly 20 years but I had done it so now the trick was to try and repeat it.

At Westminster 2013 I took some even better long carrots down but had to settle for 2^nd behind Dave T which he was ridiculously pleased about but as it happens it’s turned out to be the last time he’s beaten me with long carrots.

In 2014 I took a year out from showing, a prelude to my decision to give it up for good after this season. It was a nice break from the incessant routine of a showman’s year. In 2015 after coming 5^th at Dundee it was onto the Midland Branch Championships at Malvern where I was hoping for ‘2 in a row’ with long carrots. I pulled 2 absolute corkers but could only find a slightly smaller third to make up the set and so was beaten into 2^nd place by Ronnie Jackson. His set is the other one in the picture.

I actually had a matching 3^rd root which would have given me the win in my opinion but sadly it had a huge hole in it which wasn’t apparent when first pulled. I went from a massive high to rock bottom within seconds but that’s showing for you and you have to be prepared to take disappointment on the chin. Worse things are happening in the World as events in Manchester and London recently have shown us.

By the time I moved onto RHS Westminster I only had slightly smaller roots left but this set was good enough to put me ahead of Mr T once more.

Last season was a mixed bag with long carrots for me, I think I probably neglected them and I just couldn’t pull any decent sets, erratic watering the probable cause, although I ended the season very well with virtually my last three decent roots from the drums winning me a red card at Derby show in October 2016. These were fairly slim but did carry their weight really well down the root and were perfectly proportioned.

There’s not a lot you need to do now all the hard work has been done, but one vital task I would definitely recommend you keep on top of is making sure any side shoots are picked off when they’re still small. Left to grow on these will render your roots useless for showing as they tend to make them oval in profile. Great if you’re a cricket ground but wank if you’re a show carrot believe me. New Red Intermediate does tend to want to throw out these extra shoots from the carrot shoulder, but if you pick them off when they’re small the scar will not be noticeable come harvest time.

I don't like harping on about it.....

..........but this was my 'winning' exhibit in the 'BBC' at Harrogate at the weekend.

I didn't bother with a photocall with Dan or Paul this year after some of you contacted me last year to say that they have the sort of faces that can make an onion cry. In fact, after beating them yet again and each having to hand over ten pound notes to yours truly they both looked as if they'd been ducking for apples in a chip pan.


I scored 44.5 points, including a 17 out of 20 for my celery which at the time I felt was very generous indeed. However, as I'm not exactly a celery expert I still don't quite know what the best attributes the judge is looking for so I may be doing myself a disservice and they could well have been worth 17 points, I just don't know. I guess as long as the judge is consistent then the correct result will always come out on collections and I was gratified to notice that I was only a half point outside the tickets which went down to fourth. It's a good job me, Paul Bastow and Dan entered otherwise there would only have been 5 entries.

I thought my celery was a bit on a small side because when I pulled them up I had to take off a few stalks that had split round the back of the plant where I couldn't see when I uncollar them to tend them, thus reducing the diameter quite a bit. However, they were fresh and clean with no sign of pest damage, definitely no heart rot and no blistering on the concave inside edge of the stalks which I understand is a sure sign of an aged specimen that is past its best. When I returned from Harrogate I made sure I went over the remaining plants, uncollaring them and discarding any split stalks. Hopefully there will enough time for the plants to swell out a bit more before Malvern where I have entered a set of 3. I shall also be using a pair in the 3x2 class at Malvern, although all three pairs in the National Championship version have to be from the 20 pointer veg (celery/potatoes/long beet/large onions/parsnips/leeks and long carrots). This isn't the case at Harrogate where I used 2 stump carrots which are 18 pointers.

It was noticeable that there weren't any very large parsnips anywhere at Harrogate. I don't think the winning ones in the main class would have got a look in in normal years but of course if you're not in it you can't win it so the exhibitors that managed to get an entry benched deserve credit. Having said that I reckon I might have come at least 2nd if I'd bothered to enter the class, as Dave T came 2nd and his parsnips were much smaller than mine were on the collection. I cleaned 4 parsnips for Harrogate, 2 for the 3x2, one for the 6x1 and one for the tap root class, and I was really pleased with the condition although in other years they would have been much bigger to go with it. As it is, it appears everyone has suffered the same problem this season, when they just seemed to stop growing from July. I have quite a few to select from for my set of 5 for Malvern, as well as a pair for the 3x2 class.

I'm really looking forward to having a go in only my 2nd National Championships. Exhibiting a set of 5 parsnips and 3 celery at National level signifies another step up in my development and something I only dreamed about when I first started showing nearly 20 years ago. Constant improvement is always my target and with that in mind I am aiming to try and get a single 5th placed ticket next weekend, seeing as I only won a wooden spoon last year! Even that seemingly modest aim is a huge feat when you start ticking off the names that will be present, so a 5th place is a great achievement. Last season the likes of John Branham, Trevor Last, Gerald Treweek, Jim Pearson, Jim Thompson and Derek Aldred were all out of the winning positions as new names such as David Peel and Owain Roberts made a breakthrough, so they'll be no doubt trying even harder to turn things round at Malvern. Throw in champions past and prsent, Medwyn, Ian Simpson, Ian Stocks, Dave Thornton, Mark Hall, Peter Clark, Jeff Parsons, Mark Roberts, Jim McCartney, Gareth Cameron, Ronnie Jackson, Chris Hewlett, Bob Brown, Graeme Watson, Ray Bassett, Ray Sale, Vin Throup, Allan Young, Ron MacFarlane, Dave Metcalfe as well as the female superstars Sherie Plumb, Helen Vincent and Sue McCall and you can see how much of a tall order it is to get in the tickets.

For Malvern I've got 4 nice cucumbers growing so close together that you can barely get a sheet of paper between them. I need 3 for the class.

I also have an absolute glut of french beans maturing, having grown the plants in large pots and bringing them into the greenhouse for the past three weeks to keep the pods from getting spoiled.



These are both very strongly contested classes so I'll have my work cut out to get near the tickets. For now I'll have to content myself winning the BBC and chugging along with the Deliverance Duo from deepest, darkest Yorkshire. I must admit though that it was a tad embarrassing seeing them get their wallets out and handing over the tenners to me, the worthy victor. I really think we shouldn't have to demean ourselves like this in future contests, so with this in mind I was just wondering boys.......next year, can you not set up some sort of direct debit?

Bummer!

It took me a while but I finally managed to bench a set of runner beans and cucumbers at a high level of showing at Harrogate over the weekend. Whilst I wasn't placed I was very happy with how they looked and they certainly didn't look to be in the wrong company.

My cu's were much bigger than everyone else's but as the only two I had ready I had to go with them. They were 17" long and about 3" diameter.

One of these had been cut 5 days previously, wrapped in clingfilm and stored in the fridge whilst I waited for the other one to catch up. The one cut earlier kept in great condition but the second one didn't quite catch up in length, being about 3/8" short so I would have lost points for uniformity. One also had a strange wiggly line etched into it about an inch long at the flower end which I think was the work of a tiny snail I found when the fruit was quite small, so again I lost points on condition. And I managed to retain the flowers without having to glue them on, although I was convinced this wouldn't be the case as the roads around Harrogate appeared to have many potholes. I managed to hit every one in the dark and I was felt certain they they would be shaken off before I got to the showground. I need a set of 3 for Malvern and have 4 contenders all growing away nicely, about an inch or so different in length, the longest being 14" already. I won't leave the longest to grow so long or so big this time (I'll settle for 16"), so that I have plenty of time to let the others catch up, now that I know the clingfilm trick works nicely.

My runner beans weren't world beaters but Dave Thornton was impressed and said they were a tidy set.

Well done to my chum John Ellis for coming 4th in this class. I'd actually started picking my beans nearly two weeks before the show, storing them at an incline on a pane of glass set in a tray with the stalks only in a puddle of water. You couldn't tell the difference between the ones picked earlier or the day before so that's another important tip to be used in future, my thanks to John Trim for sharing this one. I have entered the National at Malvern but as I'll need 15 beans here that may well be a tall order. I settled at 15" rather than trying to be clever and getting longer beans that were showing signs of being 'beany'. I have quite a few about 12" long on the vines so I hope to start cutting in the next few days.

My french beans 'Prince' are all starting to come at once and this is another class i've entered at the National. I was speaking to former champ Ronnie Jackson over the weekend (he supplied me the seed) and he felt my timing was cock on. What I need to do now is to keep banging the water into the pots so that they don't get a check in growth and start to run to seed i.e. go beany. I won't try to get superlong pods, and think i'll settle at 8", cutting them when they reach length and storing in a similar manner to my runners.

This is the set that won at Harrogate, benched by my pal Paul Wlodarczak.

Paul had a stunningly successful weekend, winning the tap root class and coming a tantalisingly close 2nd in the National Carrot Championships. He let slip that he wasn't intending to show next year due to a prior family commitment. Needless to say he is now very tempted to have a go at Harrogate next year when it stages the National Championships. How can you even begin to think about not doing it next season Paul?

Peter Glazebrook once again broke the record for the heaviest onion at Harrogate, raising the benchmark to a staggering 18lbs 1oz. Peter also won all the other 'giant' classes so he had a very lucrative weekend.

Dan came 3rd in the heaviest marrow class and I was very amused to see that he and Paul Bastow put 'Simon' down on the variety cards. Morecambe and fucking Wise they aint!

I couldn't resist having a quick photocall with my namesake at the breakdown however!

Dan actually spent Sunday continually rolling his tongue back up into his mouth and causing concern to the security guards looking after Carol Vorderman, after he took hundreds of photos of her backside! My only comment is I'd like to see the size of the shoehorn used to get her buttocks into these jodphurs! I've seen less dramatic dead heats in a zeppelin race! I know arse botox injections are all the rage these days but I think she may have overdone it a little!

'Canker' result!

I pulled my parsnips last night for Harrogate and whilst they weren't the biggest i've ever grown, they carried their weight well down and more importantly they were also nice and clean with no sign of the brown marks I've had for the past few seasons and which I attributed to the disease parsnip canker. They were similar to those shown on this specimen that Paul Bastow emailed me a few weeks ago (hahahahahahahaaaaaaa!).

I am now confident in saying that this is definitely carrot fly damage, because for the first time this season I treated my parsnips with the same photate granules that I sprinkle around my carrot tops. They don't resemble the fly grub damage you get on carrots very much which are black and seem to go much deeper (hence why I'd always assumed it was canker), and therefore I can only deduce that the carrot fly grub perhaps don't find parsnip skins as tasty as they do carrots, and just graze around the surface a bit? It's a lesson hard earned and from now on I'll be treating my parsnips and carrots with phorate at the same time. I do this about 3 times during the season to try and combat the various hatchings of carrot fly which are supposed to be around May and July although there are suggestions that a third generation hatches in the autumn in long summers so you need to make sure you keep the crowns well protected. Phorate really does stink and I use disposable gloves to apply it.

As well as the hugely important BBC I'm also putting an entry in the UK Carrot Championships at Harrogate. This fiercely competitive class calls for a set of three stump carrots and a set of 3 long carrots. I pulled my stumps on Tuesday evening as I knew I would be pushed for time in the following evenings, grading my sets for the two shows I have this weekend with the various classes I'll be entering (not forgetting Top Trays) and then covering them in containers with damp peat from the potato bags. They will keep in good condition that way until I wash them this evening. I actually decimated a bed of 48 Sweet Candle to get my sets and the first few 'pulls' were far from promising, but in the end I managed to get a set of 3 that are probably better than any I have ever produced, so it was with some delight that I also managed to get a nice set of 3 long carrots to go with them last night. I came 8th last year and I'm confident I have a much better entry this time around that won't look out of place, and if I can sneak into the tickets I'd be one happy bunny. This was one of my rejected Sweet Candles...had a few wrinkles at the bottom end.

I also have entries in the tap root class, the 6x1 collection class, the 3x2 collection class (The BBC!), pickling shallots, tomatoes, runner beans and cucumbers, as well as several classes on the Northern Horticultural side including the trug, which after many years of constant pressure from my wife and support for her from several of you bastards I have entered in joint names!

Yesterday I posted off my entry form for the National Championships at Malvern, a total of 15 classes. The deadline is tomorrow so if you haven't already done so then do it now, but you'd have to scan it and email it to Pat Brown patbrown59@talktalk.net. It's a lot earlier deadline this season than usual so I reckon there will be a lot less exhibits actually benched than are entered. I had to make a judgement on what I think will be ready in a couple of weeks time but there's a long while for things to go wrong with crops like celery, tomatoes, french beans, runner beans and cucumbers for instance, so I very much doubt if all 15 of my entries will make it and I'll be delighted if 7 or 8 make it. As has been pointed out to me on several occasions I won fuck all in last season's National. More than likely I'll win fuck all again this season but it took my most favourite sportsman of all time, England's Andy Murray several attempts to get his first Grand Slam and perseverance is one of my strong points. Perverting the course of history, two-faced contradiction and talking bollocks are some of my other strong points.

I know several of you are planning to visit Harrogate and I'll be there tomorrow and Sunday so if you spot me then please make yourself known so I can walk you round to the BBC class and show you how brilliant I am and how useless the Geoffrey Boycott Brigade are. If by any chance the judge is completely blind and probably been bribed......I'll be in Loughborough!

Two days to go, two Simons, two stunners!

'Simon' took Kendal Show by storm Dan tells me. Cheeky twat even put 'Simon' down on the variety card. Arsehole.

I could easily give up on this season, I'm feeling as miserable as a Yorkshire clayfondler. I had a furtle among my parsnips the other day and found some very small shoulders despite having relatively large tops. I pulled a couple of sample Sweet Candle stumps out of curiosity. One had more fangs than the Hound of the Baskervilles (see pic below) and the other was so pointed I had to be careful not to prick my finger on it! My long beet has enormous foliage but again the shoulders are barely an inch and a half to two inch diameter. I've lifted the last of my spud bags and unearthed a pile of crap. I only needed a set of 4 Amour for Malvern and did manage to set aside a set of dubious quality. My globe beet are really struggling to make size and with 3 weeks to Malvern I cannot see me getting a set of 4 for the Millennium Class. And my onions just aren't ripening depsite having the fan blowing over them 24/7.

Ah well. Due to circumstances I've not given my veg the best of attention this year and i'm not sure it would have made an awful lot of difference anyway because of the weather we've all experienced. A report on the News the other evening suggested that because the Arctic ice cap was melting a lot quicker than scientists predicted we can expect wetter summers for the foreseeable future. Oh bliss. Perhaps this just means we're going to have to adapt our growing methods. Or perhaps the scientists and weather people don't really have a clue....they have been wrong before! It seems weird that for two years running we've had the best weather in September and October, so Sunday we made the most of it and had a day on the beach at Holkham in Norfolk. I cannot be held responsible for any palpitations caused by the second photo!

It's sure to be a busy weekend as we're travelling to Harrogate in the wee small hours of Friday morning, Leesa having agreed to help me stage in a moment of weakness. Whether my stuff is good enough to be shown at this level this season is debateable, but as long as I win the Bullshit Bloggers' Challenge (BBC) against the Moors Manlovers then all will be well with the World.

As well as Harrogate I also have Seagrave Show this weekend so there won't be much time to catch up on sleep and as I'm on the committee of two I hope to put a few decent exhibits in to make up for what will probably see a drop in the number of entries this season. I won most points as well as best exhibit here last year but I think my geriatric, Liverscum supporting pal Ian Taylor has some decent stuff as he wanted to bet me £100 he'd beat me this year. I told him to fuck off. Whatever happens it will be a fun day out as all exhibits are auctioned off for charity afterwards and we make over £1000 each year thanks in no small part to the generosity of the villagers. This year we're presenting a cheque to the Ear Foundation, a cause close to our hearts because of Oscar's disability.

I've usually got several shows under my belt by this stage so it's a bit of a novelty not to have shown any veg yet and i'm itching to get the roots pulled. I just hope those first two Sweet Candle aren't indicative of the rest because if they are........then I am undoubtedly, absolutely, scarily in 20 foot deep, stinking to high-heaven BBC doo-doo shit for the next 12 months!

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.

Today's lesson is.....never play darts against Dave Thornton and let him do the scoring.

Having put the village idiots from Yorkshire firmly in their place I now turn my attentions to Malvern and Westminster and my ongoing battle with Dave Thornton. He has built up a substantial lead of 440 points to 205, having originally claimed he had 500 points. It took several abusive emails to convince him he only had 440 the cheating twat. I managed to claim a couple of 80 point scores at Harrogate by coming 3rd with two collections. His face was a picture of disgust when I told him that a trug counts as a collection, a face that already had a quivering bottom lip as he came 4th with shallots for the second year running. He wins everywhere else but somehow not at Harrogate. It's hilarious actually.




I've decided to bench a couple of celery at Malvern. I had a stick in my collection at Harrogate and it didn't look as if it was in the wrong company so I'll give it a go and see how they compare. I've also got 4 sets of 3 potatoes for a potato collection which won't beat Sherie Plumb but you never know....they might just sneak into the tickets given a fair wind and a blind judge with a drink problem. I checked them at the weekend and they're still fairly blemish free (i've had a few go down with silver scurf during storage) and have reasonable uniformity although they're perhaps a little undersize to compete. But if you aint in it you can't win it!



Last night I went through all of my shallots and regraded them into the best set of nine, plus another set of 12 for the Malvern side which I managed to win last year. Tonight I'll go through my 250g onions as I want to stage a mini-collection which calls for 4 sets of 4 from stumps/spuds/beetroot/tomatoes/250g onions. Ideally you want to stage stumps (18 pointer) spuds (20 pointer) and tomatoes (18 pointer) amongst the four sets for definites. The fourth set needs to be between the beet and onions which are only 15 pointers. As my tomatoes are not quite ready I may need to stage both beet and onions which puts me at an immediate 3 point disadvantage but I have seen it done if the uniformity etc is good.



I'm expecting Dave to pick up good points at Malvern with shallots, long carrots, parsnips and the onion collection so I could really do with a bit of luck at Malvern in order to hang onto his coat tails until Westminster where I hope to be able to catch him up a bit with some tickets in the minor veg classes. This would piss him off enormously and also be very, very funny.

Let's have a look at what you could have won!

After only my 4th NVS show I feel a bit like an old hand now such is the friendship i've experienced at the highest level already. It really has been another top weekend and I'm already looking forward to meeting up with the gang again at Malvern next weekend. Aside from the Bullshit Bloggers Challenge which I won in magnificent style I had the following results;

I came 8th in the National Carrot Championships out of a dozen entries, typically just outside the sodding money! My entry is on the right next to Dave Thornton's 5th placed exhibit. His stumps were truly shocking but his long carrots were quite good I suppose!

My best placing was 2nd for these Sandrine lettuce, the roots having to be washed and placed into a jar of water. Returning to the show today I noticed that everyone else's lettuces had wilted and mine still looked as fresh as they did Friday morning.

I got 3rd in a mini-collection for 4 veg with a points value of 16 or under. I staged 3 Sandrine lettuce, 3 Pablo beet, 3 onions under 250g 'Setton' and 6 pickling shallots 'Hative de Niort'.

And at least I was beaten by one fellow blogger this weekend, James Park (Digtoplant) showing the Yorkshire bumboys how to do it with a 2nd placed trug (top of the photo) beating me into third( below it). This was actually Leesa's fault as she did the design work and threw it together on Friday night in about 10minutes. I really am getting sick to death of coming third with trugs so I'm hoping she pulls her bleeding finger out at Malvern next weekend.

There was quite a lot to see at Harrogate although it's nowhere near the size of Malvern. Pick of the exhibits for me was this stunning display of dahlias by Kent Dahlia Society I believe.



So that's Harrogate over with and I'll certainly be back. It's a long drive (they need to sort that exhibitor parking issue out!.......and also stop the thieving bastards nicking your stuff at the end!) but I earned 44 quid from a second and two thirds! Certainly beats breaking your neck at local shows, and  getting a shed load of tickets for 20-30 quid!

So tonight I treated myself to a couple of bottles of my favourite tipple Snecklifter, Cockermouth's finest. It's certainly wasted on Cumbrian Jim Bowen looky likeys. Super smashing great.





Celt invasion

I don't think there's any doubt that the best growers in Britain at the moment currently reside north of the border. I got to Harrogate at roughly the same time as Ian Simpson of Fife yesterday and he certainly created quite a buzz when he staged his carrots in the National Carrot Championships. They were heavy a long way down and well matched, and of course he's grown good stumps for a while now, winning the NATIONAL a few times. I reckon he is now on a par with Graham Watson's long carrots from a couple of season's ago.

In a disappointing display of WAG solidarity his partner Fiona reckoned my fruit cake last week was burnt! Pssh!

Best in Show however went to Bob Lind's leeks which made me realise how much work I have yet to do if my collection leek was worth 14 points. These were truly stunning and followed on from Eric Craik's win in the NATIONAL.

If Alistair Gray ever starts travelling south to other branch shows we're all screwed!

79.5

In a forecast that bodes well for my judges exam at the beginning of October I said I'd get 75-80 points!

My parsnip scored 15 points which was actually the highest scoring out of all the collection parsnips, so I know I can compete at the highest level with them. If only i'd been able to guarantee three with no canker then who knows, but I did spot some damage on most of the entries benched at Harrogate. I need to get more 'meat' on my carrots although they were nice and clean. My leek scored 14 so I was pretty chuffed with that too.

So, i'm 20 quid richer tonight. I did think about foregoing the wager but then I remembered all those heightist jokes and I thought 'fuck 'em!'

We are best of mates really!

Well it was a close run thing but I narrowly pipped Mr B 79.5 pts 75.5. We actually came 8th, 9th and 10th out of 10 but we were certainly not disgraced and have now competed against the best with honour. Paul got a very good 4th in a high quality 250g onion class and Dan is still on cloud 9 after a superb 2nd in the 1.5kg onion class.

Photos and full report later!

Oh.....and in a historic moment Peter Glazebrook smashed the World Onion Record with a 17lb 6oz monster!

10-9-8-7-6........

Eee I allus feel reet gid afta a rant tha kno's, now av git te wash me kerrits in't bath, ecky thump.




As you can see I've started practising speaking northern gibberish so that I can converse with the natives in a few hours time. I pulled my carrots and parsnips for Harrogate last night and in truth I was more than a little disappointed with the results. The stump bed that I've already pulled some crackers from suddenly decided it was going to throw out a right mish mash of shapes and sizes. It took me 25 pulls to come up with two sets of 3, meaning I've left myself with only about 40 to cover Malvern, Westminster and Derby.



My long carrots were nice and clean, and quite long but didn't have the weight I was hoping for, but I shall be happy to stage them for their condition if nothing else, and that's the main thing with all show veg.

Despite sterilising my sand and putting weed suppressant membrane down I still had a few spots of canker on my parsnips and struggled to find one without any marks for the 6x1 class. It's a shame because I've pulled some real crackers in every other respect and would have considered putting a set of 3 up at Malvern next weekend if they'd all been clean. I think I shall have to invest in some JET 5 next season which I'm told will not only sterilise all canker out of your sand it will also burn a hole through to the centre of the Earth. My grandchildrens' future is a small price to pay for blemish free parsnips.



I'm off home now to start several hours of washing, prepping, bagging, packing and loading. The banter has reached a crescendo between myself and Messrs Unsworth and Bastow on Facebook/text/email in recent days as we each try to get last minute digs in but now the time has come to shut up and put the veg on the benches. I shall be leaving home around 2am for the 100 mile drive up the M1/A1 to stage my few entries, but mainly for the 6x1 class. This has been a lot of fun. May the best man win.



Results will be shown on here during the course of tomorrow morning.

The recriminations will start shortly after.

We will all be pissed by lunchtime.

T minus 2

It never ceases to amaze me how the Yorkshire Uphill Claydiggers continue to poke cheap jibes at my apparent lack of vertical inches. No matter, for come Friday morning I have no doubt that I will be higher than Adolf Hitler's gas bill as I celebrate my win in the Bullshit Bloggers' Challenge ......or BBC as Unsworth and Bastow now insist on calling it as it means they have to type less words the lazy northern shitstabbers. Along with my magnificent certificate Dan has donated these rather spiffing shiny medals to allocate between us so he must have found some money in one of his clay pots. I guess we just need Mr Bastow to donate something now? I don't mind taking home the black pudding but he can keep the whippet!

Tonight, to save a bit of time tomorrow night, I shall be pulling my carrots and parsnips, matching them up into sets then covering them in the old potato bag peat. I won't wash them until tomorrow night however. I recently staged a set of carrots I had pulled over 8 days before and stored them this way very successfully with no apparent deterioration in skin finish, so one day aint gonna matter one jot. Therefore a carrot and a parsnip will be making up veg 2 and 3 of my set with a 'stick' of celery, plus I have a Sherine spud in storage that will be washed tomorrow night. That makes 4. A blanch leek equals 5 so I just need to decide on my 6th which will come from either a runner bean or a tomato as I finally have some ripe ones. I predict that I will score between 75 and 80 out of 120! There's nowt so bracing as sticking your neck out and watching your head get cut off!



The Northern Horticultural Society side of the show have a class called (rather grandly) the National Carrot Championship which requires a set of 3 long carrots and a set of 3 stump rooted carrots. I have entered this also. No doubt Graham Watson and Peter Clark will also be entering this class so it will be a fine opportunity to compare my roots against the very best in the land and see how far I still need to progress. Welsh Branch run something called the National Tap Root Championships where you have to stage long carrots, parsnips, long beet and stump carrots and I've always wanted to enter that one day. Calling myself National Carrot Chumpion will do for now though!

T minus 3

I think you'll all agree i'm showing amazing restraint against the disgraceful barrage of abuse directed at me from the Northern Buggery Brigade. As far as I can tell I've done nothing to warrant it (really?) so I shall rise above it and let my veg do the talking on Friday morning.




With that in mind one of my set of six will be celery. If you'd told me that 12 months ago I'd have laughed at you based on my previous lack of success at growing celery, but I've given my plants a lot more care and attention this year. Regular sprayings of Decis have kept the leaf miners at bay and recently I've also given them a dose or two of Bumper and so far have no signs of the rust that has crept onto my crop around about this time of year in past seasons. They've also had more water and feed than an african elephant. I've managed to get them to 22" of blanch, 14" around and 44" tall. Although they're lovely and clean they're not huge but then I didn't see any what I considered large celery at Llangollen so I'm assuming this year's weather my have been a factor in that.

I also have a 2nd wager running which is currently only at one fifth of it's journey, namely the 20 quid challenge with NVS National Secretary David Thornton MSc, FNVS, TIT based on who picks up most tickets at 5 shows this season, namely Llangollen, Harrogate, Malvern, Westminster and Derby. I wrote about it for the NVS magazine and have received several comments about it. One chap who knows us both said he was in a fit of hysterics whilst reading it. He'll be pleased to know i've started the second instalment for next year's magazine.



Dave beat me hands down at Llangollen and has thus built up an early 110-0 points lead. However, there are moments in life that are like manna from heaven and one such was when Dave walked into the Royal Pavillion at Llangollen and suddenly realised to his absolute horror that he had left his tomatoes 120 miles away in Derby. When Ian Stocks told me this at 4am next morning I couldn't believe my luck.......he may well beat me again this season but that particular story will certainly help to counterbalance any pain. At the weekend my ancient friend Ian Taylor also left his carrots on his kitchen table meaning that he couldn't stage them at Seagrave, although I was so far ahead of him on points that it wouldn't have mattered as he finally conceded that I was a far better grower than him. What these two cases illustrate is how easy it is to make a mistake when you're stressed up preparing for a show. When I get into my loaded car the first thing I do before starting the engine is to run through the schedule and tick off all my entries, getting out and re-checking in the boot if i'm in the least doubt that I have loaded a set of veg. In this way I have always avoided looking like a complete prat once I reach the Show.



After Harrogate this weekend my thoughts will immediately turn to Malvern the weekend after and I got a surprising email today from Mr. Thornton himself. His wife has arranged something on the Friday evening before Malvern (I won't say what as it's a bit embarrassing) meaning he cannot get to Malvern to stage his exhibits. The trusting muppet has only gone and asked if I'll stage his veg for him! It will be very interesting to see how the judges react to tomatoes staged upside down with cocktail sticks poking out of them, parsnips with tyre marks, celery tied with gaffer tape and shallots with felt tip faces drawn on them.

Harrogate T minus 4

Well now, what with my two local shows being safely tucked out of the way with a few confidence boosting wins under my belt I can finally turn my attention to what promises to be the biggest moment of my showing year, namely the inaugural BULLSHIT BLOGGERS Challenge at Harrogate this Friday morning. The Northern NVS collection of 6 only requires single specimens so it's an excellent starter class at this level for the likes of myself and fellow bloggers Paul Bastow and Dan Unsworth, plus any other top level novices that want to join us. Rules are 10 quid to Dave Thornton before staging, winner takes all decided by the number of points scored as marked on the tickets by the judges.



When pulling our veg and making up matching sets you will often find one superb specimen that doesn't match any others. Local shows may have a class for a single veg/flower/fruit as mine does, but invariably you have to leave it at home which can be a shame. This makes the Northern NVS collection class a very popular one amongst the top growers and I understand from speaking with a few that there are very often 20-30 entries. As for us, we can have our own little show within a show with the winner taking the pot and bragging rights for a year. Of course we all know it's gonna be me but I don't want to put them off, so as a little incentive and at huge financial outlay to myself I've come up with with this rather splendid certificate for the 'winner'.

I could probably stage a radish, kohl rabi, courgette, cherry tomato, ball of belly button fluff and a piece of snot as my set of six and still beat the Yorkshire batty boys, but I shall be taking it seriously and will be revealing my set during the course of the week.

Hold onto your hats, cos this one is gonna be a whole lot of fun, with some controversy, blood, sweat and tears thrown in for good measure!

Further to......

....my post below about an NVS class at Harrogate for 6 single specimens of veg I had confirmation from Dave Thornton today that this class is scored for points. I had asked him the question to make sure that when I enter along with Northern spazzers Paul Bastow and Dan Unsworth that we could have our own little competition to ascertain a 1-2-3. I did say to him that of course none of us would actually win the class or anything but he came back with the totally unnecessary retort that we wouldn't have a f******* earthly of getting in the tickets! Sounds like a challenge does that boys!?!

Anyways......if anyone else cares to joins us I suggest ten quid side bet, winner takes all for most points awarded. Any takers?

More on different collections

Another class I may try at Llangollen is the 3x2 class, calling for 3 dishes of 20 pointer veg, 2 specimens of each.

Looking back over the past 4 years blanch leeks have featured in all the winning entries. I've noticed that leeks often seem to score quite highly. I'm not stupid enough to bench my leeks against the big boys as it would be akin to appearing in a porn film alongside Dirk Diggler and it's more than likely i'll just be making up the numbers but I think I may try a collection of 2 long carrots, 2 parsnips and 2 potatoes, subject to being happy they won't look out of place. Again, it's just me trying to get something on the bench to compare my scores against the very best, as all the exhibits will be pointed and you can then tell how far you need to improve. However, the point i'm making again is that classes like this allow you to stage those two specimens where you couldn't quite find a matching third for the main classes and as a result the quality is usually amazing.























It's also my intention to try and show at Harrogate this year where their collection of 6 class is different from the National and the other Branches' Championships in that you only have to find a single specimen of each, which I was surprised to find out only in the last few months. This was Peter Clark's winning collection at Harrogate in 2010.




















Show secretary's won't go far wrong if they include classes like these in their schedules if they're looking for fresh ideas. A collection of 6 complete dishes of veg for a small village show is unlikely to attract many entries these days unless the prize money is worth winning. But this variation of the collection of 6 could easily fill the benches and as I've said before the regular showers can exhibit all those specimens that they can't use in sets for the main classes. If it's good enough for Harrogate where there are usually several entries then there's no reason why it can't work at your show too.