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.

Welsh wows and what the f***s!

On Friday evening we travelled over 200 miles to compete in the annual Welsh Branch Championships of the NVS and after a long journey the first problem that faced us was manoeuvring the car down a ridiculously narrow alley at the side of our hotel to their car park. Despite pulling the wing mirrors in I was still sucking my breath in to try and make us smaller! Further shocks came as I tried to get a few hours kip which soon became almost impossible as the dregs of Carmarthen nightlife seemed to use the street below our room window for a slanging match. Rising at 3.15am for the 8 mile journey to the venue I passed dozens of revellers still going strong in the many pubs, but whilst their night was drawing to a close mine was just about to begin.

When I staged my veg at the Royal Pavillion at the 2011 National in Llangollen I didn’t think I’d ever come across a more dramatic place for a veg show. Walking into the domed glasshouse of the Welsh Botanic Garden was an even bigger wow moment however and proved to be a truly stunning place set your exhibits out in. And straight away I thought I’d potentially wasted my time as there was some superb stuff already on the benches but if I’ve learned one thing it’s never be put off by first glances as you never know what faults you can’t see on other people’s stuff, and you can be sure the judge will find them. One entry I didn’t manage to get down was in the National Tap Root Championships of Great Britain which was really the whole point of entering in the first place, to fulfil a dream I first had when I started showing over 20 years ago. Unfortunately my long beet just didn’t come up to the desired standard so I went to plan B and entered parsnips and long carrots instead. And it wasn’t a bad plan B as I managed to win the long carrots and get 3^rd in parsnips, although I have to say I felt my long carrots were as rough as a badger’s snatch. I’d had to scrub them more than I would have liked as there was a lot of black marks at the skin lenticels where the root hairs emerge and I just couldn’t get them as clean as I would have preferred. Having said that several people told me they were still clear winners but I know I’ll need better looking roots for the National in 2 weeks time. Still, it was nice to take a few quid off the elderly class sponsor!

I was altogether much happier with my parsnips and thought I may even have won, they certainly looked the best set on Sunday afternoon when the dry atmosphere of the glasshouse was rendering many of the exhibits quite dehydrated in appearance, but I was happy that Mark Perry won the class, and here he is doing his best silverback gorilla impression. He was so happy to win that he left the trophy behind at the function and had to come back for it. Tit.

If anything went against my nips it was probably that I had one a bigger diameter at the top and I was in two minds about pulling more to see if I could get a better match up, but in the end I decided to leave well alone and save the rest for the National when Mark and I will be doing it all again, this time however we’ll be up against even stiffer competition so we’ll need even better roots. I was also in the tickets with my tomatoes (3^rd), 250g onions (3^rd) and marrows (2^nd) so all in all a really good return as this level of competition is the top of the tree believe me.

The Welsh Branch has a collection class for 6 single veg which is always a well supported class as every exhibitor will have that one single specimen that doesn’t match any others but is otherwise superb, and in keeping with several other attempts at this type of collection I was frustratingly out of the tickets by only half a point. Whilst I had the highest pointed parsnip and long carrot my scabby potato only scored 12.5 out of 20 so it was my own fault, as I should have put a tomato or cucumber in instead.

One other piece of news that absolutely blew me away was that a chap in Minnesota USA has just broken the World record for the heaviest carrot, a record held by our own Peter Glazebrook. So what I hear you ask? Well, amazing as it sounds I actually supplied this guy with the seed in a roundabout way. I set my 5^th place winning carrots from the 2015 Dundee National away for seed, harvesting them late last year intending to use them myself and give away any surplus to anyone who wanted some, advertising this on a couple of Facebook pages and several growers took me up on the offer. Kevin Fortey of GiantVegUK heard of this and asked me for some seed to send to America as they use New Red Intermediate, they just grow it in a different way to get the heavyweights. I sent him a load and thought no more of it, doubting that giant veg of such proportions could ever come from my seed, despite the fact that the roots they came from were quite a heavy set. Apparently there is a chap in South Wales who is growing a carrot that may even beat this one, and he is also using my seed, so I’ll be very interested to see the outcome at Malvern. Happy days.

And on Saturday afternoon, just before we set off to the prize giving function hosted by a very generous Welsh Branch that had made us very welcome all weekend, I was asked by a fellow hotel guest what time Liverpool kicked off. About every 15 minutes I told him.

A bug's life. And death.

It was major news recently that bugs in general must be in serious decline because it had been noticed that our car windscreens have not suffered the annual Summer splatfest, and the usual suspects such as Chris Packham and Bill Oddie were stating that this was a terrible thing for the future of mankind. Pair of cunts. The less bugs and nasties as far as I’m concerned the better, it means less unappetising damage on our veggies, and who knows we may not have to spray insecticides so much in future? I have noticed a pair of adolescent blackbirds seem to be constantly on the ground in my garden, only fluttering away at the last moment when I’ve approached so perhaps they are having to work harder looking for food if it is indeed less abundant. Whatever, I’m sure the bugs and beastie fuckers will return at some point, perhaps they’re just having a fallow year?

Tomorrow is my local show and much of my veg is up and prepped, including a pair of long carrots which I’m particularly pleased about. They were a couple of the smallest I could find, but still 8” around the shoulder, and carried their weight really well down the root, and were a reasonable matching pair and I’d be very surprised if anyone has better. If what I hope are my best specimens that I’m saving for later shows are the same then they could be quite special. However, the set of stumps that I pulled can only be described as utter wank. They are badly ribbed, too long and thin, and pointier than Japanese tourist. I was all set to abandon any attempt at the National Tap Root Championships of Great Britain next weekend, until I had a furtle on the bottoms of half a dozen bigger looking roots by excavating an inspection hole next to them, and delving my hand down for a fondle in the depths. They all seemed to have better defined stump ends and were all the same length so hopefully I can entice a matching pair from them. I replaced the sand so they can stay fresh until I need to pull next Wednesday night. Tonight I shall pull a pair of small parsnips, again leaving my best roots for bigger battles to come, and at the last minute wash a couple of sets of scabby spuds that I wouldn’t dare set on the benches at a National show, but which should still be in the tickets at the weekend if I can rub of the few small patches of scab.

A few admissions now. Back in late July/early August I harvested 9 nice onions for the 1 ½ kg class at Malvern but I’ll be buggered if I can get the fucking things to ripen. The key with getting large onions to ripen appears to be getting them harvested early, as the later you get them up the less likely they appear to want to ripen evenly. I’ve also had a couple go rotten at the base although there was absolutely no sign of any rot when I got them up. Fucking things. And you may remember the brilliant idea I had of getting the globe beet up when they reached size, cutting off some of the foliage and reburying them so that they didn’t grow any more. Well in that sense it was a success as they didn’t, but they did go a bit soft and of course the foliage went all floppy and thus no longer any good for showing, so all in all it was a fucking stupid idea that Mark Perry suggested I try.

I also started off back in the Spring by championing the powers of Perlka to keep your brassica beds free of club root, but despite using it I’ve lost so many caulis to this disease this season that I’m now struggling to get a decent cauli head to show anywhere. Next season I shall try watering dilute Jeyes Fluid into the planting holes, another remedy suggested to me in the past to see if has any better success. If that doesn’t work it was also Mark Perry’s idea. All in all I’m just wondering if my plot just needs a damned good ‘rest’ which is exactly what it’s going to get from next year, so that I can add lots more organic matter and perhaps experiment with compost teas and the like. Thinking about it, for over 20 years all my growing has been geared up to the show season, meaning that everything comes at once during September when we have so much produce we end up giving a lot away that isn’t show worthy or even composting it. It’s a bit of a criminal waste as well as a drain on the soil, so time will tell if a more relaxed regime, with successional sowing, little and often,  and a more all year round production cycle will give me healthier crops. Chris Packham would be proud of me. Cockney tongue tied cunt.

Have a good weekend, i'll be back on Monday with news of my first show exploits.

Almost time for lift off

For most of us the show season is now well and truly upon us and there’s diddly shit you can really do to alter the colour of the cards you’ll be winning, if any, apart from continuing to keep on top of the usual pests. My first show is not until next weekend, my local show, and for the first time for as long as I can remember I won’t be entering runner beans or cucumbers. That’s because I only sowed them with later shows in mind and after thinking I may even have overcooked those I am now thinking I’ll be getting some on the bench at either the Welsh Branch, or Harrogate, or Malvern, and certainly RHS Westminster in early October. The first fruits are now being allowed to develop on the cucumber plants, variety Carmen, now that they have ‘turned the corner’ at the eaves, where they have started to be trained horizontally to allow all fruits to hang downwards. This keeps them away from the foliage thus avoiding scratching and means you can manipulate them straight if they’re bent.

The runner beans are now forming although I’ve never seen plants with such little foliage. They do look quite bizarre but hasn’t seemed to affect the amount of pods. I could possibly get a set for my local show next weekend but I think I’ll wait a few more days to get a set up for the NVS Welsh Branch show in Carmarthen at the Welsh Botanic Gardens. You can start picking runner beans 5 or 6 days before the show as soon as they reach the size you require (I’m going for 14 or 15” plus the tail) and wrap in a damp cloth against a wooden batten to keep them fresh and straight and pop them in the fridge. Not too cold mind.

I have a row of Exhibition Longpod broad beans growing away against canes at an angle and the beans are about 2-3” long now, so no good for my show this weekend. Bit of chocolate spot but a Signum drench soon stopped that In its tracks. There is a class at the Welsh for 4 sets of legumes, but as I don’t grow peas I’m fucked, so these are destined for the kitchen I fear, but it has been a useful exercise to gather info on growing them to show if I ever get back into it in 20 years time.

Some of the first kohl rabi to be planted out are starting to swell so these will be too early for Malvern, but it looks like the 2^nd or 3^rd batch will probably be spot on, and I’m hoping the Kref in my polytunnel will be one of them. The variety in the photo is Kolibri and there are another 2 later sowings of this alongside, so my dream of becoming National German Turnip Champion are very much alive and well.

At Harrogate & RHS Westminster there are classes for chilli peppers and I have lots to choose from, albeit they are still green but starting to turn red soon I reckon. My banker variety Hungarian Wax (below) always gives me plenty of choice to make a selection from, but I’m not sure about a 2^nd one I’m growing this season called Cyklon. A case of the reality not quite matching catalogue photo I fear.

With 2 weeks to the Welsh Branch my dream of getting an entry at the British Tap Root Championships is hanging in the balance. My long beet are still quite small at the shoulder, barely an inch and a half diameter, but if they carry that diameter down for 10 or 12 inches then they may look ok. My parsnips, variety Victor, are also starting to concern me as they haven’t responded to the Chempak 8 feed yet and a number of them are looking quite spindly and therefore the root should also be quite small. At the beginning of the month I felt they were 3 weeks ahead of last season but they don’t appear to have grown much in the meantime. I do have quite a few large looking specimens so I’ll be saving these to try and get a set of 5 at the National, so I’ll have a decision to make as to which ones to pull for a set of 2 at the Welsh for the Tap Root Class. Decisions, decisions!

I’ve been picking tomatoes, variety Zenith, for the best part of 2 months, when I’m usually just starting to pick my first fruits so they are well ahead compared to previous seasons. It means I’ll have plenty to choose from for the next 2 weekends, including the Welsh where there are lots of top tomato growers to test yourself against. If I manage to get a ticket there I’ll be well chuffed.

For my local show I’ve been growing a fuchsia variety called Auntie Jinks that I rescued from one of last year’s hanging baskets. After taking advice I pinched out all shoots until 11 weeks before the show, then snipped off all the flower buds until 5 weeks before the show and I have to say it is going to be spot on in a week’s time once all these buds burst into flower. I haven’t grown a fuchsia for a show for several years, and I have found all the cocking about snipping and debudding quite therapeutic after a hard day at work I have to say. If you’re planning to show a fuchsia at your local show do make sure you tidy the plant up a bit, take off any foliage that is turning yellow and any flowers past their best, and give the pot a good wipe. There’s nothing that fuck’s a judge off more than getting his hands dirty on muddy pots.

So, over the next few weeks it’s going to get quite intense as you’re prepping for the show, but do take time out now and again to smell the coffee. It should be enjoyable, not stressful and you don’t want to miss little gems like these cyclamen I noticed growing at the foot of my conservatory wall today. Spiffin’.

And finally Dan Unsworth took to Twitter this week to strongly refute claims that he’s a gay dyslexic. Personally I think he’s in Daniel. And finally finally, the French man who invented beach sandals sadly died this week. RIP Philippe Phillope.

Stay firm and resolute!

It’s around about now that the mind games will begin. Your fellow competitors and showing pals will be texting/emailing/messaging you on Facebook etc saying that they have the best veg they’ve ever grown and that you don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of beating them at this year’s shows. Some will even try and put you off by texting you semi-naked photos of themselves (see previous post) so the best thing you can do is to remain calm and keep quiet about your own stuff. It’s easy to become nervous and doubt the quality of your own stuff if you let them get to you, but the judge will ultimately decide whose stuff is best, and more often than not your competition isn’t as good as they would have had you believe.

In truth I love all the pre-show banter, not to mention the put downs at the show itself. I well remember one of my first ever shows where someone remarked of my cabbages as I entered the marquee “They’re big brussels lad”. Other common ones you’ll hear are;

“Did you pull those carrots in the dark?”

“You’ve left the price sticker on those caulis”

“I reckon your radish will be up for best in show”

“Did you not bother feeding your onions this year then?”

“Judging by all the caterpillar damage on those cabbages you’d be best entering them in the livestock section”

A couple of weeks ago I was starting to become quite concerned about my parsnips, as they appeared to be throwing up weird side shoots not dissimilar to the way that long carrots do. This was not something I had ever have happen before so it threw me at first. I assume it was caused by the extreme hot weather we have been experiencing although I have been watering regularly. I pulled them off sideways after pushing my fingers down towards the crown (parsnip crowns tend to be much deeper than carrots) and they did come away quite easily so hopefully there will be no lasting problems, but I’ll only know for sure come harvest time. Until then they are looking otherwise pretty good, with strong, thick stalks signifying that there should be some decent roots growing down below. However, from photos posted by other growers on various Facebook pages it’s apparent that there’s going to be a lot of good parsnips on the benches come September time. You see, I am already starting to doubt myself! Bollocks.

My long carrots continue to grow well, the foliage now pushing up against the enviromesh top of the frame. It’s all a lovely deep green and because they are totally enclosed on all sides by polythene, top and bottom by mesh, it means that the dreaded carrot fly can’t get in to lay their eggs, although I also use a systemic insecticide as belt and braces. You simply can't afford the slightest chance of any damage, no matter how minute. I also make a note of going through each station every week, making sure that the crowns are covered with more compost as they will turn green otherwise and cause you to be downpointed. The only feed they get is a weak solution of Maxicrop at every other watering which I hope will enhance the colour.

My stumps Sweet Candle are also looking pretty uniform from the tops at least, and a few weeks ago several even started to push their shoulders above the surface. In one way this is good, as it means they have probably started to form a defined stump end which is something I have often struggled to achieve, so it could mean that my gamble of a simple cored hole 12” deep has paid off. On the other hand it means I have to be extra vigilant and ensure I’m ready to cover any exposed root otherwise it will go green and never turns orange again, so you have to make regular checks. Taking advice from other good stump growers I really need to make sure the bed is never allowed to dry out so I am watering every day in this hot weather. Ever since 2010 when I pulled over 100 forked Sweet Candle which I put down to insufficient water I’ve been very careful to make sure they never go dry. Remember, they are growing in free draining sand and we need to give them much more water than if they were growing in the ground.

Over the weekend I harvested the first Tasco onions for the 250g classes, pulling them when the tape measure had them at 10 ¼” circumference or 3 ¼” diameter. From the photo you will see 5 bulbs all pulled at the same diameter, but I’m fairly sure the bottom two will weigh well in excess of 250g because they are much rounder in profile. These were growing a bit deeper in the bed and so I hadn’t noticed they were swelling mostly below ground, their true size only becoming apparent when I exposed them a bit by grubbing out the soil from around them. The top three should be bang on size once the necks have dried out so the trick now is to harvest as many as I possibly can before white rot ruins everything, as I have now lost a total of 4 bulbs to this disease.

Once thoroughly dried off I’ll rub some talc on them and store in wooden boxes of sawdust in my garage, which is cool, dark and airy, ideal for ripening onions. The problem is you need a big selection as they will all ripen to slightly different hues, some will develop the odd wrinkle and need re-skinning, some may be marked in some way etc etc. In fact, of the three the one on the right has slightly lower shoulders if you’re being critical, which just goes to show how difficult it is to match veg up for showing. In fact, I'm now starting to worry about all of my veg, so I may have to start some mind games of my own. I'm just off to take a photo of my arse to text to Mark Perry.

Tapping into the past

Many, many moons ago, back when Manchester Utd had only just started to put Liverscum back in their box, a journey which was fully completed last Wednesday night when King Jose put another big dollop of gleaming silverware in the Old Trafford trophy room, before even Tony Bliar and Gordon Brown had knackered the British economy up for several generations to come,  I watched an episode of Gardener’s World where Medwyn Williams was pulling his long carrots and parsnips for the very grandly named British Tap Root Championships. It was in fact so long ago that Medwyn fitted on screen without them having to go to a wide camera lens. When I got into showing veg a few years later I remembered that programme and vowed to enter the British Tap Root Championships as soon as possible. However, it’s something I’ve never managed to do, as it’s always held as part of the Welsh Branch Championships of the NVS and it has invariably clashed with one of my other shows.

So with my final year of showing in mind I felt I’d better bite the bullet and finally give it a go this season and get it out of my system. For this class you have to stage 2 parsnips, 2 long carrots, 2 long beetroot and 2 stump rooted carrots. The very best root growers in the country, (and Mark Perry), have all won this class in the past. Whilst I’m confident of growing decent parsnips and long carrots for this class, benching the other 2 crops to a decent standard will take a bit more doing. For the past few years my stump carrots have been troubled with a disease called cavity spot (Pythium violae) and they’ve been pretty average as a result I have to say. This problem manifests itself as sunken dark spots on the skins that won’t rub off no matter what, making them look quite ugly when they dry out. The only way of combatting this was to buy in fresh sand for the beds, so I emptied them out and set up more drums for long carrots with the surplus sand. It’s weird, but long carrots don’t seem to suffer from cavity spot for some reason. Parsnips are also said to be susceptible but again it’s not a problem I’ve encountered either. Having set up the new beds (mine are old paving slabs set on edge to contain the sand) and allowed the sand time to settle when the time came to do the bore holes I was seriously lacking motivation having done 94 bore holes for long roots the previous couple of weekends. In the past I’ve cored a hole out of the sand then finished off to two foot depth with a crowbar. In truth I just couldn’t be arsed, so after coring out 115 holes with a 2 ½ ” diameter plastic tube to 12” deep, spitting the surplus sand into a bucket, I just filled the holes with a 4:1 sieved M2/vermiculite mix (no added nutrients) through a metal funnel that had the whole task done in a few hours. It was a pleasant change. My idea is that the root will use up the nutrients in the 12” core, develop a definite stump end rather than growing down forever as it hits the nutrient free sand, the tap root itself will happily go down into the sand for moisture. We shall see. I sowed all my Sweet Candle seeds at the start of April and got great germination, and now have two very even beds growing away really well. It’s important not to let Sweet Candle dry out as the roots can easily grow overlong and become rough skinned so the sprinkler will be getting some use over the Summer.

In the past any long beet I’ve ever grown have tended to be grown in boreholes where the parsnips or long carrots have failed to germinate. Very often I’ve ended up with huge long beet that don’t quite cut the mustard for quality. For the British Tap Champs I decided I had to be a bit more dedicated and so I set up a row of plastic drainpipe tubes I grew some long carrots in a few years back. I filled each of these with about 18litres of an M2/peat/silver sand mix with added seaweed meal which I’m hoping will give good colour. A long beet expert once told me that long beet need much more water than other long roots so I really need to make sure these pipes don’t dry out. Positioned on the shady side of my tunnel the worst of the sun keeps off them during the hottest part of the day so that should help.

It will be nice to do well in this class if I can. At the RHS Westminster Autumn Show held at the beginning of October I managed to win a similar class there in 2015 after several years of trying. I scored well with my long carrots and parsnips, my stumps were not too bad on this occasion, but my long beet only were a bit heavy and had poor form so only scored 12.5. Good enough to win on the day against Jim Pearson and David Thornton but I’ll need to improve if I’m to be in the tickets at Wales in September.

Parsnip progress

What a fandabbydozy few years it’s been for me with parsnips in particular. I’d always won lots of classes with my ‘nips locally but it became a different kettle of fish when I started plonking some down on the benches at the ‘big shows’. Winning at Leicester Show in 2008 a fellow competitor reckoned they wouldn’t have looked out of place at a top NVS show, and that comment eventually convinced me to start having a crack at a higher level. However, In 2012 when the National was last held at Malvern I entered 5 parsnips which were the best I had ever grown but when I staged them next to my mentor Ian Stocks’ set it was clear I still had a long way to go. Mine are on the left of the photo.

When Ian unveiled his I instantly thought to myself ‘best in show’, but perhaps controversially Ian was placed only 2^nd , behind Andrew Jones who thus won for the second year running with Gladiator. One of the reasons being mooted was that the variety Ian grew ‘Pinnacle’ was a bit ‘blocky’ in profile. However, Ian managed some degree of payback by winning when the National was at Harrogate the year after.

My breakthrough with parsnips came in 2013 when I placed 3^rd at Malvern, behind parsnip expert Andrew Jones in 1^st. Mine weren’t brilliant I have to say and 3^rd was a very pleasant surprise, but in truth there were only about 6 entries I recall.

In 2015 I had the great feeling of actually winning parsnips at Malvern, nudging Andrew into a rare 2^nd place. When I first started growing long parsnips nearly 20 years ago I’d never have dreamed I could have progressed from this;

To this;

As you can see my parsnips have improved nearly as much as my looks. Back then I grew them in a single plastic oil drum filled with sand, and I didn’t bother cutting the bottom off so I invariably ended up with a  root coiled at the end where it had reached the bottom of the drum and gone spiralling round. Over the years I have acquired more drums (engineering companies will often give them to you to save paying to have them disposed of) and I have extended the depth through varying methods, so that my roots have got longer and longer. Initially it was a raised bed filled with sand and the now bottomless drums placed on that. In 2012 it was noticeable that my roots were shorter than all those in the tickets, and whilst length itself is not really a consideration for the judges I came to believe good length will make them stand out and make the judges take note, so long as your roots have good quality that is. The longer they are then the longer they will fill out and taper down the root, which all adds to the effect. I also think the longer ones come out more easily, as they are so thin at soil level which is the weakest part, so they don’t snap further up the root. Just my belief.

In 2015, and before my Malvern triumph, I had also travelled up to Dundee for that season’s National Championships, a brilliant weekend at the Dundee Flower and Food Festival, where I managed a 4^th place ticket in highly exalted company. Ian Stocks won again, David Thornton was 2^nd and Graham Watson 3^rd, all previous parsnip winners at the National, so I was in very good company. John Croot and Geoff Butterworth both felt I might have been placed even higher but I was more than happy with 4^th I have to say, as you can see by my soppy grin and gay pose.

One of the big problems I’d had in previous years with parsnips were brown lesions and cavities on the skin. For years I believed this to be parsnip canker and tried to take appropriate measures, all to no avail. When you actually read up on parsnip canker it should only thrive in clay soil and hates lime. My parsnip mix is obviously quite free draining and contains lime so I could never understand why I kept suffering with ‘canker’. Over time I came to realise I was actually experiencing carrot fly damage. This looks totally different on carrot skins, with dark, deep holes and fissures that are unmistakeable. I wonder if, whilst the carrot fly grub is perfectly willing to nibble on parsnips, they only graze the surface and this rots in a different manner to carrots giving a brown appearance rather than black. Once I realised carrot fly was the culprit I was able to spray with a strong insecticide called Hallmark which you do have to go to clandestine efforts to acquire. No doubt the organic brigade will once again accuse me of killing Mother Nature but I don’t give a flying fart as for exhibition your veg has got to be in pristine condition. So, to be sure that you know, this is what carrot fly damage looks like on parsnips;

It was an incredible feeling to repeat the win at Malvern last year with an even better set, actually beating 5 current or ex-National champions in the process, proving that I had moved on to become one of the best parsnip growers in the country, something to put on my headstone for passing dogs to piss up against no doubt. I hadn’t been able to make last year’s National held in Wales due to the imminent arrival of my 3^rd grandson, but fellow showman Mark Perry felt they were better than those that came 1^st at the National a couple of weeks earlier, won by Andrew Jones yet again. Nice to hear, but Mark is also a Liverpool fan so you have to say he does talk a lot of bollocks a lot of the time so I am cautious.

The next step now is to try and repeat this in September this season when the National Championships of the NVS comes to Malvern on its 5 yearly cycle, which will now be my final chance at becoming a National Champion, by no means an easy feat as the top growers in the land will now be gunning for me. So I got a slightly earlier start than usual this season, taking advantage of some decent weather in March to get the chitted seeds in the boreholes. The variety I’ve grown for the past 2 years and that has served me so well is one called Victor, available from Medwyn’s. I like the way its shoulder is nicely rounded into the leaf stalk cavity making cleaning quite easy. One of my fellow competitors at Malvern asked how I got my roots so white and I admitted that I actually take the rough side of a scourer to them once I’ve got as much dirt off them as I could with a hose pipe and the smooth side of the scourer. If you want to try this method I’d strongly recommend you try on a spare first, as you do have to be quite gentle so as not to rub in deep scratches to the skin. It works for me, but I certainly wouldn’t do it on carrots or potato skins for instance. Bearing in mind you need a set of 5 at the National rather than 3 then every root will have to be top notch.

I also extended my drums yet again by adding another 9” of part drum on top, taped together with strong duct tape so ensure they don’t come apart. This will potentially give me roots up to 70” long. Risky maybe? Should I have changed a winning formula in my final season of showing? Who knows, but I just fancied having a go at getting a set that overhangs the edge of the benches, even at Malvern, by several inches. However, I would never be able to match the late, great Jack Arrowsmith. I once saw a set of his at Malvern that actually touched the floor at the foot of the bench and carried on for another few inches. They really were something else.

I ended last season winning parsnips at Dave Thornton’s show in Derby, picking up best in show with them. There were some superb exhibits grown by several top growers so to get best in show in that company was something I would only have dreamed about when I ended the blog back in 2012. As I said, a lot has happened in the last 5 years.

It has been another busy few days in the garden, dodging the heavy rain showers mostly over the weekend, then moving the hose around during this mini-heatwave we’re experiencing, but I did take a few hours out on Saturday night when I donned my black tie .....

......to attend the prestigious 2017 Trumpton Garden Book Awards, as special guest of the very camera shy Craven Morehead whose book Carrots at Dawn had been shortlisted for the 2017 overall book of the year out of all the various category winners. Other nominees were;

A Russian back garden by Onya Bakyabitch
Herbal remedies for erectile dysfunction by Don Kedick
50 great Australian gardens by Sydney Arbour
Love in the garden by Ben Doon and Phil McCavity
My Israeli garden adventures by Lemmy C. Yatitz

The judges were the esteemed garden writers Hugh Jardon and Mike Oxmells. Sadly, Craven didn’t win but he was very pleased with the judges’ comments that Carrots at Dawn had plunged garden writing to previously unplumbed depths.

He’s back…for a few months only though!

I’m delighted to announce the return of the gobbiest, most handsome and generally deluded vegetable shower in Britain. Evidently I don’t own a mirror. Due to work commitments and hassle from certain quarters where a sense of humour was sadly lacking, I had to take my blog down back in 2012, and that coupled with my growing family (4 grandkids and counting) meant I have had my hands very full in the intervening years. However, this is to be only a temporary reprieve for you all as I shall be retiring from showing at the end of this year, certainly for the foreseeable future, so this time I don’t give a fish’s tit who I upset.

A lot has happened in the 5 years I’ve been away. For one thing I got fairly decent at some crops and have managed to win tickets at the highest level of the game, certainly not too shabby for a “wooden spooner” as someone once called me anyways, and I’ll be recounting those stories in the next few weeks.

Many have asked me in the intervening years when I was starting the blog up again and in truth I had no intention of ever doing so but due to the mind-numbingly boring content of many of the alternative sources of information and the fact that there appears to be no-one else out there willing to be controversial and take on the organic beardy-weirdy knobs head-on I’ve decided to come out of exile. Be warned though, if you don’t like using chemicals or swearing simply for the sake of it and because very often it sounds funny, take exception to prolonged mentions of Manchester United, the magnificent job that the Tories are doing rebuilding the country, or you simply don’t have a sense of humour of any description then jog on to John Harrison’s Allotment-dot-oh-god or any of the other boring as fuck websites for your information. And don’t bother leaving negative comments as I’ll only delete them and make it my life’s work ridiculing you at every possible opportunity thereafter. So, in short, if you’re pining for some light relief from Dan Unsworth’s continuous moaning about the weather, Paul Bastow’s sparse postings or any of the gobshite drivel currently cluttering up t’interweb on various Facebook and Twitter garden pages then strap yourself in, you deserve this and I apologise for neglecting you all.

You will note that I have deleted all content pre-2012 as I shall be making a fresh start, doing weekly updates on my growing and showing progress. Truth is that you’re learning all the while, and some of the things I wrote in 2007 are either out of date or just simply wrong, so I shall be recounting my journey from now armed with this fresh knowledge. I’ll try and do a couple of posts a week, but I certainly shan’t be as prolific as I was pre-2012.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for some light-hearted reading matter with lots of choice swear words, a highly unbelievable plot and noisy sex then I can thoroughly recommend a book called ‘Carrots at Dawn’ by an incredibly good looking chap and brilliant grower called Craven Morehead (ahem!).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carrots-Dawn-Fifty-Shades-parsnips-ebook/dp/B00QSMLQ52

Based around the run up to a village show there are several characters that regular showmen will probably recognise as having similarities to people they have rubbed up against themselves. Ignore the bad reviews on Amazon, I have it on good authority they were just spiteful comments by doddering old dry-farts who took exception to this guy promoting his book on Facebook pages and various gardening websites. For instance, Medwyn Williams, President of The National Vegetable Society said of it.

“I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a book that I can really recommend.”

Despite being a Liverpool fan and thus possessing of an intelligence that has you questioning his judgement I think that is high praise indeed. It really is such a brilliant book I could have written it myself!

Best regards

Simon Smith ONVS