First show of 2017

A top grower (well he always insisted he was a top grower) was once quite sniffy about competing in local shows, implying that it was beneath him now that he was winning at NVS Branch shows with his cabbages and cucumbers. Not me. I still get a big buzz out of winning a ticket at my local show and it was with some sadness that I entered my veg on Saturday morning for the last time. I know the organisers have been a little bit worried about the effect my giving up showing will have on the show as I have supported it with multiple entries since my first show here in 2001, but there were a few new exhibitors putting in some reasonable quality stuff so I sincerely hope the show will continue to thrive. These shows are the breeding grounds for anyone with aspirations to go onto bigger things but should always be supported as much as possible. And besides I said I’d still try and support them with some baking in future years. However, they told me not to threaten them with that shit. As it was I walked off with the coveted Society Cup for most points, and my name will now be etched on the side of it for a record extending 14^th time in 17 years. I’m rather stupidly proud of that.

As I said in the previous post I was particularly pleased with my winning long carrots which were quite a small set compared to many more I appear to have growing. If they carry their weight down like these I’m going to be in a position to compete at the bigger shows to come. One slight concern on a single carrot I pulled for another class was what appeared to be cavity spot which is said not to affect long carrots as much as stumps. I actually used the infected sand from my cavity spot infected stump beds to fill extra carrot drums thinking things would be fine so we shall have to see if this is going to be a major problem for me over the next few weeks.

My stump carrots were almost embarrassing to me. Yes, they won, but if I’d put this set in a National Veg show I’d have been soundly beaten with a sharpened swede, they really were utter wank. I’ll be pulling my stumps for the Welsh Branch Championships tomorrow night and if they’re anything remotely like this they’re going to feed my grandson’s rabbit.

Being a local show you can put more than one entry in a class so over the years in an effort to support the show I have often made multiple entries, whilst being wary of not wanting to do too much and put people off. It’s a fine line but sometimes it’s best to just put one in if you know you’re probably going to win it so that someone else can experience the thrill of getting a ticket. One class I did pull a few entries in was the any other veg class, and my rhubarb was a worthy winner beating my marrows into 2^nd and my turnips into 3^rd. Other exhibitors’ entries in the class included kale, radish, chard, squash and a very large pair of caulis that were unfortunately badly discoloured and well past their best.

I had 1^st and 2^nd in the tomato class but was surprised my 2^nd place entry didn’t actually win. What do you think?

The small fruited tomato class at any show is always well contested and I was pleased to win with a set of Strillo, although I had to cut over 50 to find a set of 10 that weren’t split. Fair to say I shan’t be growing Strillo ever again.

I won the globe beet class with a nice set of 3 that I thought I’d made a fatal mistake with when I was prepping them. I cut the foliage as if I was prepping them for a National show when I suddenly clapped my hands over my face as I realised our show asks for them to be shown ‘with foliage’. Calming down I noticed that I had cut them long at first and therefore there was some new middle foliage still visible so technically I couldn’t be NAS’d and so it proved as far as the judge was concerned.

And the little fuchsia ‘Auntie Jinks’ that I’d been nurturing all Spring & Summer won me another 1^st place. Triffic.

As I said earlier, I’m now turning my thoughts to the Welsh Branch of the NVS Branch Championships in Carmarthen this coming weekend, assuming we’re not going to get nuked by North Korea and America before then, and I emailed my entry form off yesterday morning. Saves the cost of a stamp and doesn’t risk those spanners at Royal Mail losing it in transit. I have entered the rather grandly named National Tap Root Championships of Great Britain but it does all depend on how my long beet pull tonight. I’m having to pull them so long before the show as the daylight hours are getting much less in the evenings by the time those of us who work for a living manage to get home. It’ll be carrots tomorrow night and parsnips on Thursday as we’re travelling down on Friday evening so everything needs to be up and prepped in good time. I’ve entered 9 classes in all plus a couple of back-ups, long carrots and parsnips if the long beet doesn’t cut the mustard, but I shan’t bother with those if they’re adequate for the tap root collection. There is also another collection class for 3 sets of veg with a points value of 18 or less, so I’ll hopefully be going for tomatoes, runner beans and stump carrots, but this is usually a highly contested class so each veg will have to be tip top.

And finally I was in bed the other night pulling off my boxers when the wife walked in on me. “Please don’t do that to the dogs!” she said.

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.

Tattiefilarious

Just when you’re thinking everything is looking tickety boo on the showman’s plot something always seems to happen to bring your hopes and dreams crashing back to reality. Imagine watching ‘An Audience with Ken Dodd’ on the tellybox, laughing away, not a care in the World then some fucker pulls the plug and replaces it with Coldplay in concert. That’s the sort of extreme swing in emotions I suffered two nights ago, from happy to suicidal in seconds. I’d noticed a few of my stump carrots were starting to look less than perky, in truth something that occurred last season but they soon came round after a feed. This time they hadn’t responded so I decided to expose a few shoulders and discovered quite a few were suffering from crown rot, a new one on me.

I had to pull a total of 11, leaving me about 100 or so, which sounds a lot but if any more of those succumb then I’m seriously depleting my chances against guys who grow several hundred. Doing my research crown rot is prevalent in warm and damp conditions which we’ve certainly had a lot of this summer. For the past couple of days it has bucketed down which isn’t going to help the situation that’s for sure, but it is due to brighten up later when I shall be giving them a spray of a product called Signum which is supposed to offer moderate control (on this and many other conditions for different veg), so I hope to stop it getting any worse at the very least. Hey ho, there are worse things that can happen in life, such as…..

Growing 40 bags of potatoes that all appear to be completely covered in fucking scab. I got the first 20 bags up over the weekend so they could dry off in my garage for a couple of weeks to allow the skins to harden before emptying out. I did have a crafty peek at some of the tubers and whilst the size and shape appeared to good I was really struggling to find any that weren’t badly infected. A similar thing happened last season but then I discovered there were clean and infected tubers in the same bags so I’m hoping  for a similar outcome this time. Scab thrives in dry soil conditions so I can only assume the bags have dry spots and any tubers growing there are affected whilst clean tubers can grow away side by side with them in damp areas. Just a theory but keeping the growing media uniformly moist in growbags can be more difficult than you imagine so I think there may be some mileage in the idea. If there are some tubers with only minor markings I will try and use them as they can be rubbed off if care is taken. Indeed, the set that won me a 3^rd at Malvern last season did contain a couple of tubers with minor scab lesions that were almost invisible after cleaning. Invisible to the judge at least!

I’ve now planted all my kohl rabi for the National Class 26, over 100 plants. If I don’t manage to stage a set of 5 after that then I may as well give up growing for showing. Oh, hang on, I am! These need to be protected from pigeons as they will nibble the new leaves (hence the pea sticks at random angles), and a carpet of slug pellets is also essential. I have 2 varieties, Kref growing in the tunnel and Kolibri growing outside, and with 6 and a half weeks to go to Malvern surely one of my 4 sowings will be timed to perfection and I can be crowned National German Turnip Champion, which will be a wonderful thing to have inscribed on my tombstone. Just below World’s Most Annoying Twat.

My long beet in pipes seem to be growing well but they are now on a weekly feed of Chempak 8 as they need to start bulking out, the roots only being about an inch in diameter currently. As with long carrots you need to check the crowns for any side growths, and I have been making sure they are watered often as long beet do like to be kept moist. Other than that this is one crop that has grown relatively trouble free thus far.

Which is something that cannot be said for globe beet. For as long as I can remember globe beet have always grown at vastly different rates from the same supposed F1 seeds. From the same sowing you can get roots that reach size in 6 or 7 weeks whilst the rest can take up to 15 or even more, so it does mean you can be several weeks from show date and have lots of good show size roots that can only go into the kitchen. A couple of weeks ago as I was bemoaning this fact once more, staring at several that already needed harvesting, I wondered whether they could be saved for a few weeks at the size they’d reached. I decided to experiment by lifting them, thus effectively stopping their growth, cutting off much of their foliage and replanting them in deep holes to see if they would be any use come show time. I’ve done this at the end of the season when I’ve been faced with several dozen roots and basically just heeled them back into the soil until required for cooking, and I’d remembered that they don’t grow any more in size but central leaves do regrow. We shall see if this proves successful, but I’m fairly confident it will be good enough for local showing at the very least. As more roots reach size I’ll continue lining them up and them pull them out just before the show to make the sets. At the moment I don’t see any reason why this can’t work.

One crop I am quite pleased about this season is celery, which has responded well to a compost top dressing (thankyou Mr. McLeod) and is now starting to bulk out nicely. I’m only growing 16 plants and this weekend I will be wrapping black plastic around the cardboard collars to aid the blanching process. Next week I will switch from a high nitrogen feed Chempak 2 to a low nitrogen feed Chempak 8, a couple of scoops every week until showtime. The key to growing decent celery I’ve recently learned is when to strip your outer split sticks back in order to keep the plant swelling and to ensure it’s as rounded in profile as possible. For now, I’m taking them all out, all around the plant to keep it even, but a couple of weeks before the show I’ll leave them on to act as buffers. These will be taken off at lifting, the idea being (hopefully!) that there are no split stalks underneath those. Something I’ve not always found to be the case. I may be relying on celery for some of the mini-collections I’m hoping to do this season so I’m devoting a bit of effort to these from now, just in case my spuds let me down. Who knows, I may be able to get my tickling stick out again before the end of the show season.

Too late now!

In life you are often faced with situations that seem at first glance to be one thing, which may look quite threatening, but in actuality turn out to be something totally opposite and entirely benign. For instance, (and I use this example and location entirely at random) if you saw a group of middle-aged white people in a field below the magnificent Malvern hills, standing around a table full of fruit cakes, your natural reaction, understandably so, would be that they were all converted ISIS terrorists determined to ruin the Malvern Show and all that it stood for. A closer look, and it takes some doing believe me, would reveal a bunch of friends merely having a laugh and a joke and taking the piss out of the cooking of skills of some of their number, but I have to accept it’s an easy mistake to make at first glance.

Some garden creatures are similarly maligned, such as ants and woodlice for instance. People often blame them for things not growing so well because they see them crawling all over their suffering plants, but woodlice only feed on rotting detritus (unlike me they don’t have big enough gobs you see!) and don’t cause the damage in the first instance, but rather take advantage once a plant has begun to rot. Ants are probably farming aphids for their bodily fluids if you see them, and likewise are not to blame for a plant not growing so well, although the aphids they are milking and managing probably are. So it pays to try and think logically when faced with an issue so that you can treat accordingly. For instance, for the past few years now I have really struggled to get globe beetroot seeds to germinate and I couldn’t work out why as I always found they were one of the easiest crops I ever grew. I was starting to blame the seed suppliers, or else slugs were nibbling them off before they had chance to establish properly as I was still getting some come through albeit there was extremely sparse germination. I was even wondering if mice were nicking the seed but there was never any soil disturbance so it couldn’t be that. I ditched Pablo a couple of years back and tried one called Cardeal with no change in success rates so I had to sit down and try and work out what I was doing wrong. In the end it turned out to be what I was doing differently. In the past I had always opened up a seed drill and thoroughly watered it prior to sowing the seed. For some reason I’ve yet to fathom, I stopped doing that, sowing the seed into the open drill, covering it over and then watering. I’ve gone back to that method this season and hey presto I’ve started to get much better germination rates. It’s often recommended in gardening books that you soak beetroot seed overnight before sowing to encourage it to break dormancy, and I think my pre-watered rows may have been doing a similar task.

You need to have a lot of globe beetroot to be able to pull a matching set of 3 I always find. They’re total bastards to match up. You can pull 3 roots up with the same diameter but then find they are all totally different when viewed in side profile. One will be flat bottomed, one will be ‘pointy’ and another may be forked or misshapen. I reckon I would have had to pull upwards of 20 for each of the 2 sets pictured below, 3^rd on the open side at Malvern in 2015 and 1^st on the open side at Dundee also in 2015. Neither set filled me with great delight I have to say, but it just goes to show you have to be in it to win it.

Some growers go to great lengths to grow them for exhibition, doing boreholes in much the same way as you would for carrots and parsnips to ensure a nice long tap root. I find that too much trouble for what is only a 15 point veg and can usually get some decent roots from various raised beds with a deep root run, if I can get the damned things to germinate that is. One thing you must ensure is they never go short of water, that the shoulders are covered as much as possible to prevent corkiness, and that you spray them to stop the mangold fly in its tracks. This critter will soon tunnel through the leaves and slow down growth considerably. Flea beetle is another pest that can be problematic, but I find Hallmark stops them both and leaves me with nice clean foliage. Globe beet need about 15 weeks from sowing to showing, and surprisingly, they need a lot of nitrogen feed for a root crop.

So like I said, try and think logically around a problem and don’t jump to quick conclusions. And, instead of threatening the cake bakers of ISIS with extermination perhaps you ought to ask them for ideas on making the World a happier friendly place instead and see what they can contribute to the community rather than condemning them to a life in the shadows?

Small collections and big tits

If you’ve had chance to read the first chapter of Carrots at Dawn below I hope it's whetted your 'happy tit' enough to buy it and read the rest of it. There are a few bad reviews left on Amazon by people who objected to Craven Morehead (bloody nice bloke, very handsome too) contacting them direct via their presences on various gardening websites that are all in the PUBLIC FUCKING DOMAIN. Anyone blessed with the gift of laissez faire would merely have deleted those contacts (emails/FB messages/Forum posts etc) if they objected so strongly, but surely there are many more important things in life these days that should get our ganders up. One particularly nasty response came from a Mr. D. Brooks whoever the hell he is, who wrote;

'More than one gardening forum has been spammed by this person desperate to make an odd sale or two. For this reason - the same reason as one of the other reviewers - I would not now go anywhere near it.'

Now, I don’t know who this twat is but he sounds like a very old and miserable wanker with an allergy to smiling and if he ever attempted to write anything gardening/showing/allotment related or otherwise I have absolutely no doubt it would be the most boring and droning document ever written since the Hong Kong phone book, but no doubt he’d get an award for it. A much nicer review (and there are many) came from a Karen Coleman;

 'Absolutely hilarious. Couldn't put this book down. Had me chuckling out loud from start to finish. If you've a sense of humour and like gardening/growing vegetables then you'll love it. But if you're easily offended by swear words then maybe not. I thought it was bloody brilliant.
Highly recommended! '

Moving on, I’m a great fan of the small collections at many of the bigger shows such as the 3x2 class which calls for 3 exhibits of two 20 point vegetables. This can often be useful as you usually need to pull many more long carrots of parsnips than you might need for a class, and can often find a good matching pair that would otherwise be left behind. Similarly you may harvest a glut of cauliflowers, or have more celery ready than you need for the regular classes. When the National was last held at Malvern in 2012 I entered this class with a pair each of long carrots, parsnips and celery and was very happy with my entry albeit I was nowhere near the tickets as there was a really heavy entry that year.

At Dundee in 2015 I went for long carrots, parsnips and caulis and was a mere point outside the tickets, so whilst making progress it really goes to show that all 3 dishes have to be top notch.

The winning entry from the great Scot Alistair Gray gives you some idea of the mountain mere mortals like me have to climb.

At Malvern last year for the Midlands Branch Championships I came 4^th although quite how the judge awarded me a ticket beggars belief as one of my long carrots had quite a large split near the shoulder where it had got compressed by some boxes during the car journey. I really do wonder sometimes if the judges handle every single specimen, whilst having some sympathy with them as they are under pressure to get the task done in order for the show to open.

The ‘Millennium Class’ was introduced at the National a dozen or so years ago. You need 4 each of stump carrots, potatoes, 250g onions, globe beetroot and tomatoes, the idea being that you don’t need fancy growing facilities to be able to grow any of the crops required.  250g onions can be grown from sowing in February, tomatoes in March, spuds and stumps in April, and globe beet from May, so it really should be open to anyone. In reality it aint that easy and the top growers are usually to the fore, Peter Clark winning for the 3^rd time in total at Dundee with this exhibit.

I was an excruciating half point outside the tickets, my tomatoes letting me down for once, the yellow calyces getting me down marked I feel sure, although they somehow scored 15 out of 18, and my spuds only receiving 13 out of 20, but at least I had improved on my 2012 showing when I was actually last out of 20 or so entries!

Note the maximum points available for each crop;

Spuds 20

Tomatoes 18

Stump carrots 18

250g onions 15

Globe beet 15

These are due to the degree of difficulty determined to grow each crop, spuds being the highest, 250g onions and globe beet being deemed the easiest. At the Midlands Branch the rules are slightly different, as you can choose any 4 from 5 of the vegetables, but here you want to be careful that you don’t choose both 15 pointer crops at the expense of one of the 18 or 20 pointers, as you’ll be 3 or 5 points behind before you’ve even started, so you only want to go for one or the other if possible. At Malvern last year I came a very pleasing 2^nd, only one point off the red card, pleasing until I realised it was Dave Thornton what had won it. Bollocks!

Malvern 2012 Part 4

After winning tomatoes at Malvern in 2010 against 30 odd entries I haven't won a bloody tomato class since! The plants have grown very strangely this season and I struggled to find 12 fruits to put down at Malvern although in the end I didn't think they looked too bad, certainly not in the dark when I staged them!

Fluctuations between daytime and nighttime temperatures were to blame along with the almost total lack of sunshine at times here in the Costa del Midlands. It was no surprise that the winning set came from a grower towards the south of the country, admittedly one of the country's very top showmen Derek Aldred with this very nice set.

I'm also not convinced that the soil in my greenhouse border hasn't contributed to some problems, so with that in mind I shall be replacing it during the Winter months rather than giving them a few 'winter floods'. Emptying out a couple of tonnes of soil and replacing it is always a ballache of a job but it's been 4 years since I did it so it's about due. I will also empty out a trench before planting next May and fill with M3 compost to make sure the plants don't go short of food. Someone suggested I ditch Cedrico and try Zenith available from Medwyn's as they'd had success with it. I'll take that suggestion on board but for now I'll stick to Cedrico as when it grows right it looks great with its long, spidery calyces.

I had entered the large onion class at Malvern but for some reason my bulbs are still bloody green even though they've been up for the best part of 7 weeks now. I've had the fan on them, then covered them in dark cloth as the nights grew colder but they still steadfastly refuse to ripen, although they're still firm bulbs. I'm at a loss as to what I've done wrong as i've always been able to get my onions a nice colour by mid-September at the latest. John Jones won this year.

Ray Spooner won the 250g to 1.5kg onion class and whilst a couple of the bulbs were a bit tide-marked they were nevertheless a very well-matched set.

Sherie Plumb won the 250g class with Toughball.

I notice in Medwyn's GN column this week that Sherie advises she sows her onions a week after Malvern to have them ready for her July shows. This is dedication but quite frankly I intend to forget about veg shortly until the New Year. You have to have a break from it in my opinion and besides I want to try and get the plot in better shape and get some construction work done ready for a polytunnel in the Spring.

There weren't many caulis at this year's National with David Peel taking the honours.

I believe it was David's second National win as he won french beans last year at Llangollen. I shall be trying again with caulis next season, growing them in a raised bed where I grew my celery this season. David also had an excellent Harrogate Championships  a couple of weeks back winning several of the spud classes, but Sherie Plumb was back on form at Malvern winning both the coloured and spud classes. Just when you think people have the beating of her the clever minx gets things back on track with a vengeance.

The Millennium Class always attracts plenty of entries and it attracted more than ever this year with John Smiles coming out on top for his first ever win at National level. John has had a good year, also winning the Northern Horticultural Society's Master Gardener Class at Harrogate where you staged a vase of flowers, a pot plant, a dish of veg and a dish of fruit.

I actually came last in the Millennium (someone has to!), my pathetic globe beet and mismatched tomatoes letting me down badly. I really did struggle to get globe beet germinated this season for some strange reason. I usually have hundreds of them growing away in several rows no problem whatsoever. Despite this, the Millennium is one class I shall be going all out to try and get a ticket in at Harrogate 2013 when it is the Northern Branch's turn to host it. It was introduced as a class anyone could grow for, the thinking being that you don't need any special set-up to grow all 5 crops, although after the summer we've NOT had then I suggest a heated and lighted greenhouse is required to grow tomatoes, small onions and globe beet!

Meanwhile at the Labour Party Conference Ed Milliband has promised to rebuild Britain as one nation. It will be called f***ing Poland!

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!

Millennium misery and Medwyn missives

Whilst the Sun God Helios was paying homage to my magnificent body last week, back in Loughborough we had a hailstorm that made the kids turn up the television very loud as Oscar was frightened. If I'd been at home I would also have been very frightened...for my celery mainly! When I got back in the early hours of Saturday morning to be given this information it didn't immediately register, but on inspection of the plot Saturday afternoon I was horrified to see a lot of damage to the leaves, with many marks, rips and in some cases holes where the hailstone has gone straight through. I spent 30 minutes carefully snipping off any ripped leaflets and with the best part of 4 weeks to go til Malvern hopefully they'll recover a bit by then.

I have huge concerns also with my parsnips. A few growers have reported that growth seemed to stop back in July and mine did to a certain extent when the foliage went a bit yellowy. Now growth has pretty much stopped altogether and much of the foliage has gone brown. I assumed it was red spider but can find no trace so it's another disaster I can only put down to this year's disastrous weather patterns.

I had one very small specimen that was a re-sown station so I decided to pull this one to check on skin finish, and I was delighted to note it was very clean with no sign of carrot fly damage so hopefully the rest will be the same. However, plants don't seem to know whether they are coming or going......I even have a sole wisteria flower. Wisterias flower in May for crying out loud!

We didn't get in back until 3am Saturday morning but I had no chance of a lie in as I judged a small show at 11am in a local church. It was quite a small scale affair and to be honest there wasn't a great deal of quality but it was an enjoyable couple of hours and the organisers made us a decent lunch for our troubles. They told me that entries were well down on previous years, a situation that is being echoed up and down the country.

On Sunday it was my local show at Sutton Bonington and it was nice to be able to enjoy the day as a spectator although I did do my stint on the front desk. Here too entries were down a bit, mainly due to me not entering this year. Although it was a bit strange not being called upon at presentation time to collect a trophy or two I am glad I decided to have a 'gap year' and a few other growers enjoyed their day in the limelight. I even signed up a nine year old boy into the society. His mum said he was mad keen about growing veg to show so I shall be keeping an eye on him over the next few years and mentoring him as much as I can. No doubt he will lose interest during his late teens when he discovers girls but hopefully a spark will be lit that will never go out and he'll return to the hobby when he has his own garden or allotment.

Winner of best veg was my old adversary John Barton with a plate of excellent speckled french beans.

Meanwhile I took a stroll round the showground with Oscar and we put the World to rights.

I emptied out 20 bags of 'Amour' potatoes yesterday evening. I'd cut the haulms off before we went away and stored the bags in the garage to they didn't get wet and the potato skins could set hard. I was very disappointed to uncover a pretty poor crop although I was expecting it as growth had been so poor. If I'd planted in April instead of May I'd probably have done a lot better as the roots would have been down sooner. As it was young plants sat in puddles of water for weeks on end and the die was cast. It just goes to show that Lady Luck plays a part and i'm hoping that another 10 bags planted later as yet still growing will yield me 4 tubers that I need for the Millennium Class at Malvern (4 potatoes/4 tomatoes/4 globe beet/4 stump carrots/4 250g onions). I have set aside a set of 4 but they are a little on the small side but if needs be I will have to go with them. However, as my 250g onions are also on the small side (nearer 190g!) I really don't want to have 2 undersize crops out of my 5 sets if I can avoid it. It might all be academic anyway as I may well struggle to harvest a decent set of globe beet because these too are very small at the moment, and I will only have 50 or so to choose from as I really struggled to get germination during the June deluges. Mother Nature really does have us all by the testacles at the moment and for now she aint letting go.

It is however reassuring to know that even the best are having problems and Medwyn now has a blog that he is regularly updating so I do recommend you have a look-in from time to time.

http://www.medwynsofanglesey.co.uk/blog/

Maybe this year will prove to be the year of female domination. Despite early setbacks I understand Sherie Plumb has returned to form and the Scottish Branch Championships saw success for my friend Helen Vincent with caulis and celery in only her second year of showing, and Sue McCall won blanch leeks at Welsh Branch in only her second ever show I believe, both pretty amazing successes. They make me bloody sick!

Challenging times

There is absolutely no doubt that this season is like no other I have ever experienced. Aside from the weather I've been having unprecedented problems getting certain seeds to germinate, particularly globe beetroot which I have resown 3 times now and they simply refuse to germinate outside in any number. They normally grow like weeds! It can't be the seed, as I've used three different batches from 3 different suppliers so i'm at a headscratching loss to explain it. When I first popped them in at the height of the summer deluges I didn't expect any problem as the soil was permanently wet. Perhaps it was just too wet and the knobbly seed simply rotted? In desperation I sowed a couple of rows in one of my greenhouse borders and these were much more successful, proving that you need warm moist soil for good germination, not a cold, muddy swimming pool!

My 250g onions are also becoming a concern. I expected them to be ready for harvest around now and hoped they would get to 82mm diameter, but they seem to have stopped at around 65mm. The foliage has gone yellow and to all intents the plants are telling me 'that's it'. They just sat there for weeks on end as the rain lashed down, and once we had a few sultry days the plants seemed to swell out a bit then decide it was harvest time.
My first bags of Kestrel potatoes have been an unmitigated disaster. In normal seasons this bed is ideal as it acts as a bit of a sump for water draining from the surrounding land, ideal for thirsty spuds, but there is a limit and this year I fear they've just sat in waterlogged soil.

Last week the foliage went yellow and it was still barely a foot high so I had no choice but to harvest them. I now have a couple of buckets marble sized Kestrel which is about as much use in the kitchen as I am. If anyone has any clue how best to cook Kestrel let me know as my wife has nothing but utter contempt for them.

I was hoping to enter the Millennium Class at Malvern but seeing as I need 250g onions, potatoes and globe beet it looks like that plan is on hold for another year. My tomatoes are still not looking that great either.

I've given up on my blanch leeks, despite my wife insisting that the seed heads 'look pretty'! I planted 23 and so far at least 16 have gone to seed and the remainder look as if they're about to. This means I will have to be more reliant on celery for collections this season, a desperate measure for someone who until 2 seasons ago was without doubt the World's Worst celery grower! However, I learnt a lot about this crop last year with a little help from my friends, and so far I'm happy with how my plants are progressing. They certainly are one crop that should thrive in this summer's weather. I sowed a little later so that I had fresher plants, and they are just starting to bulk out now, having gone onto an 18" cardboard collar a couple of weeks ago. The soil had some seaweed meal worked into it and I've given them regular feeds of nitrate of soda and calcium nitrate and will now be switching to Chempak no. 8 until harvest time, as well as a few applications of soot water which is reputed to bring out the colour in the foliage. I shall also be giving them shitloads of water from now on, as when I harvested them last season the soil was surprisingly dry despite daily drenchings, proving to me that you can never overwater celery. And in the end I applied Slugclear to the soil despite the warnings of death on the packet as I simply couldn't allow the little snotfuckers anywhere near my plants.

My 'Regar' long beet have motored well despite a very late sowing and with two months to showtime i'm more confident I will have these the refined shape they're supposed to be rather than the weighty monsters I produced last year, and I'm certainly happy with the uniformity of the foliage. Last year 3 or 4 stations produced specimens that swamped the others. There are 14 plants growing in these two drums and I may have a set of 3 to take with me to the RHS Westminster Show in October. The NVS call for 5 in their National Championships which is too many for me and many other growers so no doubt there'll be very few entries as usual (dig dig). Long beet like moist soil at all times, and my drums are therefore filled with an equal mix of sand, soil and compost to retain more moisture.

And last night I planted my 'Dorian' peas with the National at the end of September in mind, 27 days after they were sown. They were all set against 8' canes 10" apart and any tendrils were snipped off. As soon as the plants get their roots down and perk up a bit I'll start tying to the canes every couple of inches. As it was another wet evening I also gave a liberal scattering of slug pellets. It will be interesting to see if 'Dorian' is as mildew resistant as it says on the tin!