Malvern here we come

Apparently there’s more than one way to skin a cat. There is also more than one way to promote the interests of a society or body, and the power of the internet is sometimes overlooked when it comes round to handing out the recognition gongs. So no doubt when the AGM’s happen across the land there will be lots of shiny medals handed out to the usual uninspiring jobsworths whilst those with alternative ideas and a bit of gob get overlooked as usual. Fucked if I care. The so-called power of the internet is also taken way too seriously by some folk who get upset over a throwaway joke so they can sod off and find someone else to judge their show from now on.

Anyhoo, in terms of Cape Canaveral we’re now at the launchpad and climbing the ladders up to the rocket, ready to commence countdown (What a totally wank analogy, must do better!). I have already lifted a lot of the 39 varieties of veg I’ll be using in the trug which I have no doubt will collapse the benches at Malvern. If I don’t win it will probably be because it isn’t technically a trug, more of a wheelbarrow without wheels. However, I have come a long way since I produced this trug 10 years ago for my local show.

Every veg on it was red (or purple-y), as a sort of homage to the World’s greatest football team. Happy days now that Manchester United (did you know it's now 10,000 days since Liverpool won the League?) are once more leaving the rest of the Premier League in their wake and playing the sort of orgasmic footy we’ve been used to for so long. I once started plans to grow blue veg in honour of Maggie Thatcher, Britain’s greatest prime minister but decided a trug full of Blue Lake French beans, the only ‘blue’ veg I could think of, probably wouldn’t have got me very far.

My 250g onions have been weighed and sorted for the sets I need and boxed up so all I have to do now is load and go, and it will be easy stress free staging at the show. Outside chance of a low ticket with those possibly.

Tuesday night I lifted my globe beetroot as I need a set of 3 for the Malvern side and a 4 for the Millennium class at the National. They had been growing in a variety of deep beds allowing me to excavate a very deep hole beside them in order to get as much of the fine tap root up as I possibly could. Having pulled over 30 I was really struggling to sort my best set of 4 and didn’t feel any of them cut the mustard but just as it was getting dark I gave up and went with 2 sets plus a few for the trug and trudged up to the house to clean them. Once under the tap and cleaned up I have to say they didn’t look too bad so that cheered me up no end, and they are now immersed in water to which a good dash of vinegar and salt has been added. I’ve always done this as I was once told it helps to enhance the colour but in all seriousness I think it makes absolutely no odds whatsofuckingever, and all it does is make you crave some fish and chips. I won’t trim the foliage until I’m at the show.

I have also sorted out all the black display cloths I need for the various classes, had them washed and ironed and put into plastic bags with a label on each bag saying which is for which class. Another labour saving tip to avoid last minute panic. When I started showing over 20 years ago I did most of this the night before a show and still found time to bake a few cakes. The cakes were shit but I found time to bake them nonetheless. Talking of cakes a few of us are having highly serious mince pie competition at Malvern, to be judged by Medwyn Williams. We had a very similar one last year with rock cakes and despite baking the best looking, best tasting, and most evenly distributed fruit-wise I was inexplicably placed last due to some underhanded cheating by my so-called fellow competitors. This year I have a secret plan to ensure I will emerge triumphant however.

Last night I had all sorts of plans to lift and prepare a variety of vegetables but around 3pm I got a call from the Daily Mail who had found a photo I had posted on Twitter of the large ‘quality’ carrot I’m going to enter into the Giant Veg classes at Malvern, and “did I have a small child I could borrow to make it look even bigger?” To cut a long story short when we got home from work (collecting my eldest grandson en route) we spent over an hour having our photos taken with the offending root, so watch out for yours truly in tomorrow’s DM. Page 3 would be appropriate I reckon. 

This set me right back and all I had time to do was to get my stump rooted carrots up, which turned out to be the biggest disappointment since I tried removing the shell from my racing snail to make him more streamlined only to find that it actually made him more sluggish. They were crap. Utter crap. I got an ‘ok’ set for the Millennium Class but it is only ok at best and this is one crop I shall be glad to say goodbye to.

One bit of good news is I have a reasonable entry in Class 26 for kohl rabi. I managed to get a couple of sets, one quite big and one smaller but more fresh looking and that’s the set I decided to go for. I just hope I’ve trimmed them correctly but I’ve left everything long and will have to have a quick look at everyone else’s on Saturday morning to see if I need to cut back a bit further.

And one piece of remarkable luck I had over last weekend was my wife offering to wash my carrots for me in order to help out. She’s never offered to do that before so Tuesday night I pulled a reject one with a large split for her to have a practice on. After no more than 20 minutes she emerged from the bathroom with a carrot that looked way better than anything I’ve ever done myself, even allowing for the split. She had even removed all the fine root hairs and used a soft toothbrush on the crown. What a woman. I just hope I can give her some roots of real quality on Friday morning for her to do her magic with. Amazing, considering all this comes less than a week after she threatened to leave me because she reckons I always exaggerate things too much. I was so shocked I almost tripped over my cock.

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.

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.

Patience is a virtue, envy is not

This time of the year for the veg showman, and the growers of long roots in particular, is like that scene in Braveheart, the one where that fine Scottish fella Mel Gibson and his clan of tartan bollock brains are waiting for the advancing English. Many of them want to reveal their dastardly plan early but Gibson makes them wait until the last possible moment before pulling up their row of spikes and piercing the gallant Englishmen’s horses and basically cheating their way to victory, as is their way, especially when it comes to cake competitions. At this time of year the temptation to pull the odd carrot or parsnip for a looksee is unbearable, especially if you think you may have some decent specimens, but it is an urge you should resist at all costs, as you may pull one of those roots you might be relying on to make a set in a few weeks’ time. Once pulled, a long carrot or parsnip can be replanted but they will lose freshness and won’t grow anymore, so don’t do it, you have been warned!

Having said all that I did pull one of my long carrots at the weekend. It was a very small one that had developed a double crown so it was never going to be any good for showing, so I decided to get it up to see if it had travelled all the way down, without any forking, and to gauge the skin finish. I must say I was very happy on all accounts. If all my others are this shape and finish, albeit much bigger, then I shall be a happy bunny come show time and will hopefully have a chance of being in the tickets at the biggest shows in the country. My long carrots are looking quite heavy shouldered already so all that remains to be hoped for now is that they carry their weight evenly well down the root. Of course without x-ray vision and for all I know that might have been the only decent carrot in all the fucking barrels!!

After the piss and panic last week over the stump carrot crown rot problem, all appears to have calmed down. Getting any diseased ones up and spraying the remainder with Signum  seems to have arrested the problem, and the bed now looks healthy. They aren’t the biggest but I’ll be happy if they’re at least stump ended, as the fresh sand I used this year should at least mean I don’t have any cavity spot, a problem I experienced for the past couple of years.

All my onions for the 1-1 ½ kg class are starting to ripen on wood shavings in my garage. I managed to get 9 all at just over 17 ½ “ circumference so now it’s a case of seeing whether they all look the same once ripened, but I am hoping to have a set of 5 at the National. It’s highly unlikely I’d be in the tickets as I expect that most classes at Malvern will have at least a dozen entries, and this’ll be one of them. Despite not harvesting until late July I didn’t suffer botrytis because the double pot system meant I could water the bottom pot and keep moisture away from the bulb in the upper pot.

My Tasco onions for the 250g class are also starting to colour up nicely, but this is a class that will have anything up to 30 entries at Malvern so you really do have to have perfectly matched little bulbs, and despite growing over 100 I only have about 40 to choose my sets from, the remainder either being too small or not a good enough shape.

I will probably be looking for my best set of 4 to keep back for the Millennium Class at Malvern, that is assuming I can also find 4 potatoes that aren’t scabbed up to buggery. I will be emptying out the bags this coming weekend, once they have been out of the ground for a fortnight meaning the skins are now hardened and there shouldn’t be a risk of them skinning during handling. The Millennium Class calls for 4 each of 250g onions, tomatoes, globe beet, potatoes and stump carrots and is a class I would love to win a ticket in. With this in mind, and with a little under 6 weeks to go my tomatoes are starting to ripen like never before, not something I’m too chuffed about as I’m usually waiting my first red tomato at this time of the season, but they’ve come very early for some reason. I picked a large tray last week and ‘staged’ the set below on my kitchen table. Just to keep my eye in you understand.

This means my competition ones are going to have to come from the 4^th truss and above in all probability, so I shall be thinning out the trusses over the next few days, getting rid of fruits with the potential to cause neighbouring ones to have flat sides. It’s a bit of a leap of faith to sacrifice perfectly good looking fruits but it does reward you with better shaped ones come show time and I guess as I’ve ticketed in the last 2 Nationals it proves I do know my tommies! Below you can see how a truss is thinned, before and after.

I thought I also knew my cucumbers but this season has been a baffling one thus far. My plants have been very slow indeed to get going, just sitting and doing nothing for what seemed like several weeks after planting. I’m usually chopping them back to keep the sideshoots in check by now but thankfully they are now starting to get to the eaves of my tunnel when I will start to train them horizontally so I am still hopeful of getting some cucs on the bench at Malvern. All fruits forming on the vertical vine are picked off before they have chance to develop, and it’s only once they are able to hang down from above that they’ll be allowed to swell and grow. A big plants means the fruits develop quickly, from a 2” long cuc you should have one of showable size in about a fortnight.

At the weekend I’ll be judging my only show booking for this season, at Burbage near Hinckley, Leicestershire. This will be the 5^th year I’ve judged the veg here and it’s always a nice little show to judge with several classes taxing the brain, especially tomatoes, runner beans, onions as grown and rhubarb. With that in mind I’d like to appeal to all growers to show a little decorum after judging rather than throwing a hissy titfit befitting of a small child because a result may not have gone your way. Judging of vegetables is not and never can be an exact science, despite the written guidance of the NVS and RHS, especially at the highest level when the very smallest of faults can be the difference between first and second. Some days it may go for you, others it might not, but proper men (and women) will take defeat on the chin with good grace and think forward to the next show with a smile. Sometimes growers are blinded to the faults on their own exhibits and prefer to concentrate on the faults of those that have beaten them, sometimes justifiably, but more often than not the correct decision has prevailed. Either way, it happened, get over it. To question a result and try and denigrate someone in their moment of glory, or to issue veiled threats over the internet just marks you out as a total cock, not the experienced and helpful older showman you might pretend to be, and it’s nasty old tossers like you who are one of the reasons why I’ve decided to walk away from showing.

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.

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.

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!