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.

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.

Cosy Powell drumming home

I was talking to my good mate Craven Morehead the other day (great looking bloke, superb grower, massive cock) and he has asked me to help him do a book on growing to show as there isn’t a decent one out there that appeals to novices and experienced growers alike. Admittedly there is one by a chap called Derek Brooks (hey I wonder if he’s the same arsewipe ‘D Brooks’ who put negative feedback on Craven’s Carrots at Dawn reviews on Amazon?) but quite frankly I’ve had more enjoyable and interesting days watching a freshly painted wall dry whilst having Hitler’s Mein Kampf read out to me. I did have a copy of it but it really was so shit I gave it away so there’s a definite market out there for a book on the hobby that isn’t coma inducing.

All in all we haven’t had too bad a Summer I reckon, although there will always be someone in deepest, darkest Ingleton that will never be satisfied with the weather. In fact, if wet fannies were falling from the sky and landing on his face he’d probably moan about the taste. Yes, we had that really hot spell in late June/early July when the whole country was sweating like a Scotsman watching Crimewatch, but we’ve also had some decent rain showers so there should be some good stuff at the shows over the next few weeks. This is sure to make winning a ticket at the highest level shows even more difficult so growers will have to be really critical about their exhibits. If there are any faults then you’ve probably got no chance as the judges at that level will be micro-analysing every last vegetable in their deliberations. A tiny scratch on your cucumber could be the difference between first and second or even no ticket at all so whilst everything is now growing well in all probability, there are still things you can be doing to make sure your stuff is as perfect as you can make it. This involves daily checking, constant vigilance and attention to detail. At lots of village shows and certain NVS shows just north of the Isle of Wight you can probably chuck any old shit down and win however.

I visited Marcus Powell’s allotments in Buckinghamshire last night and he is most definitely going to be in amongst the tickets as he has some fabulous looking stuff. Last season he won the prestigious collection class with this display, so apologies in advance if you’re eating.

His blanch leeks in particular stood out yesterday, and his celery weren’t far behind, with several sowings at different levels of progress to cover the many shows he does. It was interesting to listen to him as we went through his different crops talking about what he does with each one, we all do things slightly differently but there’s always something we can learn to make things better, so listening to another grower is one of the most worthwhile things you could do if you want to win that elusive red card.

I was gratified to see that his caulis and runner beans for Malvern were at the same stage as mine, as my caulis had been decimated by pigeons shortly after planting out but have now recovered pretty well. My runners seemed to be painfully slow this season, but again were on a par with Marcus’. However, he had some superb runners just starting to crop for the Midlands Branch Championships at Shrewsbury next week and the thing that struck me most were the length of his flower trusses, they were well over a foot long. Mine get to 8 inch if I’m lucky. Must be different soils, or the half strength Viagra he feeds them on. He takes the other half to stop himself falling out of bed.

One of the many jobs I shan’t be missing from next year is growing quality marrows to show. This involves tying them up canes inclined at an angle so that the developing fruits hang down away from the coarse foliage, much as you would do for cucumbers. Making the framework for the canes is a job I invariably rush, which means they often collapse at inopportune moments. After high winds yesterday I suffered a breakage in a couple of the canes high up which will require fiddly repair work whilst getting scratched up to buggery from the plants themselves. However, it hasn’t affected this rather superb looking fruit (var. Blyton Belle), which is rugger ball sized, and I have several others grapefruit sized which should give me a matching set for Welsh Branch in early September. Growing like this means they colour up all the way around and you don’t get that flat discoloured side you do when they grow on the ground.

Lukaku Pogba Lindelof Matic

Another thing that winds me up about social media gardening groups is when you advise someone on a particular insecticide/fungicide for a problem and some new-age, ecowarrior, knobthwaite cockfondler pipes up about making sure you have a valid sprayer’s licence, full body protection with nipple softeners and plastic cocksock etc etc etc. Oh do me a favour, go put your head between two rounds of bread and make yourself a cunt sandwich. I actually know someone who has a sprayer’s licence and I have serious doubts that he manages to put his own fucking shoes on each morning, so having a licence is no guarantee that you’re able to use chemicals wisely. If I want to use chemicals I’m gonna use ‘em so unless you’re gonna get the PC Police out to raid my potting shed keep shut yer fecking cake’ole. There’s also nothing quite so good at getting the organic keyboard warriors going off on one than to mention a glyphosate based weedkiller manufactured by the apparent evil corporate bastards at Monsanto, it really is great fun winding the twats up. However, they will often recommend their own home-made concoction that has had no scientific testing done and which, as far as I can tell, is an acid. I think I’ll stick to Roundup personally. Gallons of it. So fuck off.

Moving on, Epsom salts are fast becoming my ‘go to’ solution in the garden when a plant looks a bit out of sorts, especially when it comes to greenhouse tomatoes. A couple of months ago my plants were almost yellow but daily sprays with an Epsom salt solution have somehow greened them up into decent looking plants with heavy crops of fruit promised for show time. However, I’m not stupid, this is the 2^nd season in a row that this has happened. Despite flooding the soil prior to planting to mimic winter rains and flush through any excess fertilisers there is obviously an issue with the soil in the border that the tomatoes grow into, so I’ll be sure to change the whole lot before next year. I may look to have a crack with some compost tea as an alternative, something that Gareth Cameron has had brilliant results with and which would be preferable to lugging a couple of tonne of soil around.

Before the season started I was wondering what small fruited tomato to grow for show, having grown Marshalls’ Montello for a one off competition at Malvern last year. I’ve grown various varieties down the years with varying degrees of success, including Harlequin, a small fruited plum variety, to gain a 3^rd place ticket at the National. Unlike other vegetables there appears no single cultivar that rules the roost so this season I plumped for Strillo which I had seen win at the highest level before. And I’ve been picking fruits for the kitchen for a few weeks now, but the plants still have many to come so I’m hopeful of having some dishes to show during September, including my local show where the small fruited class has, in brackets, (not plum), so I could never enter Harlequin. The only downside I’ve found with Strillo is that is does have a tendency for the fruits to split, even before they’re fully ripe so we shall see.

My Evening Star celery are progressing reasonably well aside from the usual slug issues. On advice from a former celery National champion Paul McLeod I’ve top-dressed around the base with some fresh compost to encourage further rooting, and this weekend I’ll put some black dpc collars around the cardboard ones to shut out all light. At the moment they’re on 18” collars. I haven’t decided whether to put a 20” collar on yet, as I may just leave them as they are and try and get them to bulk out. From now on they just need water, water, water, but I will start feeding with Chempak 8 in a couple of weeks time, plus a feed of sulphate of potash 3 weeks before the shows to harden them up a bit.

And it’s taken a few years since the retirement of the great Sir Fergie but it now looks like Manchester United will shortly be back ruling the roost if recent signings are anything to go by. Despite a few relatively barren years when, to be quite honest, United have been playing completely wank, they still managed to win more trophies than Liverscum, Manchester Shitty and Totteringham Hotshite combined, to become the most successful club in English football history.

Where my shit's at

There really is nothing like competitive growing to bring out the inner wanker in people, and this is non more personified than in the worlds of giant veg and chilli peppers. I’ve been dipping in and out of various websites and forums devoted to these two aspects of horticultural competitiveness for a few years and they probably have higher percentages of illiterate, whiney tosspots than any walk of life I’ve ever encountered. Reading some of this garbage kept me highly entertained during my recent holiday, especially where it sudDENLY CHANGES INTO CAPITAL LETTERS FOR NO APPARENT FUCKING REASON.

Chief fucktard in the world of oversized and largely inedible vegetables is a twat called Scott Robb from Alaska who has the world record cabbage to his name, and who insists on calling it a sport not a hobby. Gareth Fortey has been running Giantveg.com for several years and does a brilliant job raising the profile of the hobby, but his website and Facebook page are constantly sniped at by this mullet-haired moose-shagger with his constant bleats about rules and regulations over what should or shouldn’t be allowed in weigh-ins. Giant veg should be the easiest of competitions to judge, for if it’s the longest or the heaviest then it wins, it aint rocket science, and indeed it’s why lots of limited growers who were useless at growing proper veg, like Unsworth and Bastow for instance, gave up and converted to trying their hand at ‘giants’. However, not for Scott Robb are cabbages with lots of offshoots, or tomatoes and marrows that have grown from fused fruits on a single stem, for these shouldn’t be allowed to stand in his egotistical opinion. Truth is the twat is just afraid of losing his world record to someone from the Motherland.

In the world of hot chillis the arguments are even more bizarre, with some growers even offering to fight others. For fuck’s sake, a chilli is a chilli is a fucking chilli but there are Facebook groups with thousands of members all trying to outdo each other by developing the hottest chillies that look like my dead grandad’s wizened willy. Recently a chilli pepper called Dragon’s Breath hit the news claiming to be the world’s hottest at 2.1 million Scoville units whatever they are. Quite why anyone would want to eat a chilli so hot it could give you a heart attack is totally beyond me, but someone claimed to be selling them and managed to convince many of the gullible fuckwits to part with 15 quid per plant. This sent some anonymous clown called Ashy Moko to go on a crusade to shame these growers, and he appears to have devoted his recent life to this task and involved university professors and other reputable tradesmen in the process, embarking on an incomprehensible paper and email trail to prove his point. He has hundreds of followers all proclaiming him to be their hero. Jesus H Christ….if you spent 15 quid on an unproven plant, you’re a thick cunt, get over it, file it in the life’s experiences folder and get a life.

Anyhoo, after 5 days away from the plot it’s always a relief to come back and find everything is still ticking over nicely, although there are always one or two issues that need immediate attention. After taking advice from Gareth Cameron on 1 ½ kg onions I decided to cull them at 17 ½”circumference to be on the safe side. This meant at least a couple of them would probably reach this size whilst I was on holiday and I would be relying on the mother-in-law to do the honours, which she was absolutely terrified about. As it transpired however, growth slowed meaning she didn’t have to wield the secateurs and I was able to lift the first one on my return Friday night, with another one following Sunday evening and another one now ready for lifting tonight. I have another 5 or 6 swiftly approaching size so I’m hopeful of staging a set of 5 in the 1-1.5kg class at the National in late September, something I’d never have imagined possible on my white rot infested plot, but thanks to my double pot system I’ve proved to myself there are alternative methods to produce quality veg. Once the bulb reaches the size I require I strip any split skins back and remeasure, leaving it to grow a bit more as you would have undoubtedly reduced the size by the stripping process. Once lifted I cut a long neck which will be reduced after tying, trim all roots flush with the base and give the bulb a good clean to wash off any dirt. When dry they are stored in wooden boxes on coarse sawdust shavings, in my garage with sheets of fleece draped over them to ripen slowly. I don’t bother talcing onions anymore because I always felt a bit gay doing it. Job’s a good’un.

My spuds have been a big disappointment this year, the foliage having struggled for several weeks, suffering from yellowing at first (probably magnesium deficiency) and then dark blotching which has rendered them very messy looking and they haven’t reached a good size at all so I’m not hopeful of there being a decent crop of tubers beneath. Those that I have exposed appear to be riddled with scab so it’s going to be touch and go whether I have any to show this season. I’ve now stopped watering with a view to lifting them in another couple of weeks, although we had a biblical downpour on Friday night, drenching the peat which may in itself present problems for harvesting when you’re trying to get the skin lenticels to close down and the skins to start hardening. Growing spuds in bags is certainly not something I am going to miss when I finish with showing later this year.

My onions for the 250g class are mostly all up now and after topping and tailing as for the large onions they are tipping the scales at just over 250g which should be perfect once prepped for show, as they will lose a few grams in weight. They all look identical at this point but as sure as eggs is eggs they’ll all ripen to different shades of brown and picking a set of 3, 4 or 5 is never as easy as it should be.

My celery are looking healthy despite the usual slug nibbles. One thing I’ve discovered is that Slugclear is a total waste of money and doesn’t appear to work for me so it’s back to a carpet of pellets from now on. With 7 or 8 weeks to show time I just need the plants to bulk out now and it’ll soon be time to switch to a Chempak 8 feed for that process.

Now is the time your French beans should be popping through for the mid and late September shows, as they need 8-9 weeks from showing to showing. I’m going to be growing these in the tunnel where my onions were, but first I’ll need to give the bed a thorough drenching as I’d been allowing it to dry out in order to reduce the chance of botrytis on the onions. The variety that everyone grows is one called Hawkesbury Wonder and I’ve been saving my seed for a few years after Ronnie Jackson kindly gave me some. At all NVS Branch shows this season there is also an extra class for a bean supplied by Marshalls called Satelit with big prize money so I’m also having a go at that one with a view to getting an entry at the Welsh Branch show. Feedback from other growers indicates this is a very fast grower.

My Carmen cucumbers have been struggling to get going in the tunnel,  due to the heat I’m assuming, and I have lost a few to stem rot but they appear to have sorted themselves out now and I am training them up the wires to the tunnel frame where I then train them horizontally. I will pick off all small fruits as soon as I see them as I want a large plant before I allow any fruits to develop further. The idea is for them to hang down from the roof supports away from the foliage so they don’t get scratched. It also makes them easier to manipulate so they are nice and straight, and facilitates the measuring process also. Here is a photo of my tunnel from last year.

In other news there were recently appeals for gardeners to count the amount of butterflies in their gardens. I posted the attached on my Twitter feed.

Somehow the Butterfly Conservation knobs got wind of this and gatecrashed my account. I think they know my position on their fluttery little twats now.

Celery (soz, couldn't think of a witty title)

For the past few days I’ve been using this little explanation to illustrate the General Election result to the Commytrots at work. In boxing, when your opponent says he’s going to knock you out in the sixth, but in the end he only manages to beat you on points…..it means you’ve still fucking lost!

Anyhoo, I’m a strong believer that you need to plan your growing and showing to as fine a detail as you can. I have a map of every single bed/border/space in my vegetable garden and each Christmas I will sit back with a drop of the hard stuff and work out which crops I’m going to be growing where, paying attention to things like crop rotation as much as possible so you don’t encourage a build-up of pests that like a particular crop. I invariably drink myself wankered and have to do the whole plan again when I’m sober but that’s by the by. This means when the time comes you know exactly where to plant things and you’re not scratching your head shoehorning things in willy nilly. I’m constantly referring back to the plan and to my diary where I plan all my sowing dates by working back from each show to ensure I sow each crop at the correct time. As a result I currently have several patches of bare ground inviting planting but I know they’re bare for a reason as they are wanted for a crop according to my plans and I’m not tempted to use them for something else. Some crops (such as caulis for which most of the bare plots are waiting) will need more than one sowing. I go even further in my planning and decide which shows I intend to enter, and which classes I want to aim for at those shows. It’s no good planning to go to 10 shows and enter long carrots at every show if you’re not going to be growing enough of that crop for instance, so I fine tune my season so that I know where my priorities lie. I used to try and enter as many classes as I could at as many shows as I could and end up running around like a lunatic so I try to be a bit more focussed these days.

Growing everything I could possibly manage, including some things for the fun classes like heaviest marrows, longest runner beans etc meant I became a jack of all trades and master of none. Ok if you want to be like Harry Ecklethwaite and win most points in show but these days I’m more interested in benching an exhibit as near perfect as I can muster (something that no-one can achieve of course). That entails growing less variety to allow you to concentrate on growing a few crops to a better standard. This was bought home to me about 5 years ago when NVS legend Charlie Maisey saw me running around at RHS Westminster staging all my exhibits and advised me to cut back and grow what I was best at. At the time I semi-ignored his advice but eventually I saw sense and ditched some crops that I’d been struggling with, particularly the time-consuming blanch leeks that I’d had go to seed on me for three seasons running, a common problem with the variety Pendle that I used to grow. Shallots was another that I decided to sideline. Whilst I’d had some success with them previously I was getting more and more fungal problems with them and they were diverting my attention unnecessarily at critical times of the growing season. I still grow them but I don’t fuss over them like I used to.

I now don’t bother growing heavy pumpkins and marrows, or long runner beans as these aren’t for serious growers although I do enjoy visiting the recently revived Giant Veg Championships held at Malvern. It’s really great to see the smiles on the little faces of all those growers that are unable to grow proper veg.

I also gave celery the heave-ho, but have reluctantly succumbed to one last crack at them this season but I’m only growing 16 plants in a couple of beds that are often waterlogged, so I’d figured if any crop would grow well there it would be celery. It also had plenty of dried blood forked into it about 3 weeks before planting as it’s an excellent source of nitrogen. The variety is Evening Star and I planted them all out a couple of weeks ago, fitting a loose collar 10” tall made from damp proof course material. At the time the plants were below the top of the collar but have now poked through the top having been drawn upwards to the light. I’ll be applying another taller loose collar in the next week or so, to do the same thing, but won’t tie it too tightly for now, the idea being to draw the plants upwards whilst achieving bulk.

Celery is one of those classes I have absolutely no chance with at Branch and National level, as there are some phenomenal growers on the circuit, but they can come in handy for the small collections where you need 3 pairs of 20 point veg for instance. I’m thinking specifically of the early autumn show at RHS Westminster where less and less of the top growers are fitting it into their showing calendar sadly. I did manage a very pleasing 3^rd there in 2012 with the best pair of ‘sticks’ I’ve ever staged.

Whilst I’m happy with the progress I have suffered some slug damage despite taking precautions. I’ve always found a carpet of slug pellets only succeeds partly, such is the desire of the snotty little fuckers to get to celery for a nosh up. Therefore I do use Slugclear watered into the heart of the celery as well as a calcium feed at the same watering, although in the past I’ve found this double treatment is also no guarantee of total control, certainly not in my garden. Celery heart rot is not something I’ve suffered personally but once it takes hold your plant is soon rendered useless, and it is reckoned that slugs nibbling on the centre shoots can help to bring heart rot on, so it is important to keep them at bay…or at least try.

Leaf miner can also be a problem on the leaves so a systemic insecticide is needed, otherwise the foliage gets networked by a criss cross of unsightly markings where the grub tunnels between the layers. I’ve had good success with Decis in the past but now use Hallmark when I’m spraying my carrots against carrot fly. An exhibit of celery with no slug damage to the sticks, with fresh, green foliage stands out amongst others with the odd nibble so it is worth going the extra mile.

In it to win it (part 2)

Apologies for making this blog invite only, but it had to be done as I was getting so much spam that it was taking too long to wade through each day. Also, I shouldn't be showing up in search engines before too long which should keep certain folk happy. I always found it quite amusing that people complained about my blog so much when there was this perfectly useful little 'X' thingy in the top right hand corner of all computers that could be clicked if you no longer deemed me worthy of screen time.

I took virtually all my big onions down to Westminster. Not that they were that great but after staging I realised I was going to be taking home a fair few quid. This was because I was one of only two entries in both the large onion class and the collection of onions, and although I knew they wouldn't get a 'first' the prize money for coming second was £50 and £40 respectively, so for the sheer effort of bothering to take them I was handsomely rewarded. Some of them were still green underneath despite having been harvested mid-August.

Whilst we enjoyed Westminster Tuesday really is a crap day to hold a veg show meaning at least one day off work but the venue is stunning and as I have intimated there is a fair old wedge of prize money on offer. I've never really understood mid-week shows and I believe it puts the working man at a disadvantage but I suppose each organisation has its reasons, some of them historical. I was contemplating giving Westminster a miss next year but as the entries were down by quite a bit then you do feel a certain responsibility to keep going for the sake of the future of the show. Hopefully I've persuaded a few of you to have a crack next year as there is some good prize money on offer if you are prepared to make the effort. I hope the RHS does a bit more marketing on the Westminster Shows as it would be a shame if the show died through lack of interest. Yes it's a real bind getting veg into the middle of London but if you can then try and car share and by using a website called ParkatMyHouse you can find a local address to leave your vehicle for about a tenner a day. I found a pub about a mile away. If you travel overnight and don't leave until 6pm you also avoid the congestion charge, although sadly not the crazy London traffic. Alternatively the North East Derby DA get a coach load up which certainly takes the stress of driving through London away and I'll be going back to this option next year. If anyone needs advice on entering, getting to and from the venue for future reference then drop me a line.

I grew pot leeks for the first time this season and whilst I virtually neglected them after planting they nevertheless made a reasonable entry at Westminster and won me another first prize, although I was the only entry! Another ten quid. Ker-ching! I shall certainly be growing a few more of these next season, the variety was Cumbrian. I grew some reasonable Pendle blanch leeks last season despite almost total neglect so perhaps there is a theme running here? They were certainly a lot easier to prepare and transport than blanch leeks.

To round up the rest of my Westminster results I got a 3rd for two beautifully conditioned Blyton Belle marrows although one was a bit smaller than the other. Once we get to the end of September they don't grow as fast as they did and I ran out of time to match them up for size. The larger one had actually been cut at the end of August.

A pleasing 3rd in the coloured potato class with Amour. I really wish the judges at Westminster would rearrange the exhibits how they found them rather than slinging them back on the plate from a few yards away!

1st with 15 leaves of chard 'Vulcan'. I have to thank Leesa for choosing the 15 and arranging them.

2nd in the chilli pepper class with Hungarian Hotwax. Leesa chose these too!

3rd for parsnips 'Polar', sadly a variety that is no longer available. Looks like i'm back to square shouldered 'Pinnacle' next year!

3rd for courgettes 'Ambassador'.

1st for lettuce 'Saladin'. I dug the roots up intact, washed off all the soil, wrapped them in damp tissue followed by kitchen foil and the plants stay nice and fresh for the two days of the show no problem.

A very pleasing 3rd for my celery 'Evening Star'. I even beat former National Champion Geoff Butterworth so that has given me a real boost to carry on growing celery despite the fact that we don't eat the bloody stuff! Besides, celery doesn't last too well on the show bench and gets left behind every time.

2nd for french beans 'Prince'. The timing of my sowings were for Malvern so I was really struggling to keep these going and they were a tad 'beany'.

3rd in the 4 dishes class. I had to stage some pretty poor 250g onions in this class or I might have easily got a 2nd. Sherie Plumb won the class.

So that's my final show of the season done and dusted. I'll leave the final word to Medwyn.

Malvern 2012 part 2

At Saturday's AGM the NVS voted against any change in the quantities called for in classes such as long carrots, parsnips and blanch leeks. In fact the motion was soundly thrashed with only 11 of us voting for change. There had been some powerful lobbying going on behind closed doors so the status quo rules the roost for now. When I put my hand up to support the motion it looked as if I was asking where the toilet was. When there was a show of hands in opposition to the motion the gust of wind blew Gareth Cameron's wig out of the window. Whilst I believe it is a mistake we have to take it on the chin and move on.


Because I didn't do much showing this year I was able to actually get a set of 5 parsnips on the bench, something I've always dreamed of doing. This will now probably not happen again for a long time as I go back to supporting my local shows with entries as I just won't be able to spare 5 for one class. But I managed it, and I was happy with how they looked despite a tiny spot of carrot fly damage on a couple of them. Mine are on the left of this shot, those on the right being the 2nd placed set of Ian Stocks.

At every show an exhibitor unveils a dish of veg that stops everyone in right their tracks and when I saw Ian's parsnips being unveiled on Friday evening I stuck my neck out and said 'best in show'. They were huge roots and absolutely pristine white, and I wanted them to be mine so much that my bollocks throbbed, so it was with a huge amount of surprise that I came back after judging to find he'd only been awarded 2nd place behind Andrew Jones. Andrew's set were a superb exhibit but I didn't feel they were a patch on Ian's, as they were a bit rough and knobbly in places. Apparently Ian lost out because his shoulders were square-ish in profile when compared to Andrew's which admittedly were very uniformly round when viewed end on. This was really harsh, and in my opinion the point or two that Ian might have lost on shape and form can't have been enough to negate the incredible quality and condition. But that's life and we have to live with a judge's decision. Ian later later threw his dolly out of the pram when his vegetable animal was also adjudged 2nd to Mo Robinson's red onion cat.....named 'Simon the big pussy'. Another Northern comedienne who is well and truly in my sights from now on!


I also staged a set of 3 celery (centre) which when compared to those of Ray Sale (left) and Jim Pearson (right) didn't disgrace themselves either.

You really do learn something at every show and I was disappointed that I had to remove a few split stalks when preparing them Friday morning. Colin Higgs is a good celery grower and he advised that I have to remove them as soon as I see them, and get all round the plant at least once a fortnight. This allows the next layer of stalks to fill out. I planted all my celery against a fence meaning I could only tend them from the '2 o-clock to the 10 o-clock' position. Next year I shall plant them in another raised bed where I can get at them the full 360 degrees.

I must make a special mention of Marcus Powell who won the inaugural marrow class. I felt the NEC had boobed by asking for 3 rather than two, knowing that it takes a lot of room to grow marrows along rods in order to let the fruits hang down, but Marcus managed it with this cracking set of Bush Baby.

I was hoping to get a set of 3 Blyton Belle but as in previous years I found this variety very shy to produce a quantity of good shaped fruits despite growing 5 plants in this way so I have decided to have sex with Marcus if he'll give me some of his prize seed.

Marcus also came a splendid 4th in the runner bean class that was won as usual by Sherie Plumb, her set also being judged the best exhibit in show.

More photos, reports and offers of bodily abuse in return for champion strain seed to follow over the coming days.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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



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