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.

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!

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 5

After last year's National at Llangollen I had a cretin-attack and stupidly announced that I intended to put up a large collection at Malvern. Once I looked into the logistics of doing this I quickly came to the conclusion that I just couldn't be f*cking arsed. The amount of metalwork, woodwork, cloth and support stands that I would have needed to take with me would have required the hiring of a van. The sheer effort, expense and time involved in putting up a collection of 6 wasn't viable to me so I quickly abandoned any ambition to do a collection in the future. Fair play to the 5 that did, with Midland Branch Chairman John Branham coming out on top in 'Class 1' this year.

The 5 Branches each put up a display of vegetables where imaginations could run riot. A few years ago these displays were very much like Class 1 except that the 'dishes' of vegetables were donated by several members from that branch. Consequently it looked like two pretty identical classes and the public were confused so an idea for a less fussy, more floral display was put forward and the stands are certainly well liked by the public. I struggled to get photos because of the volume of people admiring them. Winners this year were Midland Branch.....

......but I did like Scottish Branch's display which came 3rd. Being half-Scottish myself (the scottish bits being my hairy back, arse and short stumpy legs) I donated some of my mouse melons to their cause and I think it was probably these that got them elevated up from fourth! I await my share of the prize money!

They say that it's not the winners that make a successful championships but the people who don't win and yet still compete and have a go. If that is true then the success of this year's National Championships is entirely down to me! When I staged my french beans 'Prince' I was hopeful of a ticket but alas this was not to be, although my new lover Marcus Powell did manage a superb 3rd. I was struggling to keep them fresh for Malvern having just missed having them ready for Harrogate so I shall make sure I sow them a week earlier for next year's National at Harrogate when I feel sure I am bound to win. Andrew Jones took the honours at Malvern adding to his win in the parsnip class.

That's just about it now as far as Malvern 2012 goes and I'll leave you with some photos from Mo Robinson's camera. Since she called me a twat across a crowded car par on Saturday morning I feel no shame in nicking her photos. Now i'm turning my attention to the Westminster Show next Tuesday morning. I've entered a whole rook of classes as usual but I already know several won't make it, my cherry tomatoes in particular as Oscar has bloody eaten them all! If you're in the Gainsborough/Lincoln area this Saturday then get along to Sturton-by-Stow's 125th annual show. It's always a good afternoon out and i'm only sorry I'm unable to attend again myself this year. Meanwhile, an interesting university study has shown that 100% of car crashes are a woman's fault. 55% of the time she's driving and the other 45% of the time she's walking down the street dressed provocatively.

Malvern 2012 Part 3

I was really disappointed with the long carrot class at Malvern and wished I'd not put all my good ones in at the National Carrot Championships at Harrogate as I feel I'd have been in the tickets. When I visited the 2007 National at Malvern Graeme Watson's winning long carrots were breath-taking, certainly the best I've ever seen, and there were several other great sets there that day. (Whatever happened to Graeme Watson?)

This year Bob Oliver took the honours with this winning set.

I don't know Bob personally but in my humble opinion this set wouldn't have got a look in previous years, although there weren't any outstanding sets so I don't think the judge had a great deal to work with. These were quite small and a bit rough-skinned but it just goes to show you have to be in it to win it. The stump carrots on the other hand must have given the judge a nightmare as there were well over 30 entries on the benches. Medwyn made reference to this at the prize giving that many of the entries out of the tickets would have won in other years, there really were lots of crackingly good sets. I put a set in last year that was unlucky not to get a ticket and if anything I put a set in this year that was even better but I didn't stand a chance. A first time National Champion was George Graham on his 67th birthday and he was rightly chuffed as punch. As you can see Medwyn is still a menace to bathroom scales everywhere!

Poor old Mr Stocks....he couldn't repeat last year's triumph and got another 2nd.

On the Malvern side of the tent Mark Perry who supports Liverscum but isn't a bad lad considering won with these nice Sweet Candles. Sorry mate.....the photo quality on these is shite.

I actually benched a set of Dorian peas on the Malvern side in the any other veg class. I didn't take a photo unfortunately as they were a magnificent set and didn't deserve to be thrown across the marquee by Mr Stocks at the end. Just to prove that I talk complete bollocks about peas when I say no-one this far south can grow Show Perfection this late in the year, the winning set came from my pal Mark Roberts who is another 30 or so miles south of me.

Mark had an excellent championships, coming second to John Branham in the large collection, 2nd in the celery and winning the 3x2 collection class. I keep threatening to go and visit his set-up and I really must make time to do it before too long. I'm told it's very impressive.

I was pretty chuffed with my set of 3 although it only come equal 17th out of 22 entries!

Sherie Plumb has dominated pickling shallots for years but was beaten this year by another lady Clare Walters. At prizegiving Dave Thornton couldn't read his own writing and announced her as Clark Walters. Prick.

John Jones from Wales won the large onion class as well as the long beet class for the second year running.

I was hoping to bench a set of long beet but after pulling the first couple on Thursday morning I soon realised they were an utter pile of shite, the huge tops not translating into impressive roots. I snapped the fuckers at 2 and a half foot anyway. I shall not be wasting any more time growing long beet in the future, using the drums for more long carrots instead. I can only admire someone who can extract roots like this.

We had a lot of fun on the Saturday afternoon as several of us met up with our fruit cakes and vegetable animals. Leesa was adjudged to have the best fruit cake which is the first time she's ever beaten me. This was only because I made a mistake with the recipe and published one that I'd never baked with before. We decided to allow all exhibitors to stand around Fiona Shenfield while she judged the class, baying and hollering as she did so. I believe we may have hit onto something and all veg shows should be judged in this gladiatorial manner also!

Mo Robinson won the veggie animal class with a cat fashioned from a red onion.....

.....although Frank Taylor's spud spider was a triumph of engineering as he was heard drilling the holes in the spud for the spider's legs in the hotel bathroom that morning. Ian Stocks' shitting sheep got second but really should have been NAS'd as the class was for a vegetable ANIMAL (Singular!!)

My own marrow and onion snail was controversially unplaced although dressed in that garb it was the least of my fucking worries!