The season starts here

For the past few years i've regarded this time of year as the start of a new season in order to combat any depression over the shorter days and longer nights. With this in mind I've made a start on tidying up the garden and getting things more organised in the potting shed (my garage....more on this in a later posting).

After a couple of huge bonfires i've disposed of the last of the debris from the two large trees that I had felled a few weeks ago, as well as a load of other rubbish knocking around the garden. I can now see the wood for the trees as it were.

Despite the first frost of the other day the dahlia tubers showed no sign of going to sleep but I got them up anyways, cut the central stalk back to 6" and the tubers are now drying out in the garage, upside down to allow all surplus moisture to drain away. I always take great care with my labelling, tying a label to each tuber with thin gauge wire.

Next weekend I shall turn my attention to getting my tomato greenhouse emptied and thoroughly sterilised with Jeyes Fluid. After this year's tomato fiasco I want to make sure I stage tomatoes at Malvern next year so a scrupulous clean up, inside and out is called for, as I have a little bit of mould on several split fruits. I lost interest in the crop after accepting I would not be staging any tomatoes at Llangollen, otherwise the plants would have been managed a lot better than this.

Mess

There's a magical hour or so, for me around 2pm on the 3rd Saturday in July, when you realise everything is either planted, sown or growing as it should do. When you can wander round the plot, cup of tea in hand, smugness personified. All your tools are where they should be. There are no weeds. Plant supports are in place. Grass borders are edged perfectly. The car is shiny. Even the dog is clean.

I don't know what causes it but a blue touch paper is then lit and your garden goes off like a firework explosion, and you never get it back under control, as Nature goes on an orgy of production. Once show season starts you've got no chance, and it will be several months before you find the secateurs you used for cutting a marrow before the first show. My lawn edging shears usually surface from a pile of potato peat around mid-April and i've got more trowels waiting to be rediscovered that i've buried over the years than B&Q have got on display.

In short my garden is an utter disgrace at this time of year. It does cross my mind to lay the whole lot down to lawn or a top dressing of concrete, but then I can see parsnips, leeks, beetroot, turnips and tomatoes waiting to be picked, with plenty of spuds and onions in store and realise why I do it..

And as we haven't even come close to a frost the dahlias are still blooming. Maybe I'll start the big tidy up next weekend!

The big clean up

The warm October weather we've been experiencing is due to break up towards the end of next week, with the possibility of the first frosts also. This means the dahlias will be blackened and I won't be able to show any at Derby in two weeks time. The same thing happened last year meaning no entries in the dahlia classes but that's a chance you take with a late October show. I haven't staged many dahlias this season whilst i've been concentrating on the veg but I've grown this variety this season, Blyton Softer Gleam and it's really flowered its socks off. I shall certainly be growing this one again and trying to save some tubers and hope we don't get a Winter like last year that killed all my stored tubers.

I also took the opportunity to get my 'show' cacti and succulents inside today. They've been outside all summer and have really benefitted from it. I shall now stop watering, and will not resume until the early Spring.

Since I started showing in late August the garden has been left to its own devices and now resembles a bomb site. In the the next few weekends I need to bring things under control again and get everything shipshape in time for lift-off once more in the New Year. I have a couple of large trees to fell as I want to fit in another greenhouse and they'll be seriously cutting out the light to it if I leave them. And I will be grubbing out several large shrubs that I planted 20 years ago towards the bottom of my long garden when I wasn't into vegetable growing as much. How I wish I hadn't planted them now but I intend to use the new land for several raised beds to grow more vegetables and make us more self-sufficient. It's a bit silly to have such a large garden and yet only about 10% of it is laid down to crop production.

Let's have a look at what you could have won!

After only my 4th NVS show I feel a bit like an old hand now such is the friendship i've experienced at the highest level already. It really has been another top weekend and I'm already looking forward to meeting up with the gang again at Malvern next weekend. Aside from the Bullshit Bloggers Challenge which I won in magnificent style I had the following results;

I came 8th in the National Carrot Championships out of a dozen entries, typically just outside the sodding money! My entry is on the right next to Dave Thornton's 5th placed exhibit. His stumps were truly shocking but his long carrots were quite good I suppose!

My best placing was 2nd for these Sandrine lettuce, the roots having to be washed and placed into a jar of water. Returning to the show today I noticed that everyone else's lettuces had wilted and mine still looked as fresh as they did Friday morning.

I got 3rd in a mini-collection for 4 veg with a points value of 16 or under. I staged 3 Sandrine lettuce, 3 Pablo beet, 3 onions under 250g 'Setton' and 6 pickling shallots 'Hative de Niort'.

And at least I was beaten by one fellow blogger this weekend, James Park (Digtoplant) showing the Yorkshire bumboys how to do it with a 2nd placed trug (top of the photo) beating me into third( below it). This was actually Leesa's fault as she did the design work and threw it together on Friday night in about 10minutes. I really am getting sick to death of coming third with trugs so I'm hoping she pulls her bleeding finger out at Malvern next weekend.

There was quite a lot to see at Harrogate although it's nowhere near the size of Malvern. Pick of the exhibits for me was this stunning display of dahlias by Kent Dahlia Society I believe.



So that's Harrogate over with and I'll certainly be back. It's a long drive (they need to sort that exhibitor parking issue out!.......and also stop the thieving bastards nicking your stuff at the end!) but I earned 44 quid from a second and two thirds! Certainly beats breaking your neck at local shows, and  getting a shed load of tickets for 20-30 quid!

So tonight I treated myself to a couple of bottles of my favourite tipple Snecklifter, Cockermouth's finest. It's certainly wasted on Cumbrian Jim Bowen looky likeys. Super smashing great.





Sutton Bonington Show 2011

This is my local show and the one I'm most involved with being on the committee and arranging the programme of talks each year, so I like to put in plenty of entries across the range of categories. And believe it or not at 5a.m. yesterday I was to be found in the kitchen cooking! I was determined to get a ticket in the 'men only' rock cakes class, after 11 years of complete an utter failure...not even a third. This year I was armed with a surefire recipe from Ian Simpson and Fiona Shenfield of Scottishland. However, my first attempt went something like this!

Not to be defeated I quickly knocked up another mix and didn't leave them in the oven quite so long this time. The result was a lot better, but I still didn't win anything yet again!. So it appears not only do the Scots send me 2nd rate peas they also send me duff recipes too! To be fair the judge was wavering between mine and another plate for the third place ticket so I really must have been 4th which is as near as I've ever got. There's always next year!

As I say, I put a shedload of entries in each year and my car is absolutely packed to the gunnels, even the passenger seat is loaded with my flower exhibits. I have various contraptions for making sure they are secure for the trip but it's still a very slow journey as I try to ensure none of my dahlias snap during transit.

As for the show I got 21 red cards, mainly in the veg classes, but I also picked up bonus wins with dahlias and cacti. For the 10th time I won most points in show and this year it was television's Midlands Today presenter Dominic Heale who did the honours with the prizegiving. Thoroughly bloody nice chap.

I got best veg for my long carrots which was a very nice change after a few iffy years and I've got plenty of equally good, if not better ones to come. I reckon I may put this one down to seed. And no....before any other tits apart from Unsworth ask those are not my footprints on the fridge!

As usual Leesa managed to construct a superb trug for me. Thankyou my dearest! We even managed to fool the judge by using one of the leeks that had gone to seed and was actually oval in profile section.

This year was the 25th Show and it's a big country fair these days attracting thousands of visitors, so there's plenty to see and do, including the dodgems at which I was particularly skilful and wily. My neck should recover by the end of the week I'm told. Bloody kids came from nowhere!

Odds and sods

Being a competitive sod it's always been my inclination to try and enter every class at any given show. Charlie Maisey told me last year that I should try and concentrate on a few veg that I can grow well and specialise in those but I've always attached a certain kudos to winning most points in show at local level. And to do that you have to grow lots of other vegetables so that you pick up points in lots of classes that your competitors might not necessarily bother with. It makes me a jack of all trades but master of none!

The Harlequin cherry tomatoes have been cropping for a couple of weeks now and the fruits are a uniform plum shape with attractive calyces. They're also quite tasty and very meaty for a small tomato.

The only thing about this variety is a very weird leaf habit. They really do twist and curl up far more than any other tomato i've ever grown. I've been on the verge of pulling them up a few times as they look as if they're dying but other growers have reported the same on their plants.

I've managed to grow my best ever aubergines this season after several years of failure. I harvested 7 'Bonica' yesterday which Leesa made into a blinding mousakka.There are several more smaller fruits forming on the plants which will hopefully give me fruits to enter in the any other veg classes at local level. Be careful on the calyces however as they have incredibly sharp spikes sticking out of them that pierce the skin very easily and deeply. They bloody hurt!

There are plenty of crops that can be sown between 8 and 12 weeks before your show so I like to sow little and often crops such as lettuce, french beans and kohl rabi. For the first time this season i'm growing pak choi as there is a class at Westminster for a collection of salading vegetables.  As space becomes available I shall plant these out although I shall make sure my lettuce gets planted where my broad beans were to take advantage of the nitrogen fixed in the soil by the bean roots.

As well as veg I usually like to grow a few dahlias for my local shows only. Thanks to Kev Broxholme I'm growing Blyton Softer Gleam this season which was raised by Les Stothard of the marrow Blyton Belle fame. The first bloom has just opened out and it's a lovely apricot coloured small ball. I only have three plants of three varieties so getting three matching blooms isn't going to be easy.

As i've said in the past growing a variety of veg for show is like one of those plate jugglers that used to appear on the Generation Game. Getting them all timed to perfection for the same date takes some doing and it's inevitable that some plates come crashing to the ground. Perhaps I ought to consider just growing 3 or 4 things to perfection? Nahhhh.

Keep it going!

With Malvern now looming large on the Smithyveg horizon I need to congratulate Kev Broxholme for winning a class of dahlias at Harrogate last weekend (any photos boy?). He's the first of my pals to win at such a high altitude and I hope to emulate him before too long with vegetables. Well done Kev. With that in mind I've vowed to compete at Harrogate next season along with my fellow blogger Paul Bastow the loser having to sleep with Ed Milliband. If neither of us wins a card I guess we'll both have to give him one. If we can just persuade Dan Unsworth to have a crack i'm sure he wouldn't be out of his depth with his onions and what's more we could all have our photo taken together for the cover of Nuts Magazine.


I managed to pick a few dahlias for the house and seem to have plenty coming for Sturton Show a week Saturday where I shall be pitting my wits against the new Harrogate champion! The white decs are Ryecroft Jan which has stood up to the recent rains quite well. The orange cactus is Ryecroft Zoe and I'm really impressed with the form on this one. I shall be trying this one next season for sure.



















And so Malvern at the weekend but I won't be pulling any parsnips as they simply aren't good enough. I have a couple of drums left ........














.....and a couple of drums of long carrots. I'm toying with entering some at the RHS Westminster. There is a class for 2 long carrots, 2 stumps, 2 parsnips and 2 long beet which looks interesting.















Elsewhere on my plot the runner beans are about spent. I really shall have to find some 10' canes next season as the string wasn't rigid enough and when the wind blew some plants were simply ripped from the ground.
















My outdoor cherry toms Sungold have been cropping heavily for weeks but have now succumbed to blight.














But my indoor toms Cedrico are still growing very well and I have reasonable hopes of staging a good set or two at Malvern at the weekend.
















And I heard on the radio tonight that Liverpool were playing Cobblers. No change there then!!!

Seagrave 2010

My 'other' local show that I am quite heavily involved with was another huge success with 350 entries which was a record.

It's always well supported by the local community especially the homecraft and children's classes.

As for me, I got 9 red cards, most pleasing of all in the Top Tray class. My tray is nearest camera with 3 Vento onions, 3 Maxine spuds and 6 Cederico tommies. We had the usual yearly complaint from a miserable exhibitor who can never understand why his veg never wins. The answer is invariably that his stuff is crap. The stuff that he does occasionally win with is purchased from after show auctions. He's never actually grown it himself. Wanker. And if he talks to my missus again like he did on Saturday night I'll break his f***ing legs.

Another 1st for tomatoes. This is the only crop where I think I may be able to compete at Malvern in a couple of weeks time.

My winning cucumbers would have been excellent in a couple of days, being a bit on the small side, but they won nevertheless.

I managed to keep last week's winning leeks for a week by re-wrapping the barrels and keeping the roots moist in wet tissue paper. They came good for me and won again.

Last year we raised £1000 for the local Rainbows Children's Hospice and a representative came to collect the cheque and handover the trophies.

Despite winning 9 red cards, 5 more than anyone else, and a few other 2nds and 3rds I still couldn't get my hands on the trophy for most points. That accolade went to my 118 year old (approx.) apprentice Ian Taylor, who has learnt everything he knows from me. Bloody young upstarts! Next year the gloves are off and we have a wager arranged. Full details to be finalised but you'll need to be on top of your game next year Ian !!!

Ester weighed in at a disappointing 185 lbs or 87 kilos or 13 stone. Still big enough to win the heaviest pumpkin class as it was indeed the only entry. Here I am with a pal loading her back up in the van. She now resides in my back garden ready to be carved out on Hallowe'en.

This weekend I have an unexpected break as the organisers of another local show decided to change the usual date to a week ago and forgot to actually inform one of their regular supporters. i.e. MOI! I'm quite upset about that and won't be going to this show in future. I've since heard that the benches were way down on produce from previous years. Therefore, i'm taking the opportunity to go up Kinder.....and before Dan interjects that doesn't mean I'm performing an unnatural act on a chocolate egg but walking up and around the Peak District's tallest hill Kinder Scout. Should be a welcome break from scrubbing veg for a weekend.

Then it's off to Malvern for my now yearly humiliation amongst the big boys of the veg growing world.

A good time to bury uncomfortable news

I hate retired people! And people who own their own businesses so they can nip out whenever they want to tend their plots! Lucky bastards! This time of year is just so busy and I have so much to catch up on and the weekends go so damned quickly. I have managed to get all my large onions in the greenhouse borders. I say 'large' .....these plants came from a fellow grower a couple of weeks ago and I'm hoping to be able to get them to a couple of pounds or so. I've grown this strain in the past and they are a nice shape. The pots behind the onions are bottomless ones and are marking where my tomatoes will be planted. Not an ideal situation growing things so close together, but it has worked ok for me in the past. I'll plant the first batch of tomatoes (Cederico) along the far end (this weekend) which is the south facing side....that way the onions get maximum sunlight as the east and west facing sides won't be planted up for another 3 weeks or so yet. The onions will have been harvested before these get too big and block out the light completely.


These are the shallot thinnings that I replanted in a shady spot (actually one of my celery beds).
As I said at the time, these will root and make reasonable pickling shallots. I bury them quite deep, an inch or so to stop them rocking about.


I also managed to plant my blanch leeks, Pendle Improved. Again I recently got these plants from a fellow grower who has facilities I don't yet have. Some may call it cheating but I maintain the work really starts now, 'pulling' the plants up and blanching them as they grow. Keeping rust at bay whilst growing them outside as I do is also a huge challenge.



And I've also started to take a few dahlia cuttings. As it has been so cold my kitchen window cill has been doubling up as a propagating bench.

So all in all good progress but much remains to be done. I have two varieties of potato to get in, carrots and parsnips to thin out, enviromesh frames to make, tomatoes to be planted and staked, and a couple of hundred 8oz. onions to plant up the allotment. Like I say.....I hate retired people!

I wish I had more time to be able to compete with them, as I was really hoping to get more established this season and become one of the new kids on the block.....one of a crop of really handsome young growers who could challenge the established order of old farts who have been winning the big shows for years. Hopefully I'll have plenty of time to beat them in future years because as I said.....I'm dead young. So that's about all the news for now. Oh, and I'm going to be a grandad.

Early days

Still plenty of work needs to be done before April is out but things are starting to come together. I have plenty of onions from sets growing in cell trays as this is quite a popular class where I live. I am growing red onion 'Red Baron' and also 'Setton' which I've grown before and give nice, regularly shaped, flattish bulbs that could even be entered in the 'under 8oz' class. I like to start sets off in cell trays in the greenhouse in February rather than straight into the ground as birds can tug them out when they're looking for nesting material. After a couple of weeks of hardening off I shall now be planting these out this weekend. At the top of the picture you can see my exhibition shallots which are looking really good since they were planted out a couple of weeks ago. These will be ready for splitting in 2 or 3 weeks I think.

I have two long raised beds where one day I shall erect a polytunnel to be able to grow my onions and leeks under cover. The left hand one has white rot in the soil so I have treated it with Basamid soil sterilent. The soil has to be covered over for a few weeks whilst the chemical reaction takes place, hence the various compost bags. This is lethal stuff and has to be used very carefully so I used disposable plastic gloves whilst I was applying it, especially after licking my fingers last season when eating a pizza despite having washed my hands. I immediately felt quite nauseous. Soft twat.

The first potato shoots are showing through the compost in these experimental buckets that I set up to see if I could get some exhibition quality spuds for a show in early July. The large pots contain the sieved compost and nutrients (and the potato!) and this pot is set into some soil inside a large builder's bucket. The roots will grow through the bottom of the pot into this soil. The idea was to be able to keep them in the greenhouse during March when night temperatures were low. I can put them outside if the forecasts are favourable and bring them inside again if low temperatures are on the cards. It will get a bit more awkward once the foliage grows but as I only have 3 Kestrel and 3 Winston it won't be too much of a chore.

In the same greenhouse my boxed up dahlia tubers are showing the first green shoots. I should be able to start taking cuttings within a couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks ago I replaced my leaky garage roof with a nice bright, shiny, waterproof tin one. I can now shelter indoors during downpours whereas before I would have been drier if I'd stayed outside. Whilst I was up on the roof I saw my garden from a whole new angle and took this photo. Sadly, neither of my neighbours share my passion for gardening!

Dahlia doghouse blues

I enquired last week how a dahlia growing pal was faring and got the following reply. To save him from the divorce courts he shall remain nameless

"With very little sun to generate any warmth in the greenhouse my first lot of dahlias that were set into growth in early jan in the 4th bedroom have made little growth since being moved to the greenhouse 3 weeks ago.
I shot myself in the foot when i boxed up my 2nd lot of dahlia tubers and set them up into growth in the 4th bedroom. I went to see my mum that day and stayed overnight. The following morning my good lady texted me to advise that she had just picked up the 18th woodlouse she had found exploring the upstairs of the house As these appeared to have emmanated from my dahlias then i was told in no uncertain manner that all dahlias in the house would need to be removed to the greenhouse with immediate effect on my return. These dahlias were showing a number of small shoots and were duly removed to appease my wife.
Arbitration has since taken place and agreement reached that in future dahlias in the house would only be allowed provided the trays that they are grown in have a suitable cover/lid. So my next set of tubers have been set up in the 4th bedroom with a suitable lid on them. what my good lady does not know is that the lids are removed during the day whilst she is at work and the replaced over the tubors before she comes home from work."

All I can say mate is that should you get the boot then I understand Cheryl Cole is now single and is used to woodlice. In fact she's been married to one for the past 4 years!

I sincerely hope this is a temporary dog house he's in as he provided me with the plant that I managed to grow these Alf Ramsey dahlias last season.

My tubers are still well and truly in hibernation and won't be bought out into the greenhouse for another month yet. We've had even more snow today, and although it hasn't settled it remains bitterly cold so the onions and leeks are having to be covered every night under the grolamp. Talking of being under the spotlight I made a right prat of myself in a pub quiz the other night when asked the question 'where do most women have curly hair?

Apparently the correct answer is Africa.

Today at chez Smiff

Today I did at least manage a quick hour out in the garden, but barely scratched the surface. I got some well rotted muck onto this bed where I'm hoping to grow some decent cabbages this season. I shall dig it all in in the Spring.

In the course of my tidying I found two pairs of secateurs and 2 pairs of gloves.....all now drying out in my greenhouse. The secateurs will need a good spray of WD40!

As yet there is no green growth on my potted up shallots in the greenhouse so I couldn't resist turning one bulb over. I was relieved to see roots starting to form.

The first shoots on my show daffs are breaking the surface. I grow them in large pots so I can put them in a shady place if they're coming on too soon, or in the greenhouse to bring them on if they're late. At the moment the second option is seeming to be more likely, although as my show isn't until late March a lot can happen weather wise.

I packed the last of my dahlia tubers today. Ideally I should have done this way back in November but I was given these tubers by a top grower and they've been residing in my conservatory for over a month. This shows the tuber before preparation.

I prefer to cut off a lot of the tuber, even slicing through some of the fleshy roots and dusting the cut edges with sulphur powder to stop them rotting. I find this helps to store them in a neater, easier and more manageable fashion and doesn't seem to adversely affect it. As the cuttings come from the crown you don't really need to keep a huge root.

All safely stored in boxes of dry peat in my garage. I will start to water sometime in March when the weather has warmed up a bit (hopefully!).