Don't be a dummy

On Saturday night I was able to visit a local show and assess my local competition, and some that I am likely to come up against at Llangollen as Mark Roberts was in attendance. He has had to admit defeat in his aim to stage a collection as his leeks all went to seed but he is hoping to enter the 3 pairs of 20 pointer veg class like me. I am hoping to stage a couple of long carrots, two parsnips and two potatoes and if my long roots are any good I may carry on pulling and enter a set of five long carrots and a set of five parsnips. However, if I'm in any doubt about the quality of the roots after the first couple of 'pulls' they'll remain firmly in their growing positions and be saved for later shows. I met one of my blog followers at the show, a guy called Phil Burgess who had plenty of tickets including a very nice set of Sweet Candle. Nice of you to say you find the blog entertaining Phil....it makes all the crap I get from certain quarters worthwhile! Best in show however were these superb gladioli. Stunning.

I emptied out my NVS Sherine yesterday afternoon and was able to get a reasonable set of five set aside for Llangollen for the special class sponsored by JBA Seed Potatoes, plus a few sets for other shows. Not bad from only 10 bags of this variety grown. I was very happy to note that was absolutely no sign of scab anywhere to be seen so it looks as if I've got the watering cock on this year, as the 15 bags of Casablanca I emptied out a couple of weeks ago were also superb. Contrary to popular belief scab cannot be transmitted from the seed tuber as that is merely the mark left by the scab mycellium attack during the growing season. Scab is only soil borne and as it prefers warm, dry soil you need to make sure your bags do not dry out, especially at tuber initiation which is when the haulms are about a foot high. I washed one of my 'reject' Casablanca on Friday night just to see how they clean up and here was the result. I'm happy.

I have labels already written out ready to put on each set which is graded and re-bagged in dry compost until the night before each show. That way I can go straight to the set or sets I need. I still have my NVS Amour (class also sponsored by JBA) and Kestrel to get up yet but I already have more spuds for showing than the whole of last season from just 25 bags emptied thus far. I never sieved the lumps out of the peat when I was filling the bags back in April so I'll continue to adopt this lazy method from now on. After the results I've had so far I'd be mad to mess about sieving umpteen 200 litre bags when I obviously don't need to. I think leaving the lumps in allows plenty of air pockets vital for good root production. I would stress however that you need as good a quality peat as you can get.

My parsnips 'Polar' are confusing me. The foliage is pretty ordinary but I've excavated a few inches down and can feel some fairly large shoulders so hopefully these will be ok. Three years ago I had poor tops but pulled my best parsnips ever, getting best in show at Leicester. I'm now of the opinion that for the past few years I wasn't suffering canker attacks but carrot fly as this pest also targets parsnips if it cannot find its preferred meal of choice, namely carrots. Growing in a free-draining growing media as we do, canker shouldn't be a problem as it usually manifests itself in heavy, poorly drained clayey soil, so as well as the black material membrane to stop the canker spores getting down I've also been applying Phorate granules at regular intervals which deter carrot fly. I'll only know whether this has worked in a couple of weeks of course.

I haven't had any more leeks go to seed so hopefully the 6 that went out of 22 plants is an end to it. I pulled one of them for the pot. Good blanch length and girth and clean foliage so they should be good for local shows as well as one part of my set of 6 for the Harrogate Bullshit Bloggers' Challenge against the Yorkshire rent boys.

A veg i've always done well with is french beans 'Prince' and I hope to get a set of 15 for Llangollen. For this i'm growing them in 12" pots, three plants per pot planted into my own homemade compost with nutrimate added, and the plants are very lush and healthy. This method allows you to bring the pots indoors if adverse weather is forecast in the days leading up to the show and stops the beans getting marked.

They're cropping already but there are plenty of tiny beans to come which will hopefully give me plenty of choice for Wales. In the 2 or 3 days leading up to the show I will be measuring the beans and cutting them as they reach my desired size which I will decide upon when I cut my first bean at the right shape and condition. This will be my template as such and will hopefully be about 7 to 8". All beans reaching EXACTLY this size will be cut and stored in a damp cloth in the fridge until final selection the night before.

And I'm still keeping half an eye on later shows such as Westminster. I have similar pots of french beans at earlier stages of growth as well as these pots of turnips, a trial variety called Goldana. I also have a few rows in the greenhouse soil vacated recently by the disastrous onions.

I am also growing pak choi, intermediate beet, fennel, radish, lettuce, spring onions, swiss chard any many others, much to Dave Thornton's consternation in my attempt to get more cards than him this season at the shows we both enter. There's 20 quid riding on the outcome this time around. I don't intend to fail and suffer another year of his smugness!

And finally as the height of show season approaches make sure you're well organised and have all your show paraphernalia to hand. Read the schedules carefully and make sure you're not daft enough to show 250g onions when 8oz is called for (227g).....no names mentioned....or that you fill out a variety or exhibitor card and leave it against your exhibit if the rules of that particular show require it. Again no names mentioned as I don't want to embarrass two friends.

Get them out for the glads!

Checking back on some old diaries I noticed that I would normally be planting out my gladioli corms from about now. This year i'm cutting back on flowers to concentrate fully on my veg....unless a certain Mr. B from Hull has managed to propagate some spare dahlias for me? If you fancy showing gladioli then plant a dozen corms a week from now for the next three weeks.....there aren't many better showbench sights than a vase of show glads.

Having planted my Cedrico tomatoes and Bonica aubergines a couple of weeks ago I made sure I didn't water them again until they looked absolutely desperate....and that was yesterday. This forces their roots to go off in search of moisture and will ultimately give you stronger plants. The aubergines in particular are looking very strong.

I got lots of essential jobs done over the weekend to get me back on the right timescale. I managed to get 15 bags of Casablanca potatoes planted and 12 bags of NVS Sherine, both white varieties. Each seed spud was planted into a black polybag with a handful of calcified seaweed and a handful of Tev04 (or Vitax Q4) 'scuffled' amongst the bottom couple inches of the peat. My coloured varieties for 2011, Kestrel and NVS Amour will be done this week.

I also managed to plant my remaining 22 Pendle Improved leeks into their final stations, having given the bed a top dressing of dried blood a couple of weeks ago. For now there are no collars on them as I prefer the plant to concentrate on getting some good roots down into the bed which I have rotavated really well this year and the soil is lovely and friable. I will put DPC collars on them in a couple of weeks and start the 'drawing' process. Before the roots get too far into the soil I will put a stout support stick next to each plant, say no more than two inches away, that the leek and DPC will be tied to in order to keep the plant perfectly upright and the barrel nice and erect.

And talking of erect I was most disappointed to learn that I had missed 'World Naked Gardening Day' on Saturday as I was pre-occupied with Man U winning the League yet again and consigning Liverpool to the tag of 2nd most successful team in English football history. So tonight I took the opportunity to mark the occasion with a quick streak around the plot and a bit of a 'dibble' in the potting shed.

At the weekend Wayne Rooney famously shaved his chest to leave the number '19' embossed in hairs on his torso. I prefer to leave the entire tangled history of Man U daubed on mine! Furthermore, the history of Arsenal is on my back and the history of Liverpool is on my arse!

Hathern Show 2010

A poor weekend. My long carrots were as forked as my stumps and I had to pull 20 to get this set for Leicester. An even poorer set of two for Hathern came unplaced.

The Pinnacle parsnips cleaned up quite well in the bath. I had two sets of three for Leicester, one in the collection class that I'm quite hopeful about. I was unplaced at Hathern where the judges always go for some huge un-uniform roots that are quite pitted. Most of my roots had some canker damage but I find that it can be rubbed off for these early shows as it's usually only just on the surface. In a couple of weeks it will have gone a lot deeper and be impossible to hide. I am going to have to find something to combat this next season.

My useless potatoes did manage 2nd but I would be ashamed to show these at a higher level show.

A bonus 2nd place for my disappointingly poor Sweet Candle. Great skin finish but poor form and I'd had to carefully slice off a couple of fairly large side roots that the judge would have noted.

In the 'any other veg' my mexican mouse melons were a talking point.

Only entry in the shallots but they would have taken some beating.

1st and 2nd for globe beet in a hotly contested class.

Got a pleasantly surprising bonus 2nd for this vase of 2 gladioli.

For some reason that the organisers couldn't explain my entry in the Master Gardener class never got judged. The flowers weren't great but it should have got a 2nd at least. Instead 2nd place went to 3 tiny sets of scabby veg and a flower arrangement!!! Not even a vase of flowers so that should strictly have been disqualified. However, in view of the weekend's disappointments it was par for the course. I didn't make a big fuss as I've always said the day I get upset by a judge's decision is the day I give it all up. Judges are human beings at the end of the day and can make mistakes like the rest of us. Blind twat.

But at least I managed best exhibit with these tomatoes that were a little on the small side but perfectly formed. A nice little NVS medal made the day's tribulations worthwhile

A chance at last to show off the Midland's soppiest grin. 6 red cards and three trophies wasn't a bad haul but I'm peeved about my roots and potatoes. I would have walked these classes in previous seasons. I'm going to have to seek some advice as to why my carrots were so poor this season.

On now to see the results at Leicester this afternoon where the standard of competition is even higher. All in all I may have to rethink my ambitions for places like Malvern.

Bulging greenhouse

I only have two small (8'x6') greenhouses and I'm constantly having to rearrange pots and trays at this time of year to get the most of my limited shelving. Most of them now need putting outside to harden off but I'm still sowing runner beans, cucumbers, marrows, lettuce and caulis as I want all my veg to be ready from late August to early October.

The large pots on the shelves contain aubergines. I tried growing these last year without agreat deal of success so I'm having another go. I've planted them on a mound of compost as I read that they don't like to have their roots too wet, and planting this way allows excess water to run off.

At the back of the staging are my dahlia cuttings rooting (hopefully) in mini-cloches of cut off lemonade bottles. I managed to pot on the first of my successfully rooted cuttings of Emma's Coronet and Kenora Sunset yesterday, with several more to follow in the next few days (time allowing).

In fact the next few days are going to be a bit manic.....I need to support my leek foliage with a bamboo frame, pot on the first of my caulis, plant more spuds (Malin), plant my gladioli (yes I know they're a bit late but they always flower early for me if planted in May!), thin out my carrots etc etc etc. I really need to win the lottery so I can retire early!

Carrot conundrum

All of my long carrots are through ! I’ve never known such erratic germination in carrots (it’s taken 3 weeks) as I’ve experienced this season and it appears from chatting to them that other growers are suffering the same problem. It just shows you need to be patient in gardening as I’ve come close several times to scrapping the top layer of compost in the stations that hadn’t germinated and putting some long beetroot seeds in instead. Usually Spring Bank Holiday weekend is when I thin my long carrots down but they’re mostly far too small for that just yet. Hopefully, they’ll get a shift on and catch up and I’ll still be able to exhibit some reasonable roots come August/September.

I’ve not been able to get all my spuds in yet…..I still have a tray of Malin to set out but hope to do that this weekend in pots of sieved peat. My first potatoes (Kestrel) suffered a bit of frost damage last week (I should’ve watched the weather forecast!) but they’ll recover. So far my onions are growing away reasonably well. The biggest problem is making sure they grow upright as the weight of the leaves tends to pull them over to one side or other and if you leave them they won’t grow symmetrically. I use bent aluminium wires to support the leaves in the positions I need.

I’ve planted out one pumpkin plant cloaked in some bubble wrap until it has been acclimatised to the outside. I just couldn’t resist having another crack at growing a ‘biggie’!

This weekend I’ll be sowing another row of beetroot as well as the first of my caulis, as well as planting my gladioli corms. I’ve taken plenty of dahlia cuttings but none appear to have rooted yet. There’s a lot of hard work to do in the next few weeks but as my team are now officially the best team in Europe I shall do each and every task with a smile and a skip…..chaaaaaaaaaaampiooooooooooons! John Terry you big ponce…..call yourself a hard man?

You numbnut Smiffy!

At Sutton Bonington we have a class called 1 veg/1 fruit/1 flower which I've mentioned before and it gets quite popular as most people are usually able to rustle up 1 good specimen of each.

The pic shows my entry of a white gladioli, an onion and an apple. I'd had the gladdy under a black polythene sack for 4 days as it started to open out too early and I needed to hold it back. When I unwrapped it on the morning off the show it looked lovely and several 'florets' had opened out.

However, whilst it had been under the black sack I'd had it tied to a cane to keep it straight and I forgot to take off a small piece of string at the top of the gladdy. For this reason my entry was disqualified and I could have kicked myself. I should have known better but less experienced exhibitors would possibly have felt seriously aggrieved

Gladdies !

As if I don't grow enough (veg/dahlias/roses/fuchsias/cactus) I've also decided to have another go at gladioli this year. We had a talk from Martin Bryans at our Hort.Soc. the other evening and it's inspired me to try again. I've often thrown a few corms in over the years and won the odd class but usually when there were no other 'spikes' to compete against! I must admit a nice set of well-staged glads is a wonderful sight to behold and no other flower offers the colour range of gladdies!

One thing Martin did say is that they need to be grown on different ground each year on a rotation cycle of about 4-5 years. Also, growing them on land that has previously had spuds in the last 15 years is a complete no-no. Apparently they go yellow and die and no-one knows why!

You need to be planting the corms about now 5" deep on a 1/2" layer of grit or sharp sand. As soon as they poke through start feeding either Maxicrop foliar feed or Phostrogen in wet summers to harden them up a bit.

When the flower spike 'throws up' then (and only then) they are tied to a cane pushed into the ground. If the bottom floret is out on the Tuesday before a Sunday show then the whole spike needs to be cut and put in a dark place. Apparently it will be perfect by show day ! A perfect show bloom has 8 florets fully out, the next 8 showing colour and the top 8 (or more) in tight bud. It's perfectly acceptable to cut off the lower floret if it has gone over however. A good supplier is www.showglads.com

Now......where the hell am I going to plant these corms?????

1 flower 1 veg

Enough of football for now.....I'll spend the winter months showing different classes and how to stage in them.

A popular class at a lot of shows is the class for a single specimen flower and a single specimen vegetable. (Some shows go further and also have a single specimen fruit). They are usually very popular as most people will have a spare veg or bloom that they can enter into this class without having to match it up to other blooms or veg. However, it is important to try and select your best single flower or vegetable if you want to have a chance of a prize card.

The judge will compare your dahlia (or whatever bloom you choose) against other dahlias so it needs to be as fully developed and blemish-free as possible. Therefore, flowers such as dahlias/chrysanths and gladioli would be the best ones to go for as these are deemed harder to grow to perfection than say marigolds/sunflowers and other annuals.

Similarly, what are termed '20 pointer' vegetables such as carrots/parsnips/tomatoes/potatoes etc are looked upon more favourably than lower pointed veg such as cabbages/peppers/beetroot etc. (I will explain the pointing of veg in my next post).

The pic above shows a well contested class at Littleover Show this year. The superb gladioli and potato near the camera won.....my humble dahlia and carrot staged next to them didn't even warrant a place.