Malvern here we come

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Almost time for lift off

For most of us the show season is now well and truly upon us and there’s diddly shit you can really do to alter the colour of the cards you’ll be winning, if any, apart from continuing to keep on top of the usual pests. My first show is not until next weekend, my local show, and for the first time for as long as I can remember I won’t be entering runner beans or cucumbers. That’s because I only sowed them with later shows in mind and after thinking I may even have overcooked those I am now thinking I’ll be getting some on the bench at either the Welsh Branch, or Harrogate, or Malvern, and certainly RHS Westminster in early October. The first fruits are now being allowed to develop on the cucumber plants, variety Carmen, now that they have ‘turned the corner’ at the eaves, where they have started to be trained horizontally to allow all fruits to hang downwards. This keeps them away from the foliage thus avoiding scratching and means you can manipulate them straight if they’re bent.

The runner beans are now forming although I’ve never seen plants with such little foliage. They do look quite bizarre but hasn’t seemed to affect the amount of pods. I could possibly get a set for my local show next weekend but I think I’ll wait a few more days to get a set up for the NVS Welsh Branch show in Carmarthen at the Welsh Botanic Gardens. You can start picking runner beans 5 or 6 days before the show as soon as they reach the size you require (I’m going for 14 or 15” plus the tail) and wrap in a damp cloth against a wooden batten to keep them fresh and straight and pop them in the fridge. Not too cold mind.

I have a row of Exhibition Longpod broad beans growing away against canes at an angle and the beans are about 2-3” long now, so no good for my show this weekend. Bit of chocolate spot but a Signum drench soon stopped that In its tracks. There is a class at the Welsh for 4 sets of legumes, but as I don’t grow peas I’m fucked, so these are destined for the kitchen I fear, but it has been a useful exercise to gather info on growing them to show if I ever get back into it in 20 years time.

Some of the first kohl rabi to be planted out are starting to swell so these will be too early for Malvern, but it looks like the 2^nd or 3^rd batch will probably be spot on, and I’m hoping the Kref in my polytunnel will be one of them. The variety in the photo is Kolibri and there are another 2 later sowings of this alongside, so my dream of becoming National German Turnip Champion are very much alive and well.

At Harrogate & RHS Westminster there are classes for chilli peppers and I have lots to choose from, albeit they are still green but starting to turn red soon I reckon. My banker variety Hungarian Wax (below) always gives me plenty of choice to make a selection from, but I’m not sure about a 2^nd one I’m growing this season called Cyklon. A case of the reality not quite matching catalogue photo I fear.

With 2 weeks to the Welsh Branch my dream of getting an entry at the British Tap Root Championships is hanging in the balance. My long beet are still quite small at the shoulder, barely an inch and a half diameter, but if they carry that diameter down for 10 or 12 inches then they may look ok. My parsnips, variety Victor, are also starting to concern me as they haven’t responded to the Chempak 8 feed yet and a number of them are looking quite spindly and therefore the root should also be quite small. At the beginning of the month I felt they were 3 weeks ahead of last season but they don’t appear to have grown much in the meantime. I do have quite a few large looking specimens so I’ll be saving these to try and get a set of 5 at the National, so I’ll have a decision to make as to which ones to pull for a set of 2 at the Welsh for the Tap Root Class. Decisions, decisions!

I’ve been picking tomatoes, variety Zenith, for the best part of 2 months, when I’m usually just starting to pick my first fruits so they are well ahead compared to previous seasons. It means I’ll have plenty to choose from for the next 2 weekends, including the Welsh where there are lots of top tomato growers to test yourself against. If I manage to get a ticket there I’ll be well chuffed.

For my local show I’ve been growing a fuchsia variety called Auntie Jinks that I rescued from one of last year’s hanging baskets. After taking advice I pinched out all shoots until 11 weeks before the show, then snipped off all the flower buds until 5 weeks before the show and I have to say it is going to be spot on in a week’s time once all these buds burst into flower. I haven’t grown a fuchsia for a show for several years, and I have found all the cocking about snipping and debudding quite therapeutic after a hard day at work I have to say. If you’re planning to show a fuchsia at your local show do make sure you tidy the plant up a bit, take off any foliage that is turning yellow and any flowers past their best, and give the pot a good wipe. There’s nothing that fuck’s a judge off more than getting his hands dirty on muddy pots.

So, over the next few weeks it’s going to get quite intense as you’re prepping for the show, but do take time out now and again to smell the coffee. It should be enjoyable, not stressful and you don’t want to miss little gems like these cyclamen I noticed growing at the foot of my conservatory wall today. Spiffin’.

And finally Dan Unsworth took to Twitter this week to strongly refute claims that he’s a gay dyslexic. Personally I think he’s in Daniel. And finally finally, the French man who invented beach sandals sadly died this week. RIP Philippe Phillope.

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.

Class 26

For those unaware of The National Vegetable Society it is split into 5 branches, Southern, Midlands, Welsh, Northern and Scottish. Each branch has its own BRANCH championships every year, and the Midlands Branch that I belong to holds theirs at Malvern each year. Northern Branch hold theirs at Harrogate for instance and so forth. The Southern Branch Championships is always the first one of the year and they hold theirs in July at the Dorset County Show, and if you can win down there you can probably win at any village show in the country. Every five years each branch takes their turn to host the National Championships of the NVS and this year it’s the turn of Midlands Branch at Malvern. As a result the Midlands Branch Championships will be held as part of Shrewsbury Show in August instead. I won’t be able to do that one so I shall have to relinquish my parsnip trophy won for the past 2 years at Malvern. Any member can enter any of the 5 branch championships and the National, and it’s the National which is the biggest and best and the one that every grower aspires to. There are 26 classes in all, and because of the incredible level of competition any ticket is something to cherish, because the usual names are often the ones that hoover up the silverware so it’s incredibly difficult to become a true National Champion. The best growers usually travel to wherever the National is held, whereas that isn’t always the case for the Branch Championships so you can only ever really call yourself a regional champion if you win at a Branch, although some branch championships do carry more kudos than others. I hope that clears up any confusion?

In 2012 The National Vegetable Society introduced a new class (no. 26) into their annual National Championships for a 15 point or under veg that would change each year, the hosting branch having the honour of deciding which veg would be contested. In 2012 at Malvern the veg chosen by Midlands Branch was marrows, and the winner was Marcus Powell, pictured below during a recent court case for breaching an injunction taken out against him by Sherie Plumb.

A year later at Harrogate it was small fruited tomatoes won by Mark Hewartson (I came 3^rd!), in 2014 at Dorset Southern Branch chose globe beet won by Andrew Jones. In 2015 at Dundee, Scottish Branch chose broad beans which I thought was an interesting choice as I only ever grew them to eat and didn’t realise they could be grown to show so late in the season. The size of those benched at Dundee really staggered me as they must have been over a foot long, a variety called Relon that appears to be no longer available in any catalogues and which has been perpetuated by some of the growers up there. Ian Simpson won the class.

I had some seed given to me by Jim Pearson and grew Relon last season but could not time them for any shows. Despite sowing them according to Jim’s sowing dates they all cropped way too early but I have to say they were huge beans like those benched in Scotland so I’ll keep the strain going south of the border if I can.

Last year when the National was held in Carmarthen at the Welsh Botanic Garden glasshouse the Welsh Branch chose globe beet once again, displaying the usual lack of imagination you expect from the Welsh. Well, they still think their rugby team are the best in the World! It was won by Trevor Humphrey with his usual stunners with incredibly long tap roots.

This year the class has come full circle and it’s the turn of Midlands Branch once more to choose which veg to grow and compete with, and they have gone slightly off grid with kohl rabi, or german turnips to give its alternative name. 

I think this is an inspired choice as you never see it on the benches and I doubt if many of the usual suspects will ever have grown it for exhibition so this is one National title that is really up for grabs this year I believe. I shall be doing my first sowing this weekend, with Malvern a mere 13 weeks away, and a second sowing next weekend which should be about the right timing to get me a set of 4. I’ve only ever grown kohl rabi 2 or 3 times in the past so I do have a little bit of knowledge about them, and one thing I did learn is that they soon deteriorate once they reach their prime so timing is essential. Now, according to the NVS judges guide kohl rabi should be no more than tennis ball size, but there is a variety I’m tempted to grow called Superschmelz which can grow considerably bigger. Whatever you grow all specimens need to be alike in shape and size, and most importantly of all in good condition with no sign of pest or disease damage. I doubt any of the judges at the National no matter how experienced would have come across this crop many times during their judging career so no doubt they’ll all be cribbing up on it just in case class 26 is one assigned to them!

It will be interesting to see what the branches decide on in future as there are many more 15 point or less crops that could be given a go, assuming the unimaginative Welsh keep plumping for globe beet of course. Cabbages, brussels, broccoli, calabrese, celeriac, courgettes, garlic, kale, lettuces, peppers, radish, swedes and turnips to name but a few.

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.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction

One of the downsides of being one of the best looking men in the World is that God sees fit to counteract your facial good fortune by bestowing all manner of pestilence and disease upon thee!

He has populated the Earth with many creatures that appear to serve no useful purpose and chief among these in my opinion is the flying rat otherwise known as the wood pigeon. Many years ago I planted my cabbages out and nipped back inside for a quick cup of tea before netting to keep the buggers at bay. I'd been gone no more than 10 minutes but when I returned my brassicas had been stripped and a couple of pigeons were hurriedly trying to take off so fat were they having consumed all my hard work!

I'd planted out these kohl rabi with a view to trying to get them ready for the show in July when I found this scene of carnage the other night.

I should have known better than to plant them without protection but nethertheless it still pisses you off when you see it. My favoured method of deterrent is some string above the plants with some old CD's dangling down just above the plants. I was told a few years ago that pigeons don't like to see things above them and whenever i've done this I've never had problems with them so it does appear to work despite the plants still being easily accessible if they so wished to take another gobble. Bastards.

The Casablanca potatoes that i'm growing in pots also have these strange brown speckles on the foliage.

I asked Dave Thornton what they might be but he was as much use as a chocolate teapot, sending the picture text as I did whilst he was on a night out with friends. He was so pissed that he text me back saying that he loved me! I never did find out from him what these marks are so I'll just have to hope they're not significant as these spuds will be coming up in a week or two. In the meantime Dave has decided to choose Llangollen to finally come out of the closet!

On Friday it was time to sow my 'Prince' french beans with a view to having them ready for Llangollen which is now only 11 weeks away. There is a right way up to sow beans and I always seem to get 100% germination when I do it this way. If you look at the 'scar' on the bean you should see what look like two small bollocks at the bottom of it. The beans should be sown this way up, with the bollocks towards the bottom. Kinda makes sense when you say it like that really!

My leeks are looking better than any I've had at this time of the year and I've now put them on their first collars, which are 12" tall, and have run a couple of horizontal supports alongside the plants to support the flags. I've also sprayed them with Dynamec to ward off thrips which have rendered my leeks useless for anything other than local showing in recent years. The thrips inhabit the growing point of the leek, hiding right inside the new growth emerging from the 'button'. So therefore you have to use a high pressure spray to really force the insecticide inside the leaf layers. Spraying over the outer foliage will have no effect whatsoever.

I sat next to Mark Roberts at a DA talk the other night and he wore the self-satisfied smile of someone who had some exceptional leeks growing away. I've seen photos of his Nuneaton plot on Facebook and they really were something to behold, and Mark was hoping to win the National again for the collection of 6 as he did in 2007. Later that night he text me in a dejected state as he'd got back to find just about all of his leeks had gone to seed. Back in Winter some jealous twat had got into his garden and switched off his power. Presumably his plants got a check that night which meant they were doomed from that point on. I hope that person is proud of himself and suffers a premature end to life.

Oh, and as I speak it's absolutely wazzing down outside. Severn Trent......any chance you might actually catch some of it?

And remember the golden rule of life.....