Manna from heaven

At Westminster there is a tap root class calling for long carrots, parsnips, long beet and stump carrots, 2 specimens of each. This is always well-contested and several of the North East Derby lads compete in this one. I only had the stump variety Caradec left over, a carrot I'd grown last season in pipes in the greenhouse and was so impressed with it that I decided to grow it in stations in a sand bed in the standard way to see if it might be a contender against Sweet Candle. I can report that it most certainly isn't! I struggled for uniformity and many of them were quite bent after pulling. I tried straightening them by applying gentle pressure but after snapping a couple I had to go with what I had and made a reasonable entry with my best two long beet, a nice set of long carrots but a pair of parsnips that were unfortunately touched by carrot fly. When I pulled for Harrogate none of my parsnips had been affected but the action of pulling them had obviously attracted a 3rd generation of the flying pests and I had several roots affected for Malvern and Westminster. In future I really need to make sure I re-apply some phorate around the crowns in September or else construct some form of barrier to prevent them access.

I was reasonably pleased with the third placed ticket behind John Goodall in first and Dave Thornton in second, both ex-National Carrot champions, but I didn't really look at the class in great detail as by that time we'd been up all night and I was absolutely fucked to buggery.

When I returned on Wednesday I took a closer look and couldn't help noticing that Dave's collection seemed inferior to mine at first glance so I started to compare the scores to try and ascertain how the judge had arrived at the totals. It was then that I noticed a glaring error on behalf of the judge.See if you can spot it?

Needless to say I complained immediately and the tickets will be reversed, although Dave says he's never speaking to me again!

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!

Survival

Well now, I've been suffering since Thursday from what I believe is quite simply the most severe case of manflu that has ever been recorded. Today my voice went and meant I was unable to take phone calls from customers. Bliss! Quite how i'm still alive however is a miracle and is testament to my amazing fitness and powers of recovery.....plus a wife who tolerates my pathetic whinings and runs around after me! Along with torrential rain it meant I was unable to do any gardening and I fear certain things may have got away from me as a result. I have one cucumber in the fridge at 17.25" having left it too long on the vine despite my intention not to do so. Due to my weakened state of health I only got around to cutting it on Sunday. The others are straining just over 16" but I doubt they'll catch up as the weather is so cold and miserable.


I've been cutting french beans at 7" since Sunday as I find they start to go beany much after that and I'd rather have a smaller set showing no bean bulge than hope for a longer set that I may never achieve. Quite how certain growers get beanless pods up to 9" is beyond me. Perhaps heated greenhouses? I mentioned this method before of storing beans on the incline with their stalks in a shallow pool of water. Kept in a darkened garage it does seem to keep them in good condition for several days meaning you can pick many beans to give you a lot from which to make your final choice. A word of warning....try and make your final choice at home before travelling when you are less stressed and only take a couple of spares. That way you can just lay them out with confidence at the show knowing they are your best set.

I am still very unsure how my long beet is going to turn out. The recent rains and high winds have absolutely battered the foliage so thank God all tap roots have to be displayed with 3" leaf stalks only. This is the scene that greeted me at lunchtime today.

I'm really looking forward to trying to get the long beets up. Of all the tap roots long beet are the ones most likely to snap and the few that I've grown in the past have often snapped at the 2' mark when I've pulled them a la parsnips and long carrots so I'm going to go to extra lengths to try and extract them complete from the bore holes. I have been advised to sink a bore pipe next to each root and take out a plug of the growing medium. Using a hose pipe I shall try carefully washing the soil from around the root and hopefully it will fall into the hole and come away intact the full depth of the drum. They're not huge shouldered but long beet only need to be about 3" diameter at most to look their best as long as they carry their weight down the root for the first foot or so. I've never exhibited a full dish of long beet before so this one is a totally new one for me if I manage it, which is a tad ambitious as I've only grown two drums of 7!

So at the moment I don't quite know which of my 15+ entries for Malvern will actually make the benches (if any!), but that is no matter because if the weekend is anything like last year's National at Llangollen we'll have a very enjoyable weekend with our NVS friends, swapping tips, ideas, not taking things too seriously and generally ripping the piss out of each other. On the NVS website's members only forum we are having a fruit cake competition and several growers and their wives/girlfriends/hangers-on going to Malvern are entering this most prestigious event of the weekend. Despite a certain amount of bureaucratic red tape that was originally thrown in our path (and which we have decided to ignore and indeed ridicule) the cake-off is still going ahead. There is also a class for a vegetable animal and I have a plan for an animal so lifelike it would fool Bill Oddie. To me this is what being a member of a Society is all about and whilst I would love a ticket of any description in the National Championship classes I am totally looking forward to meeting up with the friends we made last year and making new ones from the many, many people I speak to on the forum all year. One young chap who lives in Ireland is even going to enter next year's championships by sending me his spuds via the postal service to stage for him!

Several growers have used the forum to great effect to win prizes at Branch and National Championships by asking advice over the Winter months and then putting it into practice. I've said in the past that before the internet we would have to get by if any problems arose and then come show time you would be able to ask the winning growers how they achieved their success. Now we can talk to each other all year via the various online forums, emails and texts and quickly resolve any problems you come up against rather than having to wait until showtime. So if you want to improve your produce and you haven't already done so make sure you join the National Vegetable Society where growers are only too willing to help you out! However, one bit of advice i'm never divulging is my prize winning fruit cake method!

Easier to enter, harder to win!

I caught up with Ian Simpson over the weekend at Harrogate. Ian is a really top grower and was to the fore in several classes despite having a lot of his produce pinched from his allotment. His stunning stump carrots (below) deservedly took the premier award of best in show. He has limited space and facilities however.

As well as being a really great grower he's also a top bloke and talks an awful lot of sense when it comes to the future of our veg shows. At the NVS's AGM to be held on the 29th September at Malvern he has put forward a motion to reduce the quantities called for in 4 of the National classes, namely long carrots, parsnips, long beet and blanch leeks. 5 are currently required and he and several others, myself included, are calling for that to be reduced to three. So-called purists have criticised us, saying that you should have to bench more specimens in a class because 'It's the National!' If that is the case then why are the quantities for potatoes (5) and 250g onions (5) the same as they are in all the Branch Championships? Those classes are ALWAYS well supported with entries.
At last year's National in Llangollen, there were only 3 entries of blanch leeks. That was in Wales, the home of the leek for fuck's sake! Ronnie Jackson has won the British Leek Championships a couple of times when it is held annually as part of the Welsh Branch CHampionships. He came 3rd at Harrogate this weekend in the National Leek Championships. Both classes call for three leeks. He has never competed in the National with blanch leeks because of the quantity differential.......and it has to be said the prize money isn't that great compared to the effort involved. Jim Williams, National Scottish Branch Chairman is another good leek grower who has never exhibited blanch leeks at National level.

For Harrogate I prepared a total of 5 long carrots, 3 for the National Carrot Championships, 1 for the Tap Root Class and one for the 6x1 class. Quite frankly I was utterly pissed off with carrots by the time I'd finished! One of the country's top growers was present at Harrogate and I won't name him but he is vehemently against the class quantity reduction idea. He retired early from work and can devote his whole life to growing for show if he so chooses. He has several large allotments and gardens i'm told. I'm not criticising anyone who wants to do this, or who is lucky enough to have the facilities, but he and one or two others like him cannot go on forever, but while they do entries will continue to dwindle in the nation's premier vegetable show.

I overheard him say that he had never won the National Carrot Championships before although he has come 2nd on several occasions. I venture to suggest that if the class had called for 5 long carrots and 5 stumps he would have won it several times before now! By reducing it more folk like myself would be prepared to have a go just to see what your produce looks like against the very best, and the top blokes like Ronnie and Jim would definitely have a go....and they'd probably win tickets. In effect it would be making it easier to enter, but much harder to win, contrary to what several people have said to me that it would be easier to win. Far, far from it.

I have to say I don't particularly give a fish's fuck if the motion doesn't get passed at Malvern, as I have more important things in my life than veg. It just seems to make sense to me that if the Society is to continue into the future they need to encourage the keen as mustard smaller scale exhibitor with limited facilities. I would urge anyone who is an NVS member to attend the AGM and make sure their vote counts......whichever way you agree with.

Requiem in P minor

I think I'm going to have to admit defeat in my quest to get a set of peas benched at Malvern this year. My hat goes off to anyone south of Yorkshire who can grow a set in late September as it really does seem to be an impossible task for me and proof if ever it were needed that peas are well worth all of the 20 points allocated to them in the NVS Judges' Guide. Many years ago Medwyn did a series of Garden News articles on the sowing dates top growers used for a late August and a late September show, asking 6 exhibitors from all around the country, and John Branham who lives in Aylesbury left the date for sowing peas for the late show blank as he considered it a complete waste of time trying. I now concur. The Scots are pretty much unbeatable when it comes to peas so I shall leave it to the last two years' champions to battle it out again, my pals Ian Simpson and Ian Stocks (below), who (along with his wife Linda) sent me and Leesa a lovely silver anniversary 'e-card' today. It's not actually until the 29th but appreciated all the same. And get your bloody hair cut before Malvern Ian!

Despite growing a mildew resistant pea called Dorian the plants are well behind what I'd expect them to be and are currently about 18" tall ....if that. They don't look particularly healthy either, although there is no sign of mildew. From now on I'm just going to grow some peas against netting the old fashioned way for eating purposes only in June/July and use the space for something else later such as lettuce/caulis/overwintering leeks. It means I will no doubt be subject to some not inconsiderable ridicule at Malvern but if you can't take it you shouldn't dish it out, as that means you're just a cunt and believe me there are plenty of those in the veg showing world. Don't forget the old saying.....

One veg I am starting to get the hang of growing are long beet ('Regar'), and I may well grow more than these couple of drums in future years. Biggest problem is hacking back the grape vine growing along the top of the fence above them...but that's another story.

I didn't sow these until early June as my early May sowing last year grew way too big, and the tops were like tree trunks come September. Thus far I have large healthy tops and the roots are a couple of inches diameter at the top and with 6 weeks to Malvern I think I might yet have a crack at staging a set of 5. If the colourful stalks are anything to by I'm on the right track.

Rather than growing them in drums of just free draining sand they are filled with a mix of sand, soil and compost that retains more moisture, and they are given a decent watering every three or 4 days. This should stop the twisting effect that I found 'Regar' prone to when I used to grow it. You don't want huge roots on the showbench, and roots about 3" diameter look more refined on the showbench, providing you can get the whole tap root out which is more of a task with long beet that parsnips or long carrots. However, I've been given some pointers on how to achieve this without snapping it so I'll report on that when it happens.



Gotta fly now....I think Jesus is trying to tell me something......

Can he fix it?

I've decided to purchase a cement mixer in time for next season's root mix preparation. I'm thinking that in order to improve upon the uniformity of my long carrots in particular I need to ensure all nutrients, sand and composts are thoroughly mixed. Doing this by hand is turning out to be a hit and miss affair and is also taking its toll on the Smithyveg backbone.

So with the help of Ebay and email alerts as soon as any new second hand mixers are listed i'm hoping to have one installed at Smithyveg Towers before next Spring. If there are any retiring Bob the Builders out there looking to get rid of theirs (very cheaply!) then let me know!

However, i'd prefer one that isn't the standard orange colour as i've just had a most disconcerting experience. I walked in on my 23 year old daughter coating herself in fake tan whilst listening to music. She looked like a satsuma and i've gone right off the colour!

Stretching summer

With apologies to my Scottish friends who have had several days of rain, it seems really weird preparing veg for an October show in shorts, flip-flops and a t-shirt! It has allowed me to spend the whole day pulling and matching up my tap roots, and cleaning leek roots with a hosepipe and not have to worry about getting hypothermia.

I've been very happy with my leeks this season considering the minimal amount of attention I have lavished upon them. I've had to overstrip a couple due to 4 or 5 split flags which I think is down to a lack of water during the last few months. Still if I can grow them this well through neglect i'm really looking forward to next year when I intend to devote far more time to their culture.

And i've managed to get a pair of long beet for the collection of tap roots at Westminster. They're really far too big to contend but it's shown me that I can grow them and it's another crop I shall be hoping to improve upon next season. A later sowing should give me more refined, tapering roots for Malvern.

Long brute

I was hoping to stage a set of three long beet at Malvern but couldn't get a matching set.

As this monster, 15" round at the crown shows, I think I need to sow a tad later if I want to have some for the Malvern 2012 National.

I've left a drum unpulled as I hope to at least have a pair for the tap root class at Westminster in a week and a half.

♫ Baby slow down, the end is not as fun as the start ♪

For the next few weeks I'm going to be using lines from U2 songs as my post headings, without doubt the World's best ever band when they stick to music and not all that saving Aung San Suu Kyi shite. If she's daft enough to take on a military dictatorship on her tod that's her problem!

But this lyric highlights how you should be feeling about your plot at this stage of the season. Too many of us want the shows to come around when you should be sitting back and reflecting on your hard work and admiring the tapestry you've painted. Show time marks an end to your season and in many ways is quite a sad time, especially if you haven't done as well as you'd hoped. But at the beginning of the season everyone is equal and the bare ground is full of promise and you can imagine your trophy shelves straining under the weight come September. So enjoy the next month or so before the shows start.

Looking around this morning as I walked the plot with cuppa in hand I had to agree with myself that overall my stuff looks better than it ever has done, testament to the advice I get from fellow growers on the NVS forum. I'm struggling to find any blemishes on my Brigadier cabbages but I need them to start hearting up now. I'm hoping to take a pair of these to Malvern with me.

My celery are now on 21" cardboard collars and the individual stalks are now starting to put on a bit of bulk. Again I may well be tempted to stage a brace at Malvern for comparison purposes and then at Westminster a few days later. No-one really grows celery round here for local shows but if you've got a good pair of 'sticks' you can put these in the any other veg class and they'll take a lot of beating.

My roots continue to grow well with amazing tops, from my Sweet Candle stumps that are bursting out of the enviromesh.....

....to my parsnips 'Polar' which I'm getting more and more pleased about. This year i've supported the heavy foliage with pea sticks and string as it can rub against the tops of the drums in high winds and last year several leaves were slice leaves right off, so i'm working on the principal that more leaves = bigger roots.

When Dave T visited me a couple of weeks ago he said he's never seen long beet foliage as big as mine at the end of the season let alone early July. These are actually forcing themselves out of the growing media which i'm told is quite normal for long beet so i'm topping the drums up with compost to stop the shoulders going corky. Again I may be tempted to stage a set of three at Malvern as there are never that many entries and I may have an outside chance of getting a ticket if the bottoms are anywhere near as good as the tops.

My Pendle blanch leeks are now on 19" collars and are by far the best leeks I've ever had at this point in the season. Considering how I struggled to get fairly puny plants through November and December in the coldest weather ever experienced around here in a makeshift growing chamber I reckon i've done bloody well with these. I thought I absolutely had to lose some if not all to going to seed but so far all is good.

So everything in the veg garden is looking pretty good even if I say so myself.

This year I'm even growing a few vegetables in amongst this long border near the house where I grow dahlias and other flowers for various vase classes at local shows. There is sweetcorn 'Miracle' although I've had to spray against rust in the last few days and they do seem to be responding. I also have some butternut squashes trailing along the ground, broad beans, parsley, kohl rabi and swiss chard (burnt Roger Federer).

And this is the view back down the garden. Our cats no longer come into the house since the dog tried to eat them both. And before Bill Oddie starts bleating we do leave the shed open for them at night!

So, when all is good sit back and smell the flowers........such as these lilies, which were supposed to be September flowering. Salesmen eh? Scumbags. I'll end today's post on another U2 lyric. Life should be fragrant, rooftop to the basement.

Preparing for a Royal visit

My Kelsae onions are starting to bulb up nicely although I only have three that look as if they might make a decent size. The biggest is about 7" around and about 10" to the growing point. Hopefully they will complete their growth before the cucumbers growing over them shade them out too much and I can get a set of three which covers most of my local shows.



My long beet have really put on a growth spurt in the last couple of weeks. The foliage shows no sign of the leaf miner damage that I suffered from last season but on one of the larger plants some of the leaves were stuck together as if they'd been glued. It was quite weird and they took some prising apart, and a strip of one leaf remained 'welded' to the other. I expected to find some caterpillar that had cocooned itself in there but there seemed to be absolutely nothing. Strange.



The same story of clean foliage applies to my globe beet which is without doubt the cleanest i've ever seen thanks to regular applications with Decis. This bed is for a show in less than two weeks and some of them are already grapefruit size but there are several that give me confidence of getting a good set of three.

My first sowing of Stenner runner beans are really motoring up the metal rods and I have another batch of plants to go in the next week or so.

And my first batch of peas for the National look as if they're ready for planting but reading my notes from the Ian Simpson talk last year he plants his after 27 days! As I don't have my own experiences to call on yet I shall follow this information to the letter which means they are going in this Friday! Another batch will go in a week later and hopefully from 22 plants I can muster up the 12 pods required for an entry at Llangollen.....there's a lot of pest and fungus fighting between now and then though!

Last night I uprooted all my pathetic Cedrico (bar one plant that had turned green again!) and went to get some rooted cuttings from my very old pal Ian Taylor in Nuneaton. Whilst there I had a goosey gander at his allotment where he had some quite impressive onions and celery. It will be nice to have some competition at the local shows. He won't beat me though.

Anyway, this morning at 5.30am I was to be found replanting these new Cedrico. Examination of the outgoing plants showed me that the roots had barely got through the compost in the bottomless pots so my theory of them getting their roots into dry manure flies out of the window. When I cut the stems they were fresh green so that means it wasn't verticillium wilt. On reflection and having spoken to John Trim I now think my plants got a chill just after planting out which has thrown them out of kilter.I tried to plant early in order to make sure I had plenty to choose from at Llangollen where I felt I had a genuine chance of getting in the tickets. Not any more but at least I should now be back in business for Malvern and Westminster.

So all in all things are looking pretty good although I now have to pass inspection from Dave Thornton who has never visited my garden before but who is due in the next week or two. I think there are a few things that will impress him although he'll never admit it.