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.

Cosy Powell drumming home

I was talking to my good mate Craven Morehead the other day (great looking bloke, superb grower, massive cock) and he has asked me to help him do a book on growing to show as there isn’t a decent one out there that appeals to novices and experienced growers alike. Admittedly there is one by a chap called Derek Brooks (hey I wonder if he’s the same arsewipe ‘D Brooks’ who put negative feedback on Craven’s Carrots at Dawn reviews on Amazon?) but quite frankly I’ve had more enjoyable and interesting days watching a freshly painted wall dry whilst having Hitler’s Mein Kampf read out to me. I did have a copy of it but it really was so shit I gave it away so there’s a definite market out there for a book on the hobby that isn’t coma inducing.

All in all we haven’t had too bad a Summer I reckon, although there will always be someone in deepest, darkest Ingleton that will never be satisfied with the weather. In fact, if wet fannies were falling from the sky and landing on his face he’d probably moan about the taste. Yes, we had that really hot spell in late June/early July when the whole country was sweating like a Scotsman watching Crimewatch, but we’ve also had some decent rain showers so there should be some good stuff at the shows over the next few weeks. This is sure to make winning a ticket at the highest level shows even more difficult so growers will have to be really critical about their exhibits. If there are any faults then you’ve probably got no chance as the judges at that level will be micro-analysing every last vegetable in their deliberations. A tiny scratch on your cucumber could be the difference between first and second or even no ticket at all so whilst everything is now growing well in all probability, there are still things you can be doing to make sure your stuff is as perfect as you can make it. This involves daily checking, constant vigilance and attention to detail. At lots of village shows and certain NVS shows just north of the Isle of Wight you can probably chuck any old shit down and win however.

I visited Marcus Powell’s allotments in Buckinghamshire last night and he is most definitely going to be in amongst the tickets as he has some fabulous looking stuff. Last season he won the prestigious collection class with this display, so apologies in advance if you’re eating.

His blanch leeks in particular stood out yesterday, and his celery weren’t far behind, with several sowings at different levels of progress to cover the many shows he does. It was interesting to listen to him as we went through his different crops talking about what he does with each one, we all do things slightly differently but there’s always something we can learn to make things better, so listening to another grower is one of the most worthwhile things you could do if you want to win that elusive red card.

I was gratified to see that his caulis and runner beans for Malvern were at the same stage as mine, as my caulis had been decimated by pigeons shortly after planting out but have now recovered pretty well. My runners seemed to be painfully slow this season, but again were on a par with Marcus’. However, he had some superb runners just starting to crop for the Midlands Branch Championships at Shrewsbury next week and the thing that struck me most were the length of his flower trusses, they were well over a foot long. Mine get to 8 inch if I’m lucky. Must be different soils, or the half strength Viagra he feeds them on. He takes the other half to stop himself falling out of bed.

One of the many jobs I shan’t be missing from next year is growing quality marrows to show. This involves tying them up canes inclined at an angle so that the developing fruits hang down away from the coarse foliage, much as you would do for cucumbers. Making the framework for the canes is a job I invariably rush, which means they often collapse at inopportune moments. After high winds yesterday I suffered a breakage in a couple of the canes high up which will require fiddly repair work whilst getting scratched up to buggery from the plants themselves. However, it hasn’t affected this rather superb looking fruit (var. Blyton Belle), which is rugger ball sized, and I have several others grapefruit sized which should give me a matching set for Welsh Branch in early September. Growing like this means they colour up all the way around and you don’t get that flat discoloured side you do when they grow on the ground.

Shit happens

Pigeons. What is the point of them? No, really, what is the actual fucking point of fucking bastard fucking pigeons? I’ve always been troubled by the feathered fucktards whenever I’ve had young brassicas planted and had to resort to all manner of defence systems, but a couple of years ago settled on sticks placed around the plants at random angles, after reading that pigeons don’t like things above their heads as they think it might be a predator. I was highly sceptical at first but fuck me backwards it actually seemed to work. Or at least it did, because this year the little shitbags have obviously got over their fear and are eating my caulis with a vengeance. Next year when I have more time I am purchasing an air rifle with a view to killing as many of the fuckers as I possibly can, purely for fun, and fuck the animal lovers a few doors up, they can kiss my pimply hairy arse. Whether my caulis can recover in time from this is debatable. The pigeon attack, not my hairy arse.

Potato scab. What is the actual fucking point of potato scab? I’ve sucked fucking reservoirs dry this summer in an attempt to keep scab off my spuds but during a furtle deep into one of my potato bags last night the first fucking potato that I fucking came across had more fucking scabs on it than Jim Carrey’s poxy cock. It just goes to prove that the cockwomble from Derby who told me about giving spuds plenty of water at tuber initiation (is that even a genuine fucking term?) doesn’t know what the fuck he’s on about.

I’m going to have to get my blood pressure tested before the footy season starts! My first batch of runner beans was planted out 3 weeks ago to cover my local show and hopefully Welsh Branch a week after but all my sowings since then have struggled to germinate for some weird reason, despite being the same seed and being treated the same way, sown quite deep in 3” square pots. I can only assume the tender new shoots got ‘cooked’ in the recent heatwave before they were able to emerge. Having used up all my stock I was forced to appeal to that Liverscum supporting, filthy photo texting fellow grower Mark Perry to see if he had any spare seed. He has very kindly sent me some seed which I hope will cover my later shows if I get them in quickly. He employs a bean lettering system similar to the Plumbs but I don’t know why as they all look the fucking same to me.

Meanwhile, scientists and keyboard warriors the World over are shitting themselves about a little bit of ice that’s come away from Antarctica (it’s roughly the size of Cyprus apparently), prophesying the end of the World and blaming Donald Trump for it. Now don’t get me wrong, Trump’s a total cunt, but when you’re hurtling through space at 67,000 miles an hour on a huge oscillating rock on a trajectory that is not fixed from one year to the next shit like this is gonna happen and there aint fuck all mankind can do about it. So quit whining and help me kill some pigeons you underarm dreadlocked, new-age hippy tosspots.

Malvern 2012 part 2

At Saturday's AGM the NVS voted against any change in the quantities called for in classes such as long carrots, parsnips and blanch leeks. In fact the motion was soundly thrashed with only 11 of us voting for change. There had been some powerful lobbying going on behind closed doors so the status quo rules the roost for now. When I put my hand up to support the motion it looked as if I was asking where the toilet was. When there was a show of hands in opposition to the motion the gust of wind blew Gareth Cameron's wig out of the window. Whilst I believe it is a mistake we have to take it on the chin and move on.


Because I didn't do much showing this year I was able to actually get a set of 5 parsnips on the bench, something I've always dreamed of doing. This will now probably not happen again for a long time as I go back to supporting my local shows with entries as I just won't be able to spare 5 for one class. But I managed it, and I was happy with how they looked despite a tiny spot of carrot fly damage on a couple of them. Mine are on the left of this shot, those on the right being the 2nd placed set of Ian Stocks.

At every show an exhibitor unveils a dish of veg that stops everyone in right their tracks and when I saw Ian's parsnips being unveiled on Friday evening I stuck my neck out and said 'best in show'. They were huge roots and absolutely pristine white, and I wanted them to be mine so much that my bollocks throbbed, so it was with a huge amount of surprise that I came back after judging to find he'd only been awarded 2nd place behind Andrew Jones. Andrew's set were a superb exhibit but I didn't feel they were a patch on Ian's, as they were a bit rough and knobbly in places. Apparently Ian lost out because his shoulders were square-ish in profile when compared to Andrew's which admittedly were very uniformly round when viewed end on. This was really harsh, and in my opinion the point or two that Ian might have lost on shape and form can't have been enough to negate the incredible quality and condition. But that's life and we have to live with a judge's decision. Ian later later threw his dolly out of the pram when his vegetable animal was also adjudged 2nd to Mo Robinson's red onion cat.....named 'Simon the big pussy'. Another Northern comedienne who is well and truly in my sights from now on!


I also staged a set of 3 celery (centre) which when compared to those of Ray Sale (left) and Jim Pearson (right) didn't disgrace themselves either.

You really do learn something at every show and I was disappointed that I had to remove a few split stalks when preparing them Friday morning. Colin Higgs is a good celery grower and he advised that I have to remove them as soon as I see them, and get all round the plant at least once a fortnight. This allows the next layer of stalks to fill out. I planted all my celery against a fence meaning I could only tend them from the '2 o-clock to the 10 o-clock' position. Next year I shall plant them in another raised bed where I can get at them the full 360 degrees.

I must make a special mention of Marcus Powell who won the inaugural marrow class. I felt the NEC had boobed by asking for 3 rather than two, knowing that it takes a lot of room to grow marrows along rods in order to let the fruits hang down, but Marcus managed it with this cracking set of Bush Baby.

I was hoping to get a set of 3 Blyton Belle but as in previous years I found this variety very shy to produce a quantity of good shaped fruits despite growing 5 plants in this way so I have decided to have sex with Marcus if he'll give me some of his prize seed.

Marcus also came a splendid 4th in the runner bean class that was won as usual by Sherie Plumb, her set also being judged the best exhibit in show.

More photos, reports and offers of bodily abuse in return for champion strain seed to follow over the coming days.

Bummer!

It took me a while but I finally managed to bench a set of runner beans and cucumbers at a high level of showing at Harrogate over the weekend. Whilst I wasn't placed I was very happy with how they looked and they certainly didn't look to be in the wrong company.

My cu's were much bigger than everyone else's but as the only two I had ready I had to go with them. They were 17" long and about 3" diameter.

One of these had been cut 5 days previously, wrapped in clingfilm and stored in the fridge whilst I waited for the other one to catch up. The one cut earlier kept in great condition but the second one didn't quite catch up in length, being about 3/8" short so I would have lost points for uniformity. One also had a strange wiggly line etched into it about an inch long at the flower end which I think was the work of a tiny snail I found when the fruit was quite small, so again I lost points on condition. And I managed to retain the flowers without having to glue them on, although I was convinced this wouldn't be the case as the roads around Harrogate appeared to have many potholes. I managed to hit every one in the dark and I was felt certain they they would be shaken off before I got to the showground. I need a set of 3 for Malvern and have 4 contenders all growing away nicely, about an inch or so different in length, the longest being 14" already. I won't leave the longest to grow so long or so big this time (I'll settle for 16"), so that I have plenty of time to let the others catch up, now that I know the clingfilm trick works nicely.

My runner beans weren't world beaters but Dave Thornton was impressed and said they were a tidy set.

Well done to my chum John Ellis for coming 4th in this class. I'd actually started picking my beans nearly two weeks before the show, storing them at an incline on a pane of glass set in a tray with the stalks only in a puddle of water. You couldn't tell the difference between the ones picked earlier or the day before so that's another important tip to be used in future, my thanks to John Trim for sharing this one. I have entered the National at Malvern but as I'll need 15 beans here that may well be a tall order. I settled at 15" rather than trying to be clever and getting longer beans that were showing signs of being 'beany'. I have quite a few about 12" long on the vines so I hope to start cutting in the next few days.

My french beans 'Prince' are all starting to come at once and this is another class i've entered at the National. I was speaking to former champ Ronnie Jackson over the weekend (he supplied me the seed) and he felt my timing was cock on. What I need to do now is to keep banging the water into the pots so that they don't get a check in growth and start to run to seed i.e. go beany. I won't try to get superlong pods, and think i'll settle at 8", cutting them when they reach length and storing in a similar manner to my runners.

This is the set that won at Harrogate, benched by my pal Paul Wlodarczak.

Paul had a stunningly successful weekend, winning the tap root class and coming a tantalisingly close 2nd in the National Carrot Championships. He let slip that he wasn't intending to show next year due to a prior family commitment. Needless to say he is now very tempted to have a go at Harrogate next year when it stages the National Championships. How can you even begin to think about not doing it next season Paul?

Peter Glazebrook once again broke the record for the heaviest onion at Harrogate, raising the benchmark to a staggering 18lbs 1oz. Peter also won all the other 'giant' classes so he had a very lucrative weekend.

Dan came 3rd in the heaviest marrow class and I was very amused to see that he and Paul Bastow put 'Simon' down on the variety cards. Morecambe and fucking Wise they aint!

I couldn't resist having a quick photocall with my namesake at the breakdown however!

Dan actually spent Sunday continually rolling his tongue back up into his mouth and causing concern to the security guards looking after Carol Vorderman, after he took hundreds of photos of her backside! My only comment is I'd like to see the size of the shoehorn used to get her buttocks into these jodphurs! I've seen less dramatic dead heats in a zeppelin race! I know arse botox injections are all the rage these days but I think she may have overdone it a little!

Making concrete plans

Despite this season being the worst in living memory for growing veg you really can't be too downhearted, especially when you see the paralympians doing their stuff against all the odds. No man has any right to feel sorry for himself when you compare yourself to them. For that reason I will always try and enjoy the actual growing part and see each season as a different set of challenges, and if you get something on the benches then all well and good. If you don't, then as my Scottish Man Utd supporting pal Frank Taylor would say....there's always next year! (He says that a lot actually as his wife keeps beating him).

Similarly, winning is not the be all and end all......EXCEPT when it comes to next weekend's Annual Bullshit Bloggers Challenge at Harrogate for which the clock is now ticking! I could happily accept my wife beating me, but to even consider being beaten by the Yorkshire ferret fiddlers makes my knackers quiver. All summer they've been going on about the amount of Yorkshiremen winning medals at the Olympics but they soon shut up when I pointed out that most of them had to be trained at Loughborough University! Similarly both the Yorkshire backward boys have learned all they know from me so beating them should be easy enough.

This year's BBC is being contested in the 3 x 2 class, where you have to bench 3 sets of veg, 2 specimens of each and unlike the National they don't have to be 20 pointers so you can use good 18 pointers such as tomatoes, stump carrots and cucumbers. I already know what my set of 3 will consist of, and it should be good enough to beat the banjo playing hicks. Each set of 2 veg will be scored by the judge, giving a total points value so even though we're unlikely to get in the tickets (like last year in the 6x1 class) at least we can deduce a 1-2-3 from our own little competition. If anyone else fancies competing it's 10 quid in, winner takes the pot. You don't have to be a blogger, just talk complete and utter bullcrap like we do!

Here is the winner of the class in 2010 grown by Ian Simpson.

Harrogate also holds the UK Carrot Championships where the requirement is for 3 stumps and 3 long carrots. I came a creditable 8th last season so I'll be having another crack this time around. I've only grown 21 long carrots so I may well have to pull half of those to get my set of 3, although the others may well go in my 6x1 and 3x2 entries. I used Ian Simpson's simple mix this year so it will be interesting to see if I've improved on the efforts of recent years. The tops aren't great but the shoulders seem promising.

There is also a class for 3 tap roots, chosen from a parsnip, long carrot, long beet and stump carrot, one specimen of each. These type of classes are a great idea for using up those single specimens that don't match any others and would otherwise go to waste and for that reason it's a very popular class. In 2010 tap root specialist Graeme Watson won with this entry.

I'm going to have a crack at runner beans at Harrogate as my bean fence is heavily laden with developing beans, so they should be cock-on for next weekend. I shall start cutting them in the next few days so that I have plenty to make my final selection from. I won't try and get them too long, but will settle for 16" so that they are fresh and haven't started getting 'beany'. You only need 9 so it's a lot easier than the National where you need 15.

Having snipped off all developing cucumber fruits until I had large plants, trained 4' vertically before they started being trained horizontally, my plants are now absolutely dripping with fruits, so these should be coming good for Harrogate and Malvern also.

The trick now is to make sure they don't come into contact with the foliage as a small scratch now will be a large blemish when the fruit is fully formed. I pack bits of polystyrene sheet between some fruits as they develop to protect them from getting scratched.I also need to remember to duck when i'm in the greenhouse so that I don't knock the flowers off, because I shan't be able to stick them back on with superglue 'cos that is like cheating dude!

I've now just about settled down after our holiday and back into the humdrum daily routine of normal life and work. I've mentioned my bowel movements on here from time to time and I know you all like to keep up to date with them so I'll just mention the iffy toasted sandwich at Marrakech Airport that caused me some close calls at the weekend. There were certainly some interesting psychedelic botty yodels I have to admit. Still, I would rather have it that way than the other, and I well remember the severe constipation I used to suffer from many years ago when I worked with my dad in the building trade. It got so bad that in the end I had to go to the doctor. He advised me to stop wiping my arse with the cement bags.

Rain still hoggs the headlines.

This just goes to show what bollocks organic gardening is. On Gardener's World Friday Night, a special feature from Hampton Court Palace, avowed ecomentalist Monty Don was interviewing a beardy weirdy organicalist who put forward the idea that ants hate mint, and that if you put a sprig or two of mint near an ants' nest they'll fuck off elsewhere (that bit was bleeped out...honest!). I bring this up because I uncollared my leeks at the weekend to turn the DPC collars round 90 degrees to the next length, and inside one of the collars, more or less the full length of the leek barrel was a perfect column of soil surrounding the plant, an ants nest with an intricate system of tunnels and hundreds of large ant eggs. It did look magnificent I have to say but I washed it off with a dilute solution of Jeyes Fluid expecting the ants to bugger off but they started to rebuild the nest almost immediately. Remembering the advice proferred by Bill Oddie's mate on GW I went to my mint patch to be greeted by....yes you've guessed it.....ants crawling all over it! I think companion planting and organic gardening is a bit like Chelsea FC........it all looks rosy on the outside but when you delve deeper you see what a rotten, stinking thing it really is.


As for my leeks I am mildly happy with their progress although I have noticed a seed head starting to emerge from one of them. I had expected this as the growth at the top started to elongate (see photo below). This can be due to a sudden growth spurt induced by a deluge of water i'm told, but is also a fair indicator it's about to go to seed, and the latter has now happened.

I may have another 3 or 4 that appear to be going the same route, but the majority look sound thus far. Earlier in the year I attended a talk by John Soulsby and he ventured that leeks go to seed because of a lack of water and not because of temperature extremes. Well, these leeks certainly haven't suffered a drought recently, so I can only assume I didn't give sufficent water to some of them when the were under the lights in Winter or in the greenhouse during Spring. I can accept this small failure rate and the rest of them look good, and I now have 18" collars on them.

My ground is absolutely sodden, wetter even than a whore's knickers, and I had to run for cover to escape another amazing downpour Sunday afternoon. This is now quite comfortably the worst year weather wise that I can ever recall for growing exhibition veg and as I write I'm awaiting yet another deluge after yet another 'amber alert' was issued for our area. Lots of growers all over Britain are bemoaning the lack of sunshine so anyone winning a red ticket this season will have done exceptionally well. I'm now starting to fear for onions in the ground, the Vento and onions sets 'Setton' that I'm banking on for a set of 4 for the Millennium collection class at Malvern. Everything else should be fine (certainly anything under cover) but I don't think we need much more precipitation, and when the sun shines you can almost hear the plants growing. My Blyton Belle marrows have started to extend and I am now tying them to the vertical supports. I won't be allowing any fruit to form for the first 3' or so. The NVS have included a class for marrows in this year's National Championships, and despite the fact they've made a huge error in calling for a dish of 3 rather than 2 and expecting novices to enter, I shall be attempting to bench a set.

My runner beans were sown late with half an eye on getting a set for Malvern but it won't be the end of the World if I fail as i've always considered runner beans a bonus entry. These are just starting to get going now.

My globe beet 'Pablo', another requirement for the Millennium class, are at the seedling stage in this old water tank. I have other rows alongside my leek bed so I should have plenty to choose from.

My phone has been bleeping like mad with email blight alerts so i'm really glad I sprayed with Bayer Disease Control as a preventative measure. In dry moments (!) I've re-sprayed the foliage and so far so good. It's quite interesting watching the online blight map as the little 'x marks the spots' creep ever closer to your postcode area. So far we've only had notifications of full Smith periods rather than confirmed cases in LE11 but it's nice to know you're prepared.

I had set up my usual yearly crop of Kestrel potatoes in buckets for a local show last Saturday, the idea being that I could bring them indoors if frost was forecast in Spring. In the end time issues prevented me from competing in the show but as it's been 14 weeks since setting them away I thought I'd best start drying them off as the compost is absolutely sodden. I have 8 buckets in all and I laid them on their sides to let any surplus water run out and prevent any more rain getting in. A quick furtle in the compost failed to reveal any decent tubers anyway, but they may be a little deeper so we'll have to see. I don't get great shaped spuds in the rigid buckets but they were always good enough to win locally, so these may end up in the kitchen or for trug displays.

And my onions in pots continue to swell and the foliage still seems to have a fair bit of vigour so I'm wondering how these will end up as I'm currently averaging 16.5-17.5" circumference. I've never had onions this big at this stage of the season before and I've been advised to forget about the 1.5kg class and just let them grow. The only concern I have is being able to get a matching set shape-wise, as when you look at them all closely there are a variety of different forms, some squat, some rounded and some a more elongated flask shape (the shape I personally prefer). There is one that is bigger than the rest and I think could end up 4 or 5 lbs which will make up one of my set of 6 at Harrogate where you only need a single specimen. I've cut right back on the watering now to encourage ripening and swelling, and also to minimise my chances of them getting botrytis or other soft rots. Having the foliage supported with no chance of it flopping over and thus ending all future growth really allows you to squeeze out every last drop of weight potential.

And finally, I have to say that I was unashamedly rooting for Roger Federer in Sunday's Wimbledon tennis final but Andy Murray's tears at the end almost had me getting my glass eye out for a polish. If he'd only say sorry for wearing that Paraguay shirt before the 2006 World Cup Finals I might even start to support the miserable little snivelling sod. I mean....I always support Scotland when they get to the World Cup Finals! When I say I support Scotland......I mean that my grandad once told me that his great grandad supported them in a World Cup Finals once.

Getting kinky with Sherie

An unexpected bonus on Wednesday night was to hear Sherie Plumb also talk about runner beans. It was quite reassuring to see that she grows her beans up 8' inclined bean poles in the garden and there was no special set up or technique. She doesn't thin the trusses to one bean as legend has it, but does snip off any that are unduly bent or that will never make good show beans. All side shoots are nipped out as well as any flower trusses below 18" up the plant. Sometimes you will get two flower trusses in the same leaf axil....nip out the weakest one. As the beans grow you may need to secure them with string upwards to the bean pole to stop the weight of the bean bending the truss down, as once this happens then it stops growing. Other than that its water, water, water onto well cultivated, fertile soil, regularly dowsing the foliage also to mimic its natural habitat in the rain forests of central and southern america.




I would love to be able to get anywhere near beans like these that won her this year's National. And she was adamant that she doesn't have any curling tongues to give them that unique and characteristic kink at the end. She reckons they go that way because they grow so fast, although she assured us that she gets plenty of beans with no kink on the end.

Her pre-show picking can start a week or more before the show, when she will decide on a length and start picking as and when that length is achieved. Each bean is then wrapped in a damp towel against a wooden batten, put into a polythene bag then stored in a fridge...obviously not a freezer! Final selection is made the day before the show. She made it sound oh so simple!

I have a dream

This showing season isn't quite over but I've already made a written note of my initial plans for next season. As I'd always promised Leesa that I wouldn't be showing during our 25th anniversary year I had intended to take a complete year out in 2012. Since making the pledge she agreed (nay encouraged!) for me to do SOME showing but just not for the end of August/early September period when we intend to be out of the country on the honeymoon we never had 24 years ago! With this in mind I have therefore decided to throw virtually everything I have at the Malvern National in 2012, and specifically the collection of 6. I've always dreamed about getting a large collection benched in a National and so i'm going to take the opportunity to have a go next year and fulfil that dream. Having entered collections of sorts at Harrogate and Westminster I was able to see that I wouldn't be disgraced and so I may as well have a crack. I won't have to worry about leaving produce for later shows and can pull as many carrots and parsnips as I want to get the two sets of 3.

You might think it's complete madness to throw so much at something you have no chance of getting a ticket in (the place cards will be contested by a list of 5 or 6 suspects) but it's part of an ongoing 'apprentiship'. I made sure I observed how the top guys displayed their collections at Llangollen and Malvern with a variety of metal frameworks and boards and have made a note of the heights and girth I achieved with my own leeks and celery this season, as well as the length and diameter of my parsnips and long carrots so I'm not overambitious when I manufacture my own display boards during the Winter months. My collections at Westminster and Harrogate were all displayed in flat mode but for a National you need to be getting your leeks and celery vertical. Here is Jeff Parson's winning collection at this year's National.

I shall also not be bothering with runner beans in 2012. None of us in the family eat them and they take up a lot of room on the plot and as I won't be needing them for local shows I'll give them a miss for a year. Instead I will be using the land vacated to have another go at cauliflowers. I've never succeeded in growing great caulis for show and I don't really understand why as I have reasonably deep, fertile, moisture retentive soil. Jim Pearson is giving a talk on growing caulis for show at the Scottish Branch seminar in November so I shall be taking detailed notes. Mind you I took detailed notes last year on growing f***ing peas and look where that got me! I know a lot of people will disagree but I believe peas and caulis should be worth more than 20 points as getting them timed to perfection for show day takes much more skill than leeks, onions, parsnips and long carrots in my humble opinion.



Also, I won't ever be twatting about growing things like pak choi, radishes, turnips and spring onions again. I only bothered as I was trying to win a wager against Dave Thornton and needed a lot of these things for Westminster. Not only did they mean I took my eye off the ball with the 'major veg' in certain cases but I never actually timed them for the bench at London anyway so that was a monumental waste of time and energy. In 2012 I will be concentrating on 18 and 20 pointer vegetables, trying to time my entire season for one weekend in late September! How hard can it be?

Seagrave 2011

I never cease to be amazed by the residents of this small village as they bid silly money for each lot at the after show auction. I've been attending this show for over 15 years now and whilst the flower exhibits were understandably down this year it was still a quality show and a privilege to help Kay Bint organise it.

It's a few years since I managed to win most points in show but I finally cracked it this year thanks to 12 wins. I also won best exhibit in show for the very first time with my Top Tray entry. My Sweet Candle are getting better with each passing week.

In a moment of huge controversy I also picked up a bonus win in the fruit cake class beating many women, including my wife into third place. In a particularly squalid case of sour grapes she complained that my cake was burnt! I mean....honestly! If I was fairly beaten I pray I'd show a little more decorum and accept defeat with good grace!

Errrr...you still ok to do me a trug for Harrogate this weekend my darling?

Problem solving on a daily basis......

This interweb mullarkey is a wonderful thing. Once upon a time, pre-WWW, if you had a problem with one or more of your crops you 'lost' a season until showtime when you might be able to tell a fellow grower of your problem and hope that he came up with a solution for you to try the next season, then and only then. Nowadays however, a grower has access to all sorts of useful information and can often find a solution to the problem with a quick google. However, the best source of info I find by far is the NVS's own forum where several of the country's top growers have sod all better to do and are usually to be found lurking on there waiting to answer your questions. So if any of you aren't members I would urge you to part with your 17 quid and join up in 2012 as you need to be a member to access the forum. If you don't find it immediately worthwhile I will personally take it upon myself to refund you 17p.




It was on the forum that I came across this little gem of an idea offered up by NVS legend and pickled shallot maestro John Trim. A conversation 'thread' was started about the best way to store runner beans in the run up to a show. I've always wrapped mine up in damp towels, picking them three or four days before a show as they reach my selected length. However, I've always found this method quite unsatisfactory and never seemed to be able to get enough specimens to make more than a set of 6 when I may also want another set of 6 for a Top Tray, even though I grow a fairly substantial fence of 25 plants or so. JT mentioned his method of inclining the beans in a tray with the stalk end being submerged in water. Therefore I came up with this set-up, a pane of glass angled in a plastic tray so that the beans all have their toes in the small amount of water at the bottom.

And believe me this really does seem to work. At the weekend I won the runner bean class with a uniform set of 15 inchers, and managed to include an even better set of 16 inchers on my Top Tray that scored 15 out of 20 (although on that basis believe me Sherie Plumb's beans would score 53 out of 20!) The thing is all the 16 inchers were picked nearly 10 days before and were still as fresh as when they were first cut. I was very impressed and will certainly be adopting this method from now on.

Also on the forum JT posted his method of preparing pickled 'onions' which he said were the tastiest you'll ever put in your mouth. I said I didn't believe him and he'd have to prove it, and fair play he presented me with a jar at the National. These are without doubt the best pickled onions (actually shallots) I have ever tasted, not too sharp, pleasantly sweet with a mildly hot aftertaste. My youngest daughter and I have now polished off said jar having eaten them all like sweets for the past few days, so i'm going to have to make my own. JT's recipe is as follows:



One kilo of shallots-I use Hative de Niort (nothing but the best) but pickling onions will do.

900 mls of white vinegar-I use Sarsens

6 oz of white sugar

One red & one green sweet peppers-cut into strips

Sprigs of fresh Tarragon

Teaspoon of pickling spice to each jar.

THE METHOD

Put the vinegar into a saucepan with the sugar & heat until the sugar dissolves. Put to one side to cool. Peel the shallots (best done the day before bottling) put them into a bowl, sprinkle with plenty of salt & fill the bowl with cold water. Leave the shallots in the brine for 24 hours. Then drain off the brine & rinse with cold water. Tip the shallots out onto a tea towel to dry. When perfectly dry fill sterilised jars with shallots & add some of the peppers, a sprig of Tarragon & the teaspoon of pickling spice. Top up with the white vinegar. Give each jar a plastic cover & screw on the lid. They will be ready to eat 8 weeks from bottling.


This weekend I have another local show in the village of Seagrave which I always enjoy as it's a huge amount of fun. Then next week I shall be doing a daily countdown to the impending Bullshit Bloggers Challenge at Harrogate when I take on the might of the Yorkshire Homo contingent of Bastow and Unsworth (plus any others who want to take us on!) in the NVS Northern Branch's set of 6. A year's bragging rights are on the table as well as some ten quid side bets. Securicor will be on hand to follow me home.

Go go goch

With my first ever foray into the upper eschelons of the National Championships now less than three weeks away I've just about finished my transportation boxes so that I will at least look as if I know what i'm doing when I turn up, rather than some ill-prepared oik. In truth i've been promising myself I'd do something like this for several years after many near flattened veg experiences and stressful journeys to shows. I now have separate wooden boxes for shallots, 250g onions, peas, cucumbers and tomatoes. Before Llangollen I am also going to be making myself a larger, longer box for my long carrots and parsnips and will be trying to make it in such a way that the other boxes fit inside it so that I only have one box to carry into the show, although I may need the Welsh Guards to help me carry it! Now I can drive to shows like Lewis Hamilton rather than Lady Hamilton, knowing my veg is safely packed and cannot roll about or have other objects fall on them. It will be a huge relief.

As for the veg I intend to take it would appear that I was a liiiiiittle hasty threatening the Scots with total pea domination. Despite my marestail brew and suffering a bollocking off the missus for using her best saucepan to produce it my peas have started to get mildew! I will now have to eat humble pie in Llangollen and polish Mr Stocks' shoes with my tongue each morning at the hotel. He has told me to pick off any mildew infected leaves and hope that it doesn't get to the peas before the show. Personally, I think the mildew will win the race.

I've almost tied all my shallots but I have a dilemma with the picklers. I have 18 from which to get my set of 15 but I fear one or two may be going a bit soft and I don't want to risk a 'NAS' (not as schedule) card at Llangollen. I have some other really good shaped solid bulbs that are measuring about 30.4mm on my digital micrometer so I'm going to try and get an NVS shallot ring to see if they pass through. They have to pass through easily under their own weight and the use of a hammer to get them through is strictly frowned upon apparently. I'm hoping that the ring is machined to over 30mm and as I noticed several winning sets at last year's NVS and RHS shows where the bulbs appeared to be well over 30mm so I'm hoping I'll get away with it. In theory the judge will pass each shallot through the ring and 'NAS' any exhibit with any non-conforming bulb. Indeed, I've asked Dave Thorton if I can go over to his house and put my bulbs through his ring!

I also hope to be taking a set of french beans and runner beans with me. The runner beans are already cropping fantastically well so it's a case of picking off all the eatable pods before they get 'beany' which means the plants stop cropping so productively. Those that are a couple of inches long this weekend should be perfect in two weeks time so I'll earmark at least a couple of dozen with bits of string and tease them to grow straight, maybe even cutting off their near neighbours so that all the energy in the truss goes into just one bean and that they hang down clear of the foliage and don't go bent, which is easy to do thanks to my sturdy angled bean fence. I shall need a set of 15 anything up to 18" long, all like peas (sniff!) in a pod. It's a long time since I won with runner beans even at local level so i'm being an ambitious arsehole yet again!

As I have drastically cut down on my local shows I'm also going to try and pull a set of 5 'Sweet Candle' stumps. If the foliage is anything to go by then I should have some good'uns deep down in yonder sand bed.

Sadly, without x-ray vision I'll never know until Friday 26th August long after my entry form has been posted! I just hope the stump ends have formed by then as these would only have been in about 19 weeks by Llangollen weekend when in an ideal World they take between 20-22. A fellow NVS grower (and another Scot) is hoping to table a set of 'Abaco' stumps which are the old 'Favourite' shape and have potential to beat 'Sweet Candle'. We shall have our exhibits independently judged after the proper judging (surely neither of us will win a card?!) and the loser buys first pint. It could well turn out to be a weekend of severe Smithyveg buttf***ing at the hands of the Scots, but my pride will hopefully remain intact. Now, I wonder what boot polish tastes like? And does anyone know any good chat-up lines for sheep?