London calling

Next up is my 4th Clash (see how clever I was there!?) with Dave Thornton at the RHS Westminster Show a week today. This is an absolutely stunning venue in which to stage vegetables and if you can make the effort the rewards are good as the RHS give very good prize money across the classes, not just in the big collections. Thanks to a website www.parkatmyhouse.com i've managed to find a parking spot at a local pub for 10 quid a day (you can claim this back) so I shall be driving into London in the early hours in order to avoid the congestion charge. Leesa will be travelling down on the train later on in the morning as there will definitely be no room in the car for her this time around.




The reason for this is i've entered 35 classes including 5 collections in the hope of clawing back some of the points difference between myself and the Derby Dingbat. He currently leads by a seemingly unbridgeable 716 to 351 but hopefully i've got a few tricks up my sleeve as Westminster has classes for things like squash (of which I have a nice specimen), turnips, brussel sprouts, red cabbage, cylindrical beet (I have 4 drums of these to empty out!), loose leaf lettuce (my current speciality!), courgettes and chard. When I informed the Thornquat of all my plans his smug face quickly changed and I know he's looking for late rule changes as we go to press just in case. Having said all this he usually picks up a rook of red cards at this show, especially if the Welsh boys don't turn up as happened last year. Therefore I don't doubt that Medwyn will be taking his photo again for GN....yawn!

As well as my Westminster preps i'm also in the process of digesting the NVS Judges' Guide for my impending exam this Saturday. Because Midland Branch aren't holding an exam this year i'm having to travel down to Dorchester in southern country-bumkin land so i'll be setting out early for the 200 mile trip. It means I will be not be entering Sturton Show in Lincolnshire for the first time in 12 years. As well as a two hour written paper there is a mock show that you have to judge, coming up with a 1-2-3 in each class. There are two collections A & B that have to be pointed, so i'm hoping that my experience in entering several collections this year and concentrating on the pointage given to each competitor will stand me in good stead for this. I may sleep in the car if i'm too tired afterwards but as there are more village idiots per hectare down south I don't really want to be hanging about after dark.

♫ 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.

Future plans, and holiday prep

Now that Andy Murray has skulked off back to Scotland to work how he can stop letting England down in future my thoughts are turning to my impending holiday. Being away for a fortnight means I shall scarily be relying on my eldest daughter to water my beloved plants and quite frankly I'm very nervous. Last time I entrusted her with this task for a short weekend walking break I came back to a greenhouse full of dead and dying plants. All I can say is that should I come back to a similar scene of carnage I shall devote this blog to naming and shaming her, including posting several embarrassing photographs from her youth. You have been warned! This is a big year for me and I don't want to put any pressure on but rest assured my success or failure all depends on you! And stop leaving anonymous postings sticking up for foxes!

I shall be leaving a daily instruction rota for the different watering and feeding which should be simple to follow even for a non-hort! In previous years my small onions have needed to be harvested once they reach 3.25" dia. whilst I have been away, but as they were planted later this year I should be back home in time to carry out that task. The main thing is making sure the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines in the greenhouses get watered each evening. The tap roots are now well down and can manage on water that falls from the sky so they can be left well alone. Everything else will be given a good drenching before I go and unless you get a scorcher whilst I'm gone (I sincerely hope not!) then they should last until I return with my gorgeous body tanned and relaxed.....but no doubt quite a bit fatter!

Thanks to modern technology she can text me a photo of any potential problems so that I can advise her whilst I'm lounging in the sun reading Kitchen Garden or on the beach looking at the various pairs of Table Daintys on display and assessing them for size, shape, colour, condition and uniformity.

Talking of marrows, this weekend I do need to get my Blyton Belles planted against stout sticks and frameworks. They are small plants as I have sown them later this season to cater for the likes of Malvern as I have found the plants running out of steam by mid-September in the past. Les Stothard used to sow in early July for an early October show but I think my mid-June sowing will suffice. I shall place each plant onto a dollop of well rotted muck and leave a shallow 'dish' in the soil so that the water gets straight to the roots. The plants are trained up the poles and then along horizintally so that the fruits hang down away from the foliage. More on this in August.

I hope to take a few photos from the allotment tomorrow evening where my pumpkins have been planted. I also have a 100 or so onions of various variety, some sweetcorn, courgettes, and butternut squashes. The ground has been baked hard these last few weeks and watering is a problem so anything harvested from there is merely for the pot.

Finally, here's to Germany. If they beat the Argies tonight I'll be one step closer to winning my 11-1 bet on them reaching the final. Should be a nice little lump of seed money for next season!

A O Veg

I've tried growing butternut squashes for the past couple of years with little success as the fruits have tended to rot and drop off when still small. This year though the plants have gone mad and I got lots of fruits coming. I entered this pair in the 'any other veg' class at Sileby picking up a 1st.