F1 hybrid

My first grandson, Oscar, born at 1.07pm today, 6lbs 4oz.

A grand day out!

Never has man travelled 600 miles in one day and had so much fun before. I know I keep banging on about the NVS but if you're remotely interested in growing veg to show you have to join and throw yourself into their activities. And so it was that Saturday morning found me getting up at 4am and travelling up to the Pentland Science Park just outside Edinburgh to listen to Sherie Plumb give an excellent lecture on how she grows her spuds to almost undeatable standard.

The Scottish Branch of the NVS hold this annual seminar and what an event it is. I came away with a bag full of goodies that you won't be able to find at your garden centres and which I hope will help me in my quest to get a ticket at next year's National.

I made copious notes on Sherie's lecture and the best tips I shall be divulging during 2011. However, I shall be leaving others to try and topple Mrs. Plumb because the main purpose of my visit was to try and glean as much information as I could about growing peas to exhibition standard.

Whilst exhibiting at Westminster Charlie Maisey took me to one side and advised me to concentrate on 4 or 5 veg to try and grow to the highest standard possible. I don't necessarily agree with it as there are certain growers who can just about turn their hand to everything but I know what he means. Why try growing everything reasonably well when you grow a few things exceptionally well? With this in mind I've decided to try and grow peas with a view to getting a set of 12 on the bench at Llangollen in 2011 and will be devoting an obscene amount of effort to them next season.

And this is what I have to beat. Here is Ian Stocks winning set from Dundee this year. As you can see I don't have much to beat as the 4th one from the left is virtually yellow and the two on the far right aren't even peas!!!

I'm joking of course. Speaker Ian Simpson (National Champion twice) felt this set deserved to be considered for best in show but most judges do tend to go for the the big 'show stoppers' such as leeks, onions and parsnips when considering where to award the gong for best veg.

When I informed Dave Thornton today of my ambition to bench a set of peas at Llangollen he said "only poofs grow peas". Having met Mr Stocks at the weekend he is built like a brick shithouse so i'm immensely looking forward to seeing Dave's neck get stretched next August.

Peas are '20 pointers' along with long carrots, parsnips, leeks, onions, caulis and potatoes which reflects how difficult it is to grow them, especially as mildew is a real problem and makes it very difficult to grow them here in England beyond early August. But I have a few tricks up my sleeve thanks to the seminar and my new friends in the north!

Own seed

I've had another iffy year with long carrots and I was at a loss as to why this has been so. I've used the same mix for many years and if anything I've been more meticulous the last couple of seasons in making sure all my ingredients were properly mixed. The boreholes have all been the same size and good quality seed has been used. Whilst pulling carrots for Derby Show last month I even extracted this weird looking specimen which was huge at the top and had no less than 14 three foot long tap roots!!!
















Whilst lying in bed one morning last week something popped up! It suddenly struck me what the problem might be and it's the octopus above that gave me the answer. When I pulled it virtually the whole of the compost 'cone' in the borehole came up with it and it was absolutely dust dry despite all the rain we had recently had.

I'm now thinking the answer may be to water the mix slightly before filling the boreholes. I've always dribbled the mix into the bore holes dry and assumed that by watering the surface the whole bore hole mix would be wetted. If you've ever tried to water compost that has really dried out you will know how difficult it can be, and if you scratch down the top few centimetres you will very often see that it is still dry beneath. I think the compost in all my bore holes, for stumps and long carrots, were just too dry a few inches down despite my watering them during and after germination. I know a few growers will water their mix and add a dash of liquid nutrimate so I will do something like this next season....not too much that it is too wet as I want to be able to sprinkle it easily into the boreholes, but just enough that it won't dry out completely as it evidently did this season.

At Derby David Thornton's allotment buddy Charles Cooper actually beat him in the class for 3 long carrots (much to Dave's annoyance...it was very funny!) and Charles insisted I took his winning set of three and try to grow them on for my own seed. To do this you cut the top 4 inches or so off thus......












......and plant them in a large bucket of compost thus. With a little luck I shall be harvesting my own strain of champion seed next summer with a view to growing these on for show in Olympic year 2012. These are in my greenhouse and will be left to their own devices over winter.















This weekend I am really looking forward to driving up to Scotland for the annual seminar of the Scottish Branch of the National Vegetables Society where Sherie Plumb will be giving a talk on growing potatoes for show. Ian Simpson will be also lecturing on growing peas to show standard which is a good job as I have duly vowed that I will become National pea champion at Llangollen in 2011, thus ending a six thousand year reign by Scottish growers.

In the past I have always managed to grow excellent show standard peas.......in early July! Getting them to look good at the end of August in England is a whole different proposition so I need to learn quickly. God loves a trier!

Again, I would urge anyone remotely interested in growing for show to join the NVS as I will hopefully be getting furnished with a few seeds of championship winning strains of long beet and peas whilst I am at the seminar. I'm always gob-smacked at the generous nature of fellow growers who are often champions at National level and who fall over themselves to give you advice and goodies! Where else do you find that sort of thing in this day and age?

And today's speaker is.....

I've been asked if I'd be interested in giving a talk on growing tomatoes to a group of like minded extremists. It's something I've often thought about doing but at the moment I don't have the facilities or the time. But it's made me think about what I would say if I did have to stand up in front of a group of veg enthusiasts and talk about tommies.


With this in mind I've come up with the following bullet points.

• Varieties.....at the minute Cedrico is the one to beat. Gold Star has thin skins and tends to split easily. Sow indoors mid Feb for August shows and mid March for September shows and beyond. (Midlands UK timings)



• Grow in bottomless pots sunk into the greenhouse border soil. Fill the pots with good quality compost and plant strong, healthy plants, preferably with the first flower truss just visible. Push a strong cane into the pot, down into the border soil at the same time.




• Sink a lemonade bottle upside down into the border soil between each pot. The bottom of the bottle, in effect now the top is cut off creating a sort of funnel. At first watering is into the bottomless plant pot but as the roots get down into the soil water into the lemonade bottles which seeps into the soil going straight to the roots. Each plant will need a good couple of pints each day in mid-summer. The border soil surface needs to be dry towards harvest time. Tomatoes like a hot, dry atmosphere and keeping the soil surface dry helps. It also reduces the risk of moisture marking the skins or fungal infections attacking the plants.

• Two weeks before planting work a generous helping of blood, fish and bone and some seaweed meal into the border soil.



• Tie plants to the canes regularly and pinch out side shoots at 2-3". I also connect all the vertical canes to a horizontal cane about 3' up, which in turn is attached to the greenhouse framework. Too often in the past I've had plants fall over and canes break so now I don't allow this to happen.



• Start feeding when the first tomato on the bottom truss is the size of a pea. I use home made comfrey feed, homemade nettle feed and tomorite used in turn at EVERY watering. Little but often. From early August I now use soot water as a fourth feed. I'm now convinced this improves skin and calyx colour. You only need a dash of this jet black liquid in each can.

• Consider thinning out trusses to give fruits room to swell, by cutting out every other one when small. This will give you fewer, but rounder fruits and is an important consideration when being judged.

• You may also need to support the fruits as a heavily laden truss can rip itself from the main stem. I twine string around the truss and tie to the horizontal cane mentioned above. I find the upper trussses don't need supporting as not only are the fruits smaller there don't seem to be as many fruits on each truss.




• Examine your plants as often as you can to make sure they are looking healthy. Don't panic. You can often mistake the odd discolouration for something serious but I find the odd leaflet will go yellow at the tips. Look out for caterpillar droppings on the upper side of the leaflets. The culprit can often be found above the droppings but can be well hidden so don't give up til you find the f*cker. The south american tomato moth is the culprit and is moving across europe apparently. I found about four last season. The best deterrent is enviromesh over all openings, important if, like me, you like to leave the door open during mid summer at night for good ventilation during the hottest spells.




• If it's three weeks before your show and the fruits aren't ripening you can do a couple of things. First, cut back foliage to allow light in and also shock the plant into ripening some fruit. You can cut quite a lot of the bottom foliage back, say cutting the leaflets by a half to two thirds. Tired leaves are stripped right back to the main stem. By this time my plants have been trained from the top of the canes along strong strings up into the apex of the greenhouse so there is still plenty of foliage to keep the plants ticking along. This can make things quite dark so be removing some of the foliage all over the plant you are allowing light in. You can also hang ripe bananas amongst your plants. This is an old greengrocer trick and the ethylene gas produced by the ripe bananas wafts over the tomatoes and encourages ripening. The photo below shows my greenhouse before any thinning has taken place about mid-August this year. Not bad for an unheated 8'x6' aluminium greenhouse!

• The afternoon before the show you need to choose your fruits. Ideally they need to be about 60-65mm diameter so cut a couple of cardboard gauges to help you. I have one at 60mm and one at 65mm. As I pick the likely looking fruits I will check the diameter and put into a couple of sets, as very often I am looking for two sets, one for the main class and one for a collection such as Top Tray. They need to be as round as possible with fresh calyces, cut as far from the knuckle as you can. Any with skin blemishes are discarded. Ones with minor imperfections will be put to one side for consideration later if i'm struggling to make a set. I check the depth and shape from the side as well as from above as two fruits the same diameter can often be completely different shapes in side profile. You may want to take a few spares although I find this unnecessary with Cedrico as the skins stay hard for a long time. Gold Star was very prone to splitting between picking and staging.




• I pack each fruit carefully in tissue paper for transportation to the show. The most important thing I did this year was to make a compartmentalised wooden carrying box with a lid. I can now put other boxes on top of this without fear of the fruits coming to any harm.














• Before leaving for the show, 'stage' them in your kitchen for best effect and then place them back in the box in the order you will be staging them at the show. It also allows you to double check the condition of each fruit in good light. Do no polish or wash the skins if you can avoid it. Sometimes you may have a bit of dirt under the calyx so wet a cotton bud and use that to clean it you have to.

• At the show you can stage your fruits without stress knowing you have chosen the best possible selection.

• 

• After your plants are spent, remove them and burn. I very often have to extract a huge root system as the plants have gone way out into the border soil. Shake off as much of the soil as you can. The canes should be washed with weak Jeyes fluid solution and stored in a dry place for use next season. The greenhouse needs a good clean with Jeyes fluid or Armillatox and the border soil can also be drenched with the same solution. During the winter pour several buckets of rain water over your soil to stop a build up of salts. About every 4 or 5 years I would advise emptying out your border soil and replacing with fresh soil, say from your onion or leek beds.

Derby 2010

Got to be happy with that. A single red card ( more on that later), 3 seconds and 6 thirds against some of the best growers in the country never mind Derbyshire.



Most pleasing was 2nd in parsnips, second only to Dave Thornton who won at Malvern and was 3rd in the National. As you can see from the photo my set in the middle was bigger shouldered but did have a few patches of canker compared to Dave's clean set to the left. If I can get this disease beaten next season I know I can compete on size and uniformity.















3rd in 250g onions with Vento. My onions have looked better and better as the season has gone on. This is one class I really want to go for next season at Llangollen.
















3rd in leeks, the set on the right. The winning set of John Croots in the middle was actually best in show. Mine were a bigger set but thrip damage on the foliage and overstripping, a common problem with Pendle Improved, did for me here. At least I beat Thornton's pencil leeks which were unplaced. He called them culinary leeks! I called them crap.














I didn't get anything in the tap root class, my pathetic long carrot letting me down, but at least I proved to myself I can grow long beet with my Cheltenham Green Top being as long as my huge parsnip (also pocked by canker).

2nd in globe beet with a nice clean set of Pablo grown in raised beds filled with garden compost. Another crop I want to try and grow well next season for the Millennium Class at Llangollen.

Out of 6 entries I got a 3rd in Top Tray. The potates are Camelot which I was hoping to grow again next season but apparently the whole stock of most of the major suppliers has been bought up by a supermarket chain so I shall be saving some of my crop to use as seed potatoes.

Not a bad set of tomatoes for the end of October from an unheated greenhouse. These all came from the upper trusses and still have nice green calyces. I shall certainly be applying the soot water feed again next season as I think this has been the major contributory factor in the improved colour of my fruits this season. I also gave Dave Thornton a bag of soot which he used around his celery and he puts that down to his best ever season for that also.

My one red card? It was in the any other veg class for these two magnificent (and by day two of the show very shrivelled) radishes. I also got 2nd for the two french beans in the class with the most entries. There was kohl rabi, various peppers, marrows etc. Bit embarrassing but hey ho.

And so that's it for another season, a season that was beyond my wildest dreams when I won a class at the Midland Championships. Now starts the planning (and dreaming) for next season when I shall be having a crack at my first ever National.

I shall spend the winter months getting the plot back in shape and making a few structural alterations to allow me to compete with parsnips, carrots and long beet, but also glancing over at my trophy shelves. I won some lovely cups and plaques but it is the little glass tankard that means most as this is the one that means I am Midland tomato champion......for a few more months at least.

Last knockings

It's my final show of the season tomorrow at Derby. This is by far the latest I have ever shown but I'm happy i've got a few reasonable exhibits. I pulled some humungous parsnips today although most have spots of canker. I shall be growing my roots under cover next season to try and combat this annual problem.



Whilst talking to John Branham at Malvern he taught me a little trick with 8oz onions. Very often towards the end of the showing season they can be looking a little wrinkly, with tide marks spoiling their uniformity. If the skin 'gives' a little near the root plate then you can probably bet the skin underneath is ripe. I skinned a few tonight to reveal nice, dark and fresh looking skins that don't have any blemishes. Give them a rub in your hands to reduce the shininess and voila!















Normally at this stage of the year i'm feeling a little depressed at the longer nights and the thought that Spring is so far away. But the good thing about being in the National Vegetable Society is that you can attend the many talks and seminars held up and down the country, so in the next couple of months I shall be hearing a talk by Graham Wagstaffe on potatoes at North Derby DA, and Charlie Maisey on tomatoes (to make me even more fabulous than I already am!) at North Mids DA. I shall also be travelling nearly 300 miles to the Scottish Branch annual seminar near Edinburgh to hear Sherie Plumb talk about her prize winning technique with spuds, and Ian Simpson on growing peas for exhibition. There is also an opportunity to buy seeds and other goodies. Can't wait.



Meanwhile, a report on Radio 5 live yesterday said that it is becoming quite commonplace for heterosexual men to greet their mates with full blown smackers on the lips. I'd just like to say that if any of my pals and show growing chums ever greets me in such a way.......I WILL kill you!

I can confirm.......

.....that the results of this survey are simply not true.......

http://uk.autoblog.com/2010/10/13/bmw-owners-even-angrier-than-white-van-men-claims-new-survey/?icid=mainukdl5link3http%3A%2F%2Fuk.autoblog.com%2F2010%2F10%2F13%2Fbmw-owners-even-angrier-than-white-van-men-claims-new-survey%2F

If anything we are the safest drivers on the road. Just ask the bloke I ran over a couple of weeks ago. The stupid twat.

Two aliens....

....landed in the Arizona desert near a gas station that was closed for the night.They approached one of the gas pumps and the younger alien addressed it saying, 'Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Take us to your leader.'

The gas pump, of course, didn't respond. The younger alien became angry at the lack of response.

The older alien said, 'I'd calm down if I were you.'

The younger alien ignored the warning and repeated his greeting. Again, there was no response. Annoyed by what he perceived to be the pump's haughty attitude, he drew his ray gun and said impatiently, 'Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Do not ignore us this way! Take us to your leader or I will fire!'

The older alien again warned his comrade saying, 'You probably don't want to do that! I really don't think you should make him mad.

''Rubbish,' replied the cocky, young alien. He aimed his weapon at the pump and opened fire.There was a huge explosion. A massive fireball roared towards them and blew the younger alien off his feet and deposited him a burnt, smoking mess about 200 yards away in a cactus patch.

Half an hour passed.When he finally regained consciousness, he refocussed his three eyes, straightened his bent antenna, and looked dazedly at the older, wiser alien who was standing over him shaking his big, green head.'What a ferocious creature!' exclaimed the young, fried alien. 'He damn near killed me! How did you know he was so dangerous?'

The older alien leaned over, placed a friendly feeler on his crispy friend and replied, 'If there's one thing I've learned during my intergalactic travels, you don't want to f*ck with a guy who can wrap his c*ck around himself twice and then stick it in his ear.'

Pepper Rooney

Today I found out that some scumbag had hacked into my Facebook account on Tuesday and wrote a comment referring to that great Manchester United hero Wayne Rooney as a 'fat, useless traitor'. Tut,tut. Nothing is sacred these days.

Anyways, today I'm talking peppers, or capsicums if you want to be cleverer than you look....as I often do. Reading other folks' blogs and websites it appears it's been a bumper season for peppers. I've never won anywhere with peppers but I did have a couple of good seconds this season at Malvern with this set of 5 'Californian Wonder' below........


















.......and this dish of 3 at Westminster (middle left). I took a long time deciding on the fruits for both shows, trying to get blocky fruits with similar profiles and no skin blemishes. It paid off as there were bigger fruits at both shows but obviously not in as good condition.














I struggle to get my fruits to colour up and think it may be because I grow the plants too well and therfore they are too lush. I reduce the tomato foliage later in the season to ripen the fruits and perhaps I have to do the same with my peppers. Having said that some varieties colour up easier and John Croot grew this variety from a supermarket seed to win the coloured pepper class at Westminster.

It only needs me now to apologise to anyone who may have received texts and emails from 'me' in the last few days calling Wayne 'legend' Rooney a treacherous scouser who should be shot through the nostrils. Those damned hackers get everywhere!

Statement of intent

I've identified 17 classes that I HOPE to enter in next year's National. As it's held quite early next season, at the end of August it means I'll have to hit the ground running with my preparation during the Winter. I cannot leave jobs till the Spring as I'll need everything in place before seed sowing starts. More on this during the long Winter months

I timed my tomatoes with Malvern in mind this year, which is some 4 weeks later. If I want to have a quality set of 12 for Llangollen i'll need to make an earlier sowing in mid-February at the latest. I only have a small 8'x6' greenhouse where I grow 14 plants only in total, and picking a matching set of 6 is bad enough, but to pick 12 from half the plants will be a tall order. I shall time the other half of the plants for Malvern and Westminster as this year.

Here is Trevor Last's winning set from this year's National at Dundee.

Another class I want have a go at is long beet and I shall be setting a few drums aside for this purpose. I've been thinking that the long beet at the big shows this season don't seem to be as long as I've seen them in the past, so I'm hoping if I can get a reasonably well-matched set it won't look out of place. I need to get some seed of Long Black from Medwyn's if I can, unless some kind Scottish growers can point me in the right direction?

Meanwhile, tonight i've been receiving some texts from Paul Bastow who has been on a visit to JBA potatoes today and is now on a piss-up in Glasgow apparently. I don't know how much he's had to drink but he reckons he's going to beat me at Harrogate next year. Quite frankly, in the unlikely event that happens I'll expose my one-eyed, yoghurt-spitting trouser snake in Tesco's (freezer department - for Health & Safety purposes).

National countdown

Well, i've decided. I'm going to have a crack at next year's National on August Bank Holiday weekend in 2011 and with that in mind tonight I booked a room at a hotel near to Llangollen where the event is being held. I can't back out now.

A couple of classes at the National sponsored by JBA potatoes are for a dish of 5 Amour potatoes (pictured) and 5 Sherine. These 2 varieties used to be show winners everywhere until they were discontinued. JBA's Iain Barbour has reintroduced them so I've ordered 10 tubers of each to see if I can't get a dish of each for Llangollen. They can be ordered online:

http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/

What about my pal Mr. Ian Taylor having a go at that one? If your spuds this season are anything to go by you should be thinking about having a go at that one Ian!

If anyone wants to know more about growing spuds then consider joining JBA's spud forum:

http://growingpotatoes.co.uk/

When I spoke to Iain Barbour this afternoon he mentioned he's hoping to introduce a new line of potato grow bags with extra holes in for the roots to penetrate through into the soil below the bag. Top lady grower Sherie Plumb will actually put lots of extra holes into the bottom of the standard polypots currently on the market, so this new innovation will hopefully make that task a thing of the past. You really want the roots to get down into the soil for water in order to get healthier, sturdier plants.

After my disastrous year with potatoes I hope to be doing a lot better next season and with Iain's help I've got a few plans to get a few plates of potatoes at Llangollen 2011.

More priceless Smithyveg advice to women

The World's shortest Fairy Tale....

Once upon a time a bloke asked a girl 'Will you marry me?'...

The girl said 'NO!'...

AND THE BLOKE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER AND SCREWED ALL HER MATES AND RODE MOTORCYCLES AND WENT FISHING AND PLAYED FOOTBALL AND DRANK BEER AND ATE CURRY AND LEFT THE TOILET SEAT UP AND PLAYED ON THE PLAYSTATION AND FARTED AND HAD A WANK WHENEVER HE WANTED......The End.

For all those confused females out there, it's simple. Men have two emotions:
Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection make him a bacon sandwich!

The day belongs to Chile but........

......it seems a shame to waste that hole! Fill it with compost and just imagine the length of the f***ing carrots you could grow in that!

Tap snap mishap

Dave Thornton has had a phenomenol year with his long roots,winning the National, Malvern and Westminster with long carrots. At Westminster he also won the tap root collection calling for 2 long carrots, 2 parsnips, 2 long beet and 2 stump carrots.





















I had also entered this class but when I pulled my long beet on the Sunday afternoon before I didn't think it would be good enough so I never bothered pulling any parsnips and long carrots. However, when I saw the long beet in Dave's collection I realised my long beet was more than adequate and I reckon I could have got a 2nd or 3rd in the class. The only problem I encountered was getting as long a tap root out of the growing medium as possible, and the solution may be in the variety I grow.....or rather don't grow. I grow Cheltenham Green Top whereas most of the top boys go for Regar or Long Black. Looking at these varieties at Westminster the thin tap root looks a bit more robust and more likely to emerge intact. As you can see from this photo my CGT snapped at about 2 feet down.






















I have one long beet left growing. At Derby there is a class for 3 tap roots, chosen from parsnips, long carrots, stump carrot, or long beet, one specimen of each only required. I shall endeavour to extract as much of the root as possible.

With parsnips and long carrots I pull 'dry', by exposing as much of the top of the carrot/parsnip as possible. A little sprinkle of water washes away any sand so it doesn't scratch the skins. Get above the root as much as possible (difficult if your drums are 5' off the ground!) and pull upwards slowly, firmly and gently. A good long root that isn't forked or bent should come up quite easily.

Decisions, decisions....

Well now, the show season is virtually at an end save for Derby Show on the last weekend of this month (bloody late show that....will I have anything left?!) so it's time to take stock, start tidying the carnage that my garden has become (lawn not mown for 2 months!) and start planning my growing regime for next year. Seed catalogues have started arriving so it's good to browse these whilst cracking one off on the big white ceramic thunderbox. Whilst going round the shows I've also made notes of different varieties that have been winning tickets that I haven't grown before. One of these was the small tomato 'Harlequin' that won at Westminster for Geoff Butterworth (another bloody nice bloke!). Gardener's Delight and Sungold are the best tasting small tomaotes but it's very difficult to find 12 (Malvern) or 15 (Westminster) matching fruits as they tend to be all shapes and sizes.

I took two sets of tomatoes down to Westminster and couldn't decide which set to put in. At first I put in my larger set, nice green calyces but perhaps not as uniform as they could be. I got out my smaller set which had slightly yellowing calyces but were pretty much like peas in a pod. Dave Thornton, John Croot and John Goodall all went for the smaller set so I was happy to go with that set (below). They all seemed quite impressed with both sets so I was reasonably confident.As we breakfasted and walked around central London they all made comments that made me think I was in with a shot.

However, upon returning I found I didn't have a ticket of any description. The winning set consisted of some quite large fruits. All the lads commented that my discarded large set was better than the winning set of 9. Ho hum!

I'm now addicted to having a go at a higher level although I am still passionate about the local village show. With this in mind I now have a dilemma on next year's horizon as the NVS National will be held in Wales in Llangollen on August Bank Holiday weekend. It's the same weekend as Leicester Show and another long standing village show that I have done for the last 15 years. Do I enter (and indeed support!)the local shows and pick up over a dozen red cards or do I have a go at my first National in the hope of getting a placing somewhere? Mmmm.....Llangollen is awfully close to the Snowdonia National Park.......