Occupy London?

How about fucking off and occupying a job instead? Get the bulldozers on the lazy, want everything for nothing bastards!

Dave Thornton in Smithyveg Winning Top Tray Admiration Shock

Debt due

Just on the way to Derby Show to see how I did and to pay the inevitable wager to Dave T. He doesn't know it yet but this is how he's getting paid....snigger! He can count himself lucky our works till doesn't have a load of 20 and 10 pence pieces!

And so I face the final curtain!

Derby Show staging in the morning and I pulled some very good globe beet a couple of nights ago. After washing, getting off all the fine root hairs, carefully rubbing off any corkiness around the shoulders with the rough side of a scourer and carefully snipping off any side roots from the main central tap I left them to soak in bucket of water with some vinegar and a dash of salt. I find this really brings out the colour of the roots and indeed I've had a good year again, winning at Westminster, coming third at Malvern plus a couple of local show wins. I also have some spare roots which look really good in a trug when turned upside down with the tap sticking upwards, and Derby has a trug class this year for the first time I believe so I (Leesa!) will make an effort to enter that one.




I think I've really found the key to good globe beet the past couple of seasons, growing them in raised beds that has a good depth of crumbly compost/soil mix. The deep bed in question is actually where I grow my leeks and onions and which has been well cultivated for several years now. After my shallots are pulled in June I give the soil a nitrogen fertiliser boost and sow my seeds in drills over several weeks to cover the show period. I have other beds in old half-oil drums and an old water tank which yield good globe beet for the early shows. However, the beet in the water tank starts well enough but then wilts quite badly and i'm thinking the soil gets too warm in the steel container.



All my remaining carrots and parsnips have now been pulled so I'll have a reasonable set of stumps, a nice clean (if a little small) set of long carrots and a canker free dish of parsnips. I've managed to cobble together a set of 6 tomatoes for a Top Tray entry, I should be able to bench a decent pair of long leeks and 3 or 4 collections which are all for single specimens only. In the any other veg class I'll be entering some turnips, lettuce and sweet peppers which are growing in pots and which I moved into my conservatory a couple of weeks ago in case any frost caught them.



And that will be that for another season, but my preparations for next season have already started. I've ordered 25 blanch leeks 'Pendle Improved' from Dave Metcalfe which I'll be collecting in early December. I shall put one of my Derby leeks down to seed for next season but more on that later. You need to be looking at the seed catalogues and getting your orders in as early as you can to avoid disappointment and I'll say from experience that you should make a plan of what you're going to grow where and when, so that you only order what you can physically grow. I've done far too much this season as I've attempted to try and win more tickets than Dave T, an attempt that seems doomed to failure going into tomorrow's final showdown. I've grown crops that I wouldn't normally give the time of day such as turnips, pak choi, spring onions and many other minor veg but never again. I shall be concentrating on the 18 and 20 pointers for next year as I attempt to stage a large collection at the Malvern National. Plus, after researching the subject in 2011 I shall be going all out to win peas at next year's National. This year was merely a practice run.

More hair than Grandad already!

Final countdown

Just a few more days until my last date of the season, the Dave Thornton organised Derby Show on Saturday and Sunday. I actually made up about 9 points on him at Westminster thanks to my policy of entering just about everything including a plate of 1000 matching lentils and a dish of curly pubes (dressed). However my chances of overhauling him are nil as the likes of John Croot, John Goodall and Charles Cooper will be showing at Derby, all first-rate growers. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and although i'm over 300 points behind i've kept back some long carrots, parsnips, stumps and spuds plus I finally have some tomatoes ripening which I hope to include in my Top Tray. There are also classes for brussel sprouts, a brassica collection (for which I saved one of my 3rd place winning Westminster red cabbages) and a weirdly named 'stem vegetable collection' where you choose from 3 types, 1 of each type selected from Onion, Leek, Celery, Beetroot, Swede. Never seen a class like this at any other show anywhere but it could be worth a dabble! And there is an any other veg cass that my radishes won last season, although I've been a bit more ambitious this year and think I have some nice clean turnips plus I still have several decent lettuce 'Sandrine'. If the Great Show God Mohammed Medwyn is smiling upon me I might make it a close contest yet!




And in answer to the pathetic torrent of texts, emails, blog comments (deleted) that I have been subjected to since yesterday afternoon (haven't you fuckers got anything better to do?) can I just remind you all of the following?



October 20th 1996 Newcastle United 5 Manchester United 0

October 26th 1996 Southampton 6 Manchester United 3



Champions that season? I rest my case. No trophies were ever handed out in October! Now piss off!

Remember our feathered friends!

Winter will soon be here and our native birds are finding food scarce. Please go to the pet shop & buy a bag of nuts for our feathered friends.
There is no finer sight on a winters morning than a pair of tits around your nut sack. Just remember however its a bit early in the year to expect a swallow.

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!

Masterclass

Well Sherie Plumb was her usual thorough self last night, and guided us through her growing year with spuds then runner beans. Her attention to detail is legendary and I was listening intently to try and work out if there was anything she did a lot different to me. A few points struck home and will result in me trying them out at least.




Sherie washes all her seed spuds before planting, discarding any that have scab. Now then, the science says that the scab lesions on a seed spud are merely the physical mark left by the scab fungus on its journey through the soil or growing media, and that it is impossible for scab to be transferred to a daughter crop from seed. Sherie remains unconvinced but perhaps the fact she washes all her seed spuds is the key here. The scab fungus overwinters on garden detritus so perhaps it is the dust that coats your seed spud that is actually the culprit here? Could this be harbouring the fungus so that it gets transferred into your bags? David Peel was also at the talk and he has had an excellent year, winning the collection at Harrogate and he washed his seed spuds this season as well as discarding any scabbed up spuds.



Because I believe in and trust the science I won't go as far as discarding any scabbed seed but I will now wash them before planting purely as an extra precaution. The key is STILL to make sure your bags never dry out. The scab mycellium thrives in warm, DRY conditions so a regular watering regime will ensure you don't suffer any scab marking your skins. I made sure my bags didn't dry out last season, especially at tuber initiation (when the haulms are about a foot high) and I think I can remember about three tubers having a single scab marking, a vast improvement on what I was getting before when I wasn't as keen as I should have been with the H2O.



Sherie uses medium grade moss peat (fine grade compacts too much) that she passes through a shredder. I have lent my shredder to a friend for a couple of years so I think I'll be getting it back for this purpose. An important element we all overlook at our peril is AIR and I think shredding the peat not only breaks up any lumps, twigs, fibre but incorporates air into the peat and allows the roots to really breathe and get out into the fluffed up mix. A good root system will give you good tops and then good tubers.



And finally, she stores all her spuds after lifting and grading in fresh peat rather than the stuff they've been growing in. This needs to be really dry and David Peel even said he went as far as spreading his peat out on sheets in the sun to get rid of any excess moisture. I wonder whether this may prevent the silver scurf marks that I seem to be prone to towards the end of September when I get my spuds out of the peat for washing? However, as i've said this does seem to affect the white spuds more than the coloureds.



There has been a lot of debate about the effectiveness of calcified seaweed. Apparently it has been estimated that it takes over a year in the soil for it to be of any real benefit and as the spuds are only in the bags for 10-14 weeks then surely it's a waste of time? Sherie pointed to an experiment carried out by John Branham where he trialled some bags without any calcified seaweed and they weren't as good as those spuds grown in bags with it so she is adamant about its advantages and will carry on using it. Good enough for me but I will be using the new alternative product from JBA potatoes this season that is more finely ground than the boxed stuff you buy from the garden centres these days. They are not ground up very fine at all, resembling small white stones and I'm sure some of the skin blemishes are down to these large granules resting against the skin during storage.



Here is the link to the JBA product: http://www.jba-seed-potatoes.co.uk/maincrop/powdered-calcified-seaweed-p300.html



Sherie bought several plates of different varieties to the talk that she'd washed that morning for the purpose. These weren't deemed good enough for showing during the season but I can assure you all they would probably have been in the tickets at just about every show i've ever been to. I wish i'd taken a photo of them. Sherie was adamant that Casablanca will never compete with Winston and held a sample of each together to demonstrate. During the break myself and Dave Thornton had a closer look and both of us were in agreement that the Casablanca looked superior. It seemed to positively gleam in comparison to the Winston that seemed a creamier hue. Each to their own I guess although no-one doubted that Kestrel would rule the roost in the coloured class for a long time to come yet, Purple Eyed Seedling and Blue Belle being some way off.

Bring back fox hunting!

Further to my postings of a couple of seasons ago that caused uproar in some quarters including my, at times, cloud cuckoo-land daughter, if anyone thinks foxes get a raw deal then here is the scene this morning at a fellow grower's hen house. They don't just take one hen for food, they indiscriminately kill every hen in the coop. The sooner every fox in the land is culled the better as they're just vermin.

And while we're at it let's do the same to the so-called travellers who don't intend to travel or pay their way gypsy scumbags who have cost us law-abiding tax-payers 18 million quid to teach them a lesson about right and wrong. And anyone that agrees with their pethetic, warped reasoning....you can fuck off too.

Plumb centre

I'm looking forward to hearing Sherie Plumb talking at North East Derby DA of the NVS tonight on spuds. I've heard her before but there's always something new you can pick up even if it's largely the same talk. Sherie is always trying to learn new tricks and adapt the ways she does things, a real thinker, so it will be good to hear about her 2011 experiences when she didn't get it all her own way like she usually does it must be said. She didn't win the coloured spuds at the Llangollen National and also the collection of spuds at Harrogate where I believe she only came 3rd, although she did win the British Potato Championships at Dundee again, plus most other single plate classes at most other championships so she's still the Queen of potatoes. I came 2nd to her at Westminster and 3rd in the collection at Malvern and it's a pleasure to be competing with her.

Next year i'm limiting my spuds to two varieties only, Kestrel and NVS Amour. I've found it much easier to get good skin finishes on coloured spuds, and indeed throughout the season I never really had a single blemish on any of my Amour and they were a real joy to clean up. I shall grow more of these two varieties than normal and skip whites for a year which I find take much more cleaning up to get them gleaming. For some reason white spuds also seem more prone to silver scurf in storage than the coloured varieties although I did have a few spots on some Kestrel. I'm hoping I can get a good set of 5 for my collection of 6 veg at Malvern and also a set of 4 in the Millenium class which will be main focus in 2012. I was very happy with how my spuds looked in my mini collection at Malvern. They were the best spuds in the 6 or 7 sets that were benched.

I shall be using fresh peat once again for my 2012 spuds and not get tempted to use the old stuff from this year. Instead I will be sieving this old peat over the coming Winter, bagging it up and using it in some pipes for long carrots in the greenhouse. You need much more medium to fill pipes than you do conical bore holes in sand, so with some vermiculite, silver sand plus the usual nutrients I'll be giving this method another go in 2012, having grown 8 heavy (if a little uneven roots....erratic watering) this season. A friend who works for a large building firm is getting me some more plastic drainpipe material (unusable offcuts...honest!), as I will be hoping to use the long carrots from these on my collection of 6 at Malvern also. I could fit about 20 of these pipes at one end of one of my greenhouses and will be quite happy to empty all of them out to get a set of 3 if necessary.

Well that has cheered me up no end

There's surely no better way to start the day than to watch a load of unwashed, thieving, law-dodging pikeys get a kicking on TV

Tooty fruity

This is going to come as a huge surprise to some but I've discovered in the last few days that I'm rather partial to Cox. Indeed, for the last few days I've not been able to get enough Cox. In the past, whenever I've exhibited apples it's always been for the late August/early September period when I've required a specimen for the single flower/fruit/veg class, or a plate of 5 dessert apples a class which I actually won at Seagrave Show this year. As I only have a single Cox's Orange Pippin tree it has invariably been a Cox that I have slapped down on the table alongside a dahlia and a carrot. Whenever I've popped one of these cox into my mouth after the show I've always spat it out as it's been a bitter taste. In truth it's just not been ripe as I've now discovered when I picked all the remaining fruit off my tree last weekend. The taste is a lot sweeter and melts nicely on the tongue now I've allowed them to ripen properly on the tree into October. It just proves that the longer you can leave a more mature Cox the nicer it tastes and I would certainly recommend that you all eat more Cox and keep the British apple flag flying high.

Sometimes I'm so childish it's positively pathetic!

The big clean up

The warm October weather we've been experiencing is due to break up towards the end of next week, with the possibility of the first frosts also. This means the dahlias will be blackened and I won't be able to show any at Derby in two weeks time. The same thing happened last year meaning no entries in the dahlia classes but that's a chance you take with a late October show. I haven't staged many dahlias this season whilst i've been concentrating on the veg but I've grown this variety this season, Blyton Softer Gleam and it's really flowered its socks off. I shall certainly be growing this one again and trying to save some tubers and hope we don't get a Winter like last year that killed all my stored tubers.

I also took the opportunity to get my 'show' cacti and succulents inside today. They've been outside all summer and have really benefitted from it. I shall now stop watering, and will not resume until the early Spring.

Since I started showing in late August the garden has been left to its own devices and now resembles a bomb site. In the the next few weekends I need to bring things under control again and get everything shipshape in time for lift-off once more in the New Year. I have a couple of large trees to fell as I want to fit in another greenhouse and they'll be seriously cutting out the light to it if I leave them. And I will be grubbing out several large shrubs that I planted 20 years ago towards the bottom of my long garden when I wasn't into vegetable growing as much. How I wish I hadn't planted them now but I intend to use the new land for several raised beds to grow more vegetables and make us more self-sufficient. It's a bit silly to have such a large garden and yet only about 10% of it is laid down to crop production.

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!