Malvern 2012 Part 3

I was really disappointed with the long carrot class at Malvern and wished I'd not put all my good ones in at the National Carrot Championships at Harrogate as I feel I'd have been in the tickets. When I visited the 2007 National at Malvern Graeme Watson's winning long carrots were breath-taking, certainly the best I've ever seen, and there were several other great sets there that day. (Whatever happened to Graeme Watson?)

This year Bob Oliver took the honours with this winning set.

I don't know Bob personally but in my humble opinion this set wouldn't have got a look in previous years, although there weren't any outstanding sets so I don't think the judge had a great deal to work with. These were quite small and a bit rough-skinned but it just goes to show you have to be in it to win it. The stump carrots on the other hand must have given the judge a nightmare as there were well over 30 entries on the benches. Medwyn made reference to this at the prize giving that many of the entries out of the tickets would have won in other years, there really were lots of crackingly good sets. I put a set in last year that was unlucky not to get a ticket and if anything I put a set in this year that was even better but I didn't stand a chance. A first time National Champion was George Graham on his 67th birthday and he was rightly chuffed as punch. As you can see Medwyn is still a menace to bathroom scales everywhere!

Poor old Mr Stocks....he couldn't repeat last year's triumph and got another 2nd.

On the Malvern side of the tent Mark Perry who supports Liverscum but isn't a bad lad considering won with these nice Sweet Candles. Sorry mate.....the photo quality on these is shite.

I actually benched a set of Dorian peas on the Malvern side in the any other veg class. I didn't take a photo unfortunately as they were a magnificent set and didn't deserve to be thrown across the marquee by Mr Stocks at the end. Just to prove that I talk complete bollocks about peas when I say no-one this far south can grow Show Perfection this late in the year, the winning set came from my pal Mark Roberts who is another 30 or so miles south of me.

Mark had an excellent championships, coming second to John Branham in the large collection, 2nd in the celery and winning the 3x2 collection class. I keep threatening to go and visit his set-up and I really must make time to do it before too long. I'm told it's very impressive.

I was pretty chuffed with my set of 3 although it only come equal 17th out of 22 entries!

Sherie Plumb has dominated pickling shallots for years but was beaten this year by another lady Clare Walters. At prizegiving Dave Thornton couldn't read his own writing and announced her as Clark Walters. Prick.

John Jones from Wales won the large onion class as well as the long beet class for the second year running.

I was hoping to bench a set of long beet but after pulling the first couple on Thursday morning I soon realised they were an utter pile of shite, the huge tops not translating into impressive roots. I snapped the fuckers at 2 and a half foot anyway. I shall not be wasting any more time growing long beet in the future, using the drums for more long carrots instead. I can only admire someone who can extract roots like this.

We had a lot of fun on the Saturday afternoon as several of us met up with our fruit cakes and vegetable animals. Leesa was adjudged to have the best fruit cake which is the first time she's ever beaten me. This was only because I made a mistake with the recipe and published one that I'd never baked with before. We decided to allow all exhibitors to stand around Fiona Shenfield while she judged the class, baying and hollering as she did so. I believe we may have hit onto something and all veg shows should be judged in this gladiatorial manner also!

Mo Robinson won the veggie animal class with a cat fashioned from a red onion.....

.....although Frank Taylor's spud spider was a triumph of engineering as he was heard drilling the holes in the spud for the spider's legs in the hotel bathroom that morning. Ian Stocks' shitting sheep got second but really should have been NAS'd as the class was for a vegetable ANIMAL (Singular!!)

My own marrow and onion snail was controversially unplaced although dressed in that garb it was the least of my fucking worries!

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.

If you can't take it don't give it!

One of the problems with being a piss-taking sarcastic twat is that you have to be prepared to get done up like a kipper now and again. Last year I got presented with a wooden spoon for winning sod all at my first ever National. This year my scottish pals Ian and Linda Stocks decided to dress me up as a pea in recognition of my abject failure to grow peas to show standard.....with the strange addition of a tutu for some reason! This all happened in the car park as we had our forum cake competition. An embarrassing day got worse as Leesa won with her cake and mine was a whisker away from being judged the worst cake!

Malvern 2012

I went into this seeking my first ever ticket at National level and succeeded with a 4th in cucumbers. The standard of entries was simply awesome, amazing when you consider the weather everyone has had this season. Full report with photos over the next few days but right now the NVS after-show piss up beckons!

A day off work to prepare....

.....why oh why do I put myself through this shite every year?

Stumps shite!
Long beet even shiter!
Tomatoes shiter still!
Parsnips full of carrot fly!
Onions still not ripening!

Still.....I'm hugely looking forward to baking my fruit cake later!

Survival

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


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

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

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

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

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

I don't like harping on about it.....

..........but this was my 'winning' exhibit in the 'BBC' at Harrogate at the weekend.

I didn't bother with a photocall with Dan or Paul this year after some of you contacted me last year to say that they have the sort of faces that can make an onion cry. In fact, after beating them yet again and each having to hand over ten pound notes to yours truly they both looked as if they'd been ducking for apples in a chip pan.


I scored 44.5 points, including a 17 out of 20 for my celery which at the time I felt was very generous indeed. However, as I'm not exactly a celery expert I still don't quite know what the best attributes the judge is looking for so I may be doing myself a disservice and they could well have been worth 17 points, I just don't know. I guess as long as the judge is consistent then the correct result will always come out on collections and I was gratified to notice that I was only a half point outside the tickets which went down to fourth. It's a good job me, Paul Bastow and Dan entered otherwise there would only have been 5 entries.

I thought my celery was a bit on a small side because when I pulled them up I had to take off a few stalks that had split round the back of the plant where I couldn't see when I uncollar them to tend them, thus reducing the diameter quite a bit. However, they were fresh and clean with no sign of pest damage, definitely no heart rot and no blistering on the concave inside edge of the stalks which I understand is a sure sign of an aged specimen that is past its best. When I returned from Harrogate I made sure I went over the remaining plants, uncollaring them and discarding any split stalks. Hopefully there will enough time for the plants to swell out a bit more before Malvern where I have entered a set of 3. I shall also be using a pair in the 3x2 class at Malvern, although all three pairs in the National Championship version have to be from the 20 pointer veg (celery/potatoes/long beet/large onions/parsnips/leeks and long carrots). This isn't the case at Harrogate where I used 2 stump carrots which are 18 pointers.

It was noticeable that there weren't any very large parsnips anywhere at Harrogate. I don't think the winning ones in the main class would have got a look in in normal years but of course if you're not in it you can't win it so the exhibitors that managed to get an entry benched deserve credit. Having said that I reckon I might have come at least 2nd if I'd bothered to enter the class, as Dave T came 2nd and his parsnips were much smaller than mine were on the collection. I cleaned 4 parsnips for Harrogate, 2 for the 3x2, one for the 6x1 and one for the tap root class, and I was really pleased with the condition although in other years they would have been much bigger to go with it. As it is, it appears everyone has suffered the same problem this season, when they just seemed to stop growing from July. I have quite a few to select from for my set of 5 for Malvern, as well as a pair for the 3x2 class.

I'm really looking forward to having a go in only my 2nd National Championships. Exhibiting a set of 5 parsnips and 3 celery at National level signifies another step up in my development and something I only dreamed about when I first started showing nearly 20 years ago. Constant improvement is always my target and with that in mind I am aiming to try and get a single 5th placed ticket next weekend, seeing as I only won a wooden spoon last year! Even that seemingly modest aim is a huge feat when you start ticking off the names that will be present, so a 5th place is a great achievement. Last season the likes of John Branham, Trevor Last, Gerald Treweek, Jim Pearson, Jim Thompson and Derek Aldred were all out of the winning positions as new names such as David Peel and Owain Roberts made a breakthrough, so they'll be no doubt trying even harder to turn things round at Malvern. Throw in champions past and prsent, Medwyn, Ian Simpson, Ian Stocks, Dave Thornton, Mark Hall, Peter Clark, Jeff Parsons, Mark Roberts, Jim McCartney, Gareth Cameron, Ronnie Jackson, Chris Hewlett, Bob Brown, Graeme Watson, Ray Bassett, Ray Sale, Vin Throup, Allan Young, Ron MacFarlane, Dave Metcalfe as well as the female superstars Sherie Plumb, Helen Vincent and Sue McCall and you can see how much of a tall order it is to get in the tickets.

For Malvern I've got 4 nice cucumbers growing so close together that you can barely get a sheet of paper between them. I need 3 for the class.

I also have an absolute glut of french beans maturing, having grown the plants in large pots and bringing them into the greenhouse for the past three weeks to keep the pods from getting spoiled.



These are both very strongly contested classes so I'll have my work cut out to get near the tickets. For now I'll have to content myself winning the BBC and chugging along with the Deliverance Duo from deepest, darkest Yorkshire. I must admit though that it was a tad embarrassing seeing them get their wallets out and handing over the tenners to me, the worthy victor. I really think we shouldn't have to demean ourselves like this in future contests, so with this in mind I was just wondering boys.......next year, can you not set up some sort of direct debit?

Trug-a-lug, keep the sand in the tub

The trug class at any show just seems to get more and more popular. There were 13 entries at Harrogate this year and when Leesa placed ours on the bench I think we both felt we would be out of the tickets for once, and got on with our other exhibits. However, we were very wrong and came back to a 2nd place ticket and a very useful 30 quid in the back pocket! Having more time after judging I was able to run a judge's critical eye over the exhibits and realise that the judge had made a good call and taking that little bit of extra time prepping the veg that I give to Leesa paid off, although it does help to have someone with an outstanding eye for design! Most entrants had merely piled a lot of veg very high so I think a little thought and careful veg placement catches the judge's eye very often.

We've bought a brand new wicker trug for Malvern where there are no dimension stipulations, and having come 3rd here for the past three years we're hoping to go at least one better. However, this is the winning trug from last year, exhibited by a Mr Porter so you can clearly see there's a very, very high standard.

I had a decent weekend for my wallet. Leesa is anti-gambling so it was with some consternation that she witnessed people chucking money in my direction over the weekend (if it had been the other way I'd have done it without her seeing). As well as winning the 3x2 (BBC) against Dan Uddersworthy and Paul Bastardfeatures and a tenner from each to boot, I had a last minute bet with Dave Thornton that i'd beat him him in the National Carrot Championships. I'd lost money to Dave the past couple of seasons when we had a yearly 20 quid side bet on accumulated points during the season and he'd beaten me hands down. When I'd pulled my long carrots I knew I had a pretty good entry and just before I washed them in the bath I picked up an email from Dave asking if we were having a bet this season? I cheekily suggested the Carrot Championships and of course he bit my hand off as he's never seen me produce decent long carrots since i've known him. His hangdog face was a picture when he saw me staging mine next to his and it was a superb moment when I finally saw him open his wallet to hand over the crisp 10 pound note. This is an end view of the National Carrot Championships, Dave's entry nearest camera and mine next up.

I guess I only have two or three decent long carrots left to pull, judging by the tops, and I was very lucky that the 5 I pulled for Harrogate seemed like peas in a pod, and I had no need to keep pulling any more. I won't be entering long carrots at Malvern where you need 5 but I may have an entry of 3 at Westminster a week or so afterwards. It took a text from Dan to remind me that I'd not actually bothered emptying out my drums this season as time was against me and I wasn't that fussed about long carrots this season. If that is the result then I am seriously tempted to not bother emptying out any of my drums and beds this Winter, be it for carrots, parsnips or stumps. They were the best long carrots I've grown for several seasons so I can't see the point of all that hard work unless it's absolutely necessary...which it appears not to be. It could just be that I got very lucky of course!

At Seagrave I benched a couple of sets of long carrots that I'd grown in these pipes (pictured before I'd set them up or secured them), 28 in all so the rows of pipes were 4 deep.

I tried this method last season and whilst I had some heavy specimens they were throwing out all sorts of side roots a couple of feet down as I neglected them from July onwards. This season I gave them a little more attention and when the pipes were emptied out I was pleasantly surprised at the results, one of the sets coming second to a set of my stumps (sadly I forgot to take any photos). It has encouraged me to have a go again next season but I will be growing them in single file inside my soon to be acquired polytunnel so that I can give them much more frequent watering. I found that once the foliage gets large it's impossible to tend to them properly and I had a few with green shoulders. I couldn't see through the forest of leaves that a few shoulders had come clear of the compost which tends to sink in pipes. I believe it's a method that is worth persevering with and indeed Paul Wlodarczak's winning tap root set had an excellent carrot that was grown in a pipe.(below...my 4th placed set next to it)

Dave T is determined to win his money back so we've gone double or quits on stump carrots at the National. Dave's stumps scored more than mine at Harrogate but I have a bed of 28 from which to pull my 5 for Malvern so i'm banking on that yielding me some corkers. It's the first one I sowed and the sides were protected with polythene so the plants have been really cossetted and I'm hoping to have some really pronounced stump ends. If neither of us gets a ticket then the two entries will be judged separately by an independant adjudicator! At least I can't lose anything on the season with a double or quits can I?

One class I was hoping to enter at Malvern was for 3 quality marrows, a class that has been introduced for the first time at National level. I grew 5 plants up along inclined metal poles and managed to harvest my first good specimen a couple of weeks ago.

However, I do find Blyton Belle a bit shy to produce fruits and whilst I have another couple growing I fear there isn't enough time for them to catch up with the one i've cut. Graham Wagstaffe won marrows at Harrogate with this lovely neat pair.

Graham is another top grower and he also won the 250g onion class at Harrogate with this uniform set of 5, variety Toughball I think. I believe they were probably the same set I saw win at Notts DA at the end of August.

However, the picture above doesn't do justice to how small they were.....in other years these would be classed as almost embarrassingly small and i'm estimating they were only about 180g if that, but because of their exceptional quality in this most difficult of seasons they beat larger less well conditioned exhibits. It just goes to show that good small ones can beat larger ones, whatever the veg, so long as you have good form, shape, colour, uniformity and condition. I have a similar sized set put to one side for Malvern which I will have no qualms about showing. They are easily my best looking set of small onions and are pretty well matched. However, if I hadn't seen Graham's winning set I probably wouldn't have dared show them at Malvern.

My car park pass for Malvern arrived today. If you enter the National you get a free entry ticket and if you enter 5 classes or more on the Malvern side you get another, which saves a good few quid. If you get chance try and get to Malvern. Apart from the National Vegetable Society's Championships there are dahlia, chrysanth, cacti, fuchsia and many other competitions not to mention the multitude of other attractions in the showground itself. It's a huge country show and you really do need a full day to get round so get there early as soon as the gates open. We are hoping to get a chicken run set up over the Winter so we'll be eyeing up the various stalls at Malvern that sell chicken houses. If I don't need to empty out my sand drums I should have plenty of time to construct it. I bought some of the winning eggs in the after show auction at Seagrave Saturday night and had them on toast today for my lunch. The yokes were huge and shop bought eggs don't come close.

Gets quite interesting about 7 minutes in....

Look on an empty stomach though!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01ms6mw/Beechgrove_Garden_2012_Episode_22/

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!

Easier to enter, harder to win!

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

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

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

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

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

In the red corner, and still the disputed BBC heavyweight champion....

Considering the year we've all had the quality and quantity on display at Harrogate today was simply awesome. Of course, I retained my BBC crown against the Huddersfield and Ingleton YMCA, although it was closer on points than I would have liked, and I was saved by my 17 out of 20 scoring celery. I actually lost out on a ticket in this class and the 6x1 class by 1/2 a point, signifying that I am heading in the right direction and bridging the gap between myself and the very best. This was the first show where I certainly felt my produce deserved to be in the same company.

Best moment for me was a dizzying 5th place in the National Carrot Championships (pic below), my long carrots scoring 16 out of 20, half a point off the best scoring set. I even outscored 6th place Dave Thornton. I secured a 4th place ticket in the tap root collection, beating Dave again.

However, I was gazzumped by my protege Paul Wlodarczak who achieved an incredible second in the National Carrot Championships, going one better to win the tap root class and french beans. I fully expect to go back on Sunday to help peel him off the ceiling as he was as high as a kite!

Honourable mentions to Dan who was 3rd in the onion class and Paul Bastow who was 3rd for the second year running in the 250g onion class. I heard several stories of growers holding back their best stuff for the National. If that's true then Malvern is going to be amazing.

My turn to buy the medals!

'Canker' result!

I pulled my parsnips last night for Harrogate and whilst they weren't the biggest i've ever grown, they carried their weight well down and more importantly they were also nice and clean with no sign of the brown marks I've had for the past few seasons and which I attributed to the disease parsnip canker. They were similar to those shown on this specimen that Paul Bastow emailed me a few weeks ago (hahahahahahahaaaaaaa!).

I am now confident in saying that this is definitely carrot fly damage, because for the first time this season I treated my parsnips with the same photate granules that I sprinkle around my carrot tops. They don't resemble the fly grub damage you get on carrots very much which are black and seem to go much deeper (hence why I'd always assumed it was canker), and therefore I can only deduce that the carrot fly grub perhaps don't find parsnip skins as tasty as they do carrots, and just graze around the surface a bit? It's a lesson hard earned and from now on I'll be treating my parsnips and carrots with phorate at the same time. I do this about 3 times during the season to try and combat the various hatchings of carrot fly which are supposed to be around May and July although there are suggestions that a third generation hatches in the autumn in long summers so you need to make sure you keep the crowns well protected. Phorate really does stink and I use disposable gloves to apply it.

As well as the hugely important BBC I'm also putting an entry in the UK Carrot Championships at Harrogate. This fiercely competitive class calls for a set of three stump carrots and a set of 3 long carrots. I pulled my stumps on Tuesday evening as I knew I would be pushed for time in the following evenings, grading my sets for the two shows I have this weekend with the various classes I'll be entering (not forgetting Top Trays) and then covering them in containers with damp peat from the potato bags. They will keep in good condition that way until I wash them this evening. I actually decimated a bed of 48 Sweet Candle to get my sets and the first few 'pulls' were far from promising, but in the end I managed to get a set of 3 that are probably better than any I have ever produced, so it was with some delight that I also managed to get a nice set of 3 long carrots to go with them last night. I came 8th last year and I'm confident I have a much better entry this time around that won't look out of place, and if I can sneak into the tickets I'd be one happy bunny. This was one of my rejected Sweet Candles...had a few wrinkles at the bottom end.

I also have entries in the tap root class, the 6x1 collection class, the 3x2 collection class (The BBC!), pickling shallots, tomatoes, runner beans and cucumbers, as well as several classes on the Northern Horticultural side including the trug, which after many years of constant pressure from my wife and support for her from several of you bastards I have entered in joint names!

Yesterday I posted off my entry form for the National Championships at Malvern, a total of 15 classes. The deadline is tomorrow so if you haven't already done so then do it now, but you'd have to scan it and email it to Pat Brown patbrown59@talktalk.net. It's a lot earlier deadline this season than usual so I reckon there will be a lot less exhibits actually benched than are entered. I had to make a judgement on what I think will be ready in a couple of weeks time but there's a long while for things to go wrong with crops like celery, tomatoes, french beans, runner beans and cucumbers for instance, so I very much doubt if all 15 of my entries will make it and I'll be delighted if 7 or 8 make it. As has been pointed out to me on several occasions I won fuck all in last season's National. More than likely I'll win fuck all again this season but it took my most favourite sportsman of all time, England's Andy Murray several attempts to get his first Grand Slam and perseverance is one of my strong points. Perverting the course of history, two-faced contradiction and talking bollocks are some of my other strong points.

I know several of you are planning to visit Harrogate and I'll be there tomorrow and Sunday so if you spot me then please make yourself known so I can walk you round to the BBC class and show you how brilliant I am and how useless the Geoffrey Boycott Brigade are. If by any chance the judge is completely blind and probably been bribed......I'll be in Loughborough!

Two days to go, two Simons, two stunners!

'Simon' took Kendal Show by storm Dan tells me. Cheeky twat even put 'Simon' down on the variety card. Arsehole.

I could easily give up on this season, I'm feeling as miserable as a Yorkshire clayfondler. I had a furtle among my parsnips the other day and found some very small shoulders despite having relatively large tops. I pulled a couple of sample Sweet Candle stumps out of curiosity. One had more fangs than the Hound of the Baskervilles (see pic below) and the other was so pointed I had to be careful not to prick my finger on it! My long beet has enormous foliage but again the shoulders are barely an inch and a half to two inch diameter. I've lifted the last of my spud bags and unearthed a pile of crap. I only needed a set of 4 Amour for Malvern and did manage to set aside a set of dubious quality. My globe beet are really struggling to make size and with 3 weeks to Malvern I cannot see me getting a set of 4 for the Millennium Class. And my onions just aren't ripening depsite having the fan blowing over them 24/7.

Ah well. Due to circumstances I've not given my veg the best of attention this year and i'm not sure it would have made an awful lot of difference anyway because of the weather we've all experienced. A report on the News the other evening suggested that because the Arctic ice cap was melting a lot quicker than scientists predicted we can expect wetter summers for the foreseeable future. Oh bliss. Perhaps this just means we're going to have to adapt our growing methods. Or perhaps the scientists and weather people don't really have a clue....they have been wrong before! It seems weird that for two years running we've had the best weather in September and October, so Sunday we made the most of it and had a day on the beach at Holkham in Norfolk. I cannot be held responsible for any palpitations caused by the second photo!

It's sure to be a busy weekend as we're travelling to Harrogate in the wee small hours of Friday morning, Leesa having agreed to help me stage in a moment of weakness. Whether my stuff is good enough to be shown at this level this season is debateable, but as long as I win the Bullshit Bloggers' Challenge (BBC) against the Moors Manlovers then all will be well with the World.

As well as Harrogate I also have Seagrave Show this weekend so there won't be much time to catch up on sleep and as I'm on the committee of two I hope to put a few decent exhibits in to make up for what will probably see a drop in the number of entries this season. I won most points as well as best exhibit here last year but I think my geriatric, Liverscum supporting pal Ian Taylor has some decent stuff as he wanted to bet me £100 he'd beat me this year. I told him to fuck off. Whatever happens it will be a fun day out as all exhibits are auctioned off for charity afterwards and we make over £1000 each year thanks in no small part to the generosity of the villagers. This year we're presenting a cheque to the Ear Foundation, a cause close to our hearts because of Oscar's disability.

I've usually got several shows under my belt by this stage so it's a bit of a novelty not to have shown any veg yet and i'm itching to get the roots pulled. I just hope those first two Sweet Candle aren't indicative of the rest because if they are........then I am undoubtedly, absolutely, scarily in 20 foot deep, stinking to high-heaven BBC doo-doo shit for the next 12 months!