U2 .....wow!

Went to see the boys again last night at Don Valley Stadium Sheffield. What an experience. First saw them 29 years ago!

They're still the best rock band in the world.



What about Coldplay I hear you say? Don't make me laugh, miserable suicide inducing tw*ts.



However, just one thing......Bono......please leave all that saving the world shite and just stick to the music !!!

Top Tray

At most shows you will see a class called 'Top Tray', which is often popular and well contested.
This is for 3 sets of vegetables chosen from a list as follows:

3 onions
3 potatoes
6 pods peas
6 runner beans
6 tomatoes
3 caulis
3 carrots (foliage cut back to 3")
3 parsnips (foliage cut back to 3")

The veg must be displayed within an area of 24"x18" which is usually a piece of board cut to the required dimension with a lip all round. Alternatively, a piece of cloth can be used. I favour a well made board with a good coat of matt black paint to set off the colour of the veg.No 'aids' such as onion rings are allowed (unless the show allows it) and the carrots and parsnips cannot be bent round to fit within the allotted space......so sometimes you have to cut the tails of the roots down to size.

It was originally sponsored by Garden News and a seed company, and seed vouchers and small medals were competed for. Lots of shows have kept the class and now have a specific trophy for it.

It can be a popular class for beginners but you should still bear in mind that good quality veg needs to be shown. Each set of veg will be marked out of 20 points according to RHS rules, and the tray with most points wins first prize.

Mixed spud success

Emptied out my Kestrel and Maxine tonight. I got some reasonable sets of Kestrel sorted but there were far too many small ones, and I really need to do away with the pot method as these cause funny shapes. At least the bags 'give' and allow the swelling tuber to grow to a reasonable shape.

The Maxine however were a huge letdown. I've persevered with this variety over the years because when you get them right they do tend to clean up nicely and judges seem to like it. I've noticed it consistently score highly in collections at Malvern. I had lots and lots of very clean but tiny tubers which will however come in handy for my trugs. I think next season I need to put quite a bit more feed in each bag with this variety, and a smidgeon** more in the Kestrel.


**about a handful...a technical term common to Loughburians.

First trophy 2009?

Cut my 2nd Blyton Belle marrow tonight, the one's from the posting a couple of days ago. I cut one yesterday and it was a good half inch longer than the one I left on, and fatter. But when I offered them against each other tonight they were well matched so I cut the other one. It just shows how quickly they can grow.

These will be entered at Hathern in two weeks time, where there is an accompanying trophy to go with the class. I've won this damned thing for the last few years. I say 'damned' as it's a blown glass marrow in a case that is so fragile. Getting it home from the show is always fraught with problems. I reckon my two marrows tonight are as good as any I've grown in a few years so I'm hopeful of already having bagged my first trophy of the season. Big headed tosser.

RIP Thomas 'Wally' Middleton

It's the funeral tomorrow of the guy who got me into showing. He died at the all too early age of 62 from prostate cancer. Wally was a work colleague and it was 1994 when I first saw some of Wally's entries at Hathern Show and decided to have a go the next year. I didn't do very well but with his encouragement and endless supply of tips by 1996 I was winning my first red cards, something which I know pleased him no end.

He could be an awkward bugger at times but his heart was always in the right place, and it's strange to think he's no longer going to be around as I know he'd planned to get back into showing after taking a 'few years out'.

Wally was the local tomato and runner bean king, but I also saw him stage some great long leeks, dahlias and gladioli. Rest well friend.

That git from Loughborough

This is embarrassing! It would appear I've labelled my marrows incorrectly. The ones I thought were Blyton Motley but which didn't appear to be any different from Blyton Belle, are indeed Blyton Belle it would seem.

I had a close look at what I thought were my Blyton Belle tonight and they are indeed very pale specimens, albeit they're all very small fruits so far. These must be Blyton Motley. The yellow fruited marrow is also amongst this batch.

I am a twat.

Blyton Motley....oh no they're not, they're Blyton Belle...see next post!

Can't see a great deal of difference between this and Blyton Belle, except it does appear to be marginally paler. It has the usual speckled markings and has very good form so it should be a winner. Here are my first two fruits growing a few inches apart on the same plant which is growing up a frame. The one on the right is a bit bigger and will be cut this weekend allowing the other to match it for size after another few days. I'll keep bringing the cut one out to put next to it to check them against each other for identical size. There are many more fruitlets forming for later shows.

As I've mentioned before Blyton Belle was raised by Les Stothard, who incidentally also knows that 'git from Humberside' ;o)

Never trust a Hull fan!!

In the most outrageous case of sabotage I've ever come across I've discovered that 4 plants of my usual dahlia 'Kenora Sunset' are actually a pink decorative type.....probably Emma's Coronet? Obviously some errant tuber labelling is to blame here, and as these plants were 'kindly' donated to me by me ol'mucker Kev Broxholme he will forever now be referred to as that 'git from Humberside'.

Only joking...love you really mate! (not in a gay way you understand!). Good job I quite like Emma's Coronet! However, you can bet your bottom dollar I will now be raising this matter at every conceivable opportunity at the top of my voice when I bump into him at the shows in the coming weeks!

I shall be interested to see if the Jomanda he also gave me turn out to be Jomanda at all. It'll probably be Bishop of bloody Llandaff!

The monsters in the undergrowth

I planted 3 pumpkins up at the allotment which were grown from seed I begged from the growers of the european record pumpkin seen at Malvern last September. Illness and holiday have kept me away from the allotment until tonight but lurking within the huge plants are 4 or 5 potentially large fruits that are already the size of a beach ball. I shall be very interested to see how big these get because they've had absolutely no TLC from me........but being planted where last year's muck heap was may have got them off to a flying start.

Blyton.......???

A strange thing appears to have happened to one of my Blyton Belle marrows. It's early days yet but the little fruitlets all appear to be bright yellow. They're only thumbnail size so far so it will be interesting to see if they retain the colour as they grow....indeed if they grow!

Now I know the raiser Les Stothard says this marrow has a tendency to throw up different sports, and indeed I'm also growing another one Blyton Motley which is a paler version of Belle.......but YELLOW?

I think I ought to start thinking of names for my new marrow named of course in my honour. Blyton Smithyveg perhaps? Blyton Parsnip King? Blyton Swine Flu Survivor? Blyton Scouseshite? But before any of my Scottish friends make the suggestion Blyton Arrogant English Bastard will be a complete non-starter ok!

Don't stress about it.

Life is difficult enough without letting your hobby stress you out also. Every year is different and throws different weather conditions, pest and disease at you. Just when you think you have one crop cracked you encounter problems you haven't experienced before and you have to solve them, albeit very often too late to make an impact at that year's shows. But in doing so you're learning all the time and so next season you're able to keep more of the 'plates spinning on the tops of the poles' without too many crashing to the floor!















So, whilst this season I appear to have 'upped my game' on the 8oz onions, potatoes, and possibly runner beans, as well as consolidated previous good performances with tomatoes, parsnips and stump carrots, I have also had problems (for the 2nd year running) with long carrots. I had a poor germination rate and those that did come through have grown very slowly indeed, especially when compared against the Sweet Candle stumps. I'll be very surprised to stage any sets of real quality. The seed I use is from former National Champion Graeme Watson but I've heard a few stories of bad roots from that particular source this season. Not his fault...just the way it goes. I know Gerald Treweek sells his seed in GN in the autumn so next season I will give his strain a try.

Either way, the point I'm clumsily trying to make is that this is my hobby and I won't let problems upset me, merely try and find a way to solve the problems from one year to the next. In the same way I've always vowed never to let a judge's opinion (and it often is just that!) get the better of me. Too often I see little old men having a go at hard working, VOLOUNTARY show organisers about this, that and the other. For feck's sake just accept the decision with good grace and have a pint!

Fobbed off!

One complaint I've heard from other growers from time to time is when they get a wrongly labelled packet of seed that turns out not to be the variety they thought they were growing. It often doesn't become apparent until it's too late. Luckily, this is not a problem I've ever had to worry about.....until now!

I bought some french beans seeds 'Declic' from DT Brown which is described as a green pencil pod type. They've grown fantastically well but the beans are purple speckled. In itself this isn't a problem for me as they look great and I'm hopeful of staging a few good sets because they get to 8" very quickly and don't show any sign of bean bulge.

But I need to know the variety so I emailed DT Brown to see if they knew. I got some nonsense back about 'a lot of green french beans are showing purple speckles this year'. They reckon it's caused by the weather conditions or a virus. What guff !!

First entries 'put to bed' !

I've lifted the last of my Vento and Tasco onions for the under 8oz class. After stripping to the first unsplit skin......

....they are washed, dried and stored in sawdust. I don't bother talcing them these days. I just haven't the time to mess about with them.

As I mentioned I got the first of my spuds emptied out last weekend. These are Winston (ohhhhh yes!). I find all those that have show potential with no blemishes, including some smaller ones that can be used in trugs.

Here they are being sorted into sets which is not as easy as you might think. Finding 4, 5 or 6 that are similar in size and shape is not easy at all in fact. My admiration for Sherie Plumb is now enhanced.

The sets of 3 are for Top Tray classes.

After I'm happy with my sets they are stored back in the same compost they were growing in, with labels on the surface so that I can go straight to them the night before the show. Only then will they be washed.

Rejects end up in the kitchen.....and Winston is very nice roasted or boiled. Very tasty......and I don't particularly like spuds!

Top tip to transform tomato tone*

My tomatoes aren't ripening so in the next few days I'll be hanging a few ripe bananas from the bottom foliage of each plant. An old greengrocer trick, ethylene gases rise up and persuade the green fruits that they'd better get a bleedin move on and ripen up. It's something that has worked well for me in the past.



* best the thesaurus could offer for a word beginning with T meaning colour!

He's back!

In a move likely to outrage the grass chewers at the organic brigade I've not only survived swine flu but returned safe and sound, fit and raring to go from my Scottish holiday!

We had half decent weather on the Mull of Kintyre but I understand chez Smithyveg has been well and truly pissed on all week so my undergardener has had no problems keeping everything well watered. Everything looks reasonably good although my cabbages have succumbed to the usual caterpillar damage. Next season I'm growing them on the allotment where I'll have plenty of room to construct a net tunnel to keep the butterflies at bay. I have quite a few marrows forming and I picked an absolutely humungous runner bean this afternoon with no sign of beans showing. It's a variety Les Stothard gave me so I hope to do better with this crop this season after several poor years.

Before I went away I got up several bags of Winston and Pixie spuds and left them in my garage for the skins to harden. I emptied them all out today and was ecstatic to find the Winston in particular had performed brilliantly. In fact I had some super heavy specimens in amongst many good sized tubers, so for the first time in 3 years I'm going to be able to exhibit some good spuds again. The Pixie was not so good.....lots of tiny spuds despite limiting each seed tuber to just the one shoot. But they're pretty enough and I've set aside a load of egg sized ones for use in my trug displays.

I understand it's Bakewell Show this week.....Wednesday and Thursday. What stupid bloody days to hold a show! I wouldn't have minded going along to that to see how my mate Dave Thornton fares, but as it is I still have 4 weeks to my first shows.....time I shall need to make sure everything is in tip top condition.