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!

Charmin'!

I value the friendship of my pals and as a consequence I like to look out for them, minding their backs and giving them little reminders as the show season kicks in. Being the great mate I am decided it would be nice to send Dave Thornton the e-card below. I have to say I was disappointed at his response. I mean honestly.....you try and help someone out.....

Beamer up Scotty

My company car is up for renewal and it is with great reluctance that I have decided to give up my beloved BMW in bell-end red with extra knob'ead accessories and get a totally more practical estate car after several years of headscratching and worry when it came to transporting all my veg and various other exhibits such as flowers, pot plants and cacti to shows. When BMW design their vehicles I feel sure that getting leeks, celery and various long root boxes in and out of the back seat and boot are not considerations that get onto their drawing boards so when it came to the time to make a choice I had to remember that for a few weeks every year I cursed and wished I had an estate car! In future I will now be able to get my veg to and from the shows in much better condition but it does mean I shall spend the majority of the year wishing my new car didn't have all the ooomph of a Yorkshire onion grower when I put my foot down! Such are the choices in life but it will be a while before it arrives so I still have a few more weeks of trying to shoehorn everything in.


As my show season hasn't started yet I need to make sure I have to hand all the various bits and pieces that I will need to transport my produce to the shows, and any staging paraphernalia and information once I get there. You really don't want to be adding to your stress levels in the hours before the show so try and make sure you have everything you're likely to need ready and good to go. This is not an exhaustive list but here goes.....


Raffia (for tying onions)....this should already be done but sometimes you need to re-tie at the show if it comes loose.
Boxes to transport produce.
Various display stands for onions plus black cloth to drape over them
Plates and dishes for the display of 250g onions/shallots/tomatoes and spuds
Vermiculite or dry silver sand for nestling shallots into
Tape measure (to measure 3" if it is required to cut parsnip & carrot foliage)
Runner and french bean display boards if not provided by the show
A sharp knife for trimming celery roots (careful it's not on general view....locked in a briefcase would be best just in case the police stop you!)
Scissors
Green string
Top tray board
Vases and oasis
Judges guides
Pen and paper/notebooks (always handy)
Schedules!

And just remember that showing veg SHOULD be enjoyable. I've always said that the day I get upset at a judge's decision will be the day I give up showing, as you have to trust the integrity of the judge and the process. At village level shows very often they wheel out the guy who has been judging shows since Michael Jackson was black and Leeds United were a top club, and he probably hasn't taken any formal qualification. At this level I certainly don't think you should get upset if a decision you disagree with doesn't go your way. Bear in mind also that the judge has handled your exhibit and assessed any faults, weighed them up against other entries and come to a decision for a 1-2-3. Veg can never be judged on appearance alone and it can never be an exact science, but qualified judges do have quidelines to help them. If you're unsure as to why you haven't done as well as you'd hoped try and seek the judge out after the show as a good judge will always try and stay behind to explain his decisions and this can be quiet enlightening. I actually learnt a lot by stewarding for the judges at our local show for several years. You have to be discrete, especially if you're competing yourself, but by listening in you can often hear their thought processes as they arrive at their decisions.

There has been some discussion recently on the subject of not awarding a first prize if the standard doesn't conform to what a judge would normally expect. But what is normal? At village level I believe it is wholly inappropriate to hold back a 1st or even 2nd prize. In the past I have even been awarded a 3rd place when I was the only entrant and if it had been my first ever show I would have felt very embarrassed and not understood why this had happened. However, as I'd been exhibiting for several years I took it on the chin (it is made of granite!) although I was a little peeved as it wasn't an awful entry by any means and at least I'd gone to the trouble of preparing and transporting the exhibit. However, not everyone is as understanding and laid back as me (cough!) and I have heard of several people vowing never to grace a particular show ever again, so I do hope judges are going to start using a bit of common sense on this issue. The show I judged Saturday morning had several classes with only one entry in and at most shows I attend there wasn't a single exhibit that would have got a look-in but it didn't enter my head to start cocking about only giving 3rd prizes etc. There are now people in that village who feel they're top dogs with runner beans, beetroot or whatever and hopefully they'll want to do more in future years and enter more shows. That's what it's all about at that level folks.

Making concrete plans

Despite this season being the worst in living memory for growing veg you really can't be too downhearted, especially when you see the paralympians doing their stuff against all the odds. No man has any right to feel sorry for himself when you compare yourself to them. For that reason I will always try and enjoy the actual growing part and see each season as a different set of challenges, and if you get something on the benches then all well and good. If you don't, then as my Scottish Man Utd supporting pal Frank Taylor would say....there's always next year! (He says that a lot actually as his wife keeps beating him).

Similarly, winning is not the be all and end all......EXCEPT when it comes to next weekend's Annual Bullshit Bloggers Challenge at Harrogate for which the clock is now ticking! I could happily accept my wife beating me, but to even consider being beaten by the Yorkshire ferret fiddlers makes my knackers quiver. All summer they've been going on about the amount of Yorkshiremen winning medals at the Olympics but they soon shut up when I pointed out that most of them had to be trained at Loughborough University! Similarly both the Yorkshire backward boys have learned all they know from me so beating them should be easy enough.

This year's BBC is being contested in the 3 x 2 class, where you have to bench 3 sets of veg, 2 specimens of each and unlike the National they don't have to be 20 pointers so you can use good 18 pointers such as tomatoes, stump carrots and cucumbers. I already know what my set of 3 will consist of, and it should be good enough to beat the banjo playing hicks. Each set of 2 veg will be scored by the judge, giving a total points value so even though we're unlikely to get in the tickets (like last year in the 6x1 class) at least we can deduce a 1-2-3 from our own little competition. If anyone else fancies competing it's 10 quid in, winner takes the pot. You don't have to be a blogger, just talk complete and utter bullcrap like we do!

Here is the winner of the class in 2010 grown by Ian Simpson.

Harrogate also holds the UK Carrot Championships where the requirement is for 3 stumps and 3 long carrots. I came a creditable 8th last season so I'll be having another crack this time around. I've only grown 21 long carrots so I may well have to pull half of those to get my set of 3, although the others may well go in my 6x1 and 3x2 entries. I used Ian Simpson's simple mix this year so it will be interesting to see if I've improved on the efforts of recent years. The tops aren't great but the shoulders seem promising.

There is also a class for 3 tap roots, chosen from a parsnip, long carrot, long beet and stump carrot, one specimen of each. These type of classes are a great idea for using up those single specimens that don't match any others and would otherwise go to waste and for that reason it's a very popular class. In 2010 tap root specialist Graeme Watson won with this entry.

I'm going to have a crack at runner beans at Harrogate as my bean fence is heavily laden with developing beans, so they should be cock-on for next weekend. I shall start cutting them in the next few days so that I have plenty to make my final selection from. I won't try and get them too long, but will settle for 16" so that they are fresh and haven't started getting 'beany'. You only need 9 so it's a lot easier than the National where you need 15.

Having snipped off all developing cucumber fruits until I had large plants, trained 4' vertically before they started being trained horizontally, my plants are now absolutely dripping with fruits, so these should be coming good for Harrogate and Malvern also.

The trick now is to make sure they don't come into contact with the foliage as a small scratch now will be a large blemish when the fruit is fully formed. I pack bits of polystyrene sheet between some fruits as they develop to protect them from getting scratched.I also need to remember to duck when i'm in the greenhouse so that I don't knock the flowers off, because I shan't be able to stick them back on with superglue 'cos that is like cheating dude!

I've now just about settled down after our holiday and back into the humdrum daily routine of normal life and work. I've mentioned my bowel movements on here from time to time and I know you all like to keep up to date with them so I'll just mention the iffy toasted sandwich at Marrakech Airport that caused me some close calls at the weekend. There were certainly some interesting psychedelic botty yodels I have to admit. Still, I would rather have it that way than the other, and I well remember the severe constipation I used to suffer from many years ago when I worked with my dad in the building trade. It got so bad that in the end I had to go to the doctor. He advised me to stop wiping my arse with the cement bags.

Millennium misery and Medwyn missives

Whilst the Sun God Helios was paying homage to my magnificent body last week, back in Loughborough we had a hailstorm that made the kids turn up the television very loud as Oscar was frightened. If I'd been at home I would also have been very frightened...for my celery mainly! When I got back in the early hours of Saturday morning to be given this information it didn't immediately register, but on inspection of the plot Saturday afternoon I was horrified to see a lot of damage to the leaves, with many marks, rips and in some cases holes where the hailstone has gone straight through. I spent 30 minutes carefully snipping off any ripped leaflets and with the best part of 4 weeks to go til Malvern hopefully they'll recover a bit by then.

I have huge concerns also with my parsnips. A few growers have reported that growth seemed to stop back in July and mine did to a certain extent when the foliage went a bit yellowy. Now growth has pretty much stopped altogether and much of the foliage has gone brown. I assumed it was red spider but can find no trace so it's another disaster I can only put down to this year's disastrous weather patterns.

I had one very small specimen that was a re-sown station so I decided to pull this one to check on skin finish, and I was delighted to note it was very clean with no sign of carrot fly damage so hopefully the rest will be the same. However, plants don't seem to know whether they are coming or going......I even have a sole wisteria flower. Wisterias flower in May for crying out loud!

We didn't get in back until 3am Saturday morning but I had no chance of a lie in as I judged a small show at 11am in a local church. It was quite a small scale affair and to be honest there wasn't a great deal of quality but it was an enjoyable couple of hours and the organisers made us a decent lunch for our troubles. They told me that entries were well down on previous years, a situation that is being echoed up and down the country.

On Sunday it was my local show at Sutton Bonington and it was nice to be able to enjoy the day as a spectator although I did do my stint on the front desk. Here too entries were down a bit, mainly due to me not entering this year. Although it was a bit strange not being called upon at presentation time to collect a trophy or two I am glad I decided to have a 'gap year' and a few other growers enjoyed their day in the limelight. I even signed up a nine year old boy into the society. His mum said he was mad keen about growing veg to show so I shall be keeping an eye on him over the next few years and mentoring him as much as I can. No doubt he will lose interest during his late teens when he discovers girls but hopefully a spark will be lit that will never go out and he'll return to the hobby when he has his own garden or allotment.

Winner of best veg was my old adversary John Barton with a plate of excellent speckled french beans.

Meanwhile I took a stroll round the showground with Oscar and we put the World to rights.

I emptied out 20 bags of 'Amour' potatoes yesterday evening. I'd cut the haulms off before we went away and stored the bags in the garage to they didn't get wet and the potato skins could set hard. I was very disappointed to uncover a pretty poor crop although I was expecting it as growth had been so poor. If I'd planted in April instead of May I'd probably have done a lot better as the roots would have been down sooner. As it was young plants sat in puddles of water for weeks on end and the die was cast. It just goes to show that Lady Luck plays a part and i'm hoping that another 10 bags planted later as yet still growing will yield me 4 tubers that I need for the Millennium Class at Malvern (4 potatoes/4 tomatoes/4 globe beet/4 stump carrots/4 250g onions). I have set aside a set of 4 but they are a little on the small side but if needs be I will have to go with them. However, as my 250g onions are also on the small side (nearer 190g!) I really don't want to have 2 undersize crops out of my 5 sets if I can avoid it. It might all be academic anyway as I may well struggle to harvest a decent set of globe beet because these too are very small at the moment, and I will only have 50 or so to choose from as I really struggled to get germination during the June deluges. Mother Nature really does have us all by the testacles at the moment and for now she aint letting go.

It is however reassuring to know that even the best are having problems and Medwyn now has a blog that he is regularly updating so I do recommend you have a look-in from time to time.

http://www.medwynsofanglesey.co.uk/blog/

Maybe this year will prove to be the year of female domination. Despite early setbacks I understand Sherie Plumb has returned to form and the Scottish Branch Championships saw success for my friend Helen Vincent with caulis and celery in only her second year of showing, and Sue McCall won blanch leeks at Welsh Branch in only her second ever show I believe, both pretty amazing successes. They make me bloody sick!

More essential Smithyveg travel advice part five (In and out of Africa!)

1) Apart from the stunning Atlas Mountains and the 5 -star complex where we were....Morocco is a right sweaty shit'ole!
2) When will the Mediterranean countries get over their olive fixation? Putting them on your food to entice you into thinking they are grapes is a nasty move! They look and taste like sheep shits.
3) During the course of our sojourn we encountered about a dozen yanks. None of them did anything to dispel my belief that most americans are arseholes! Especially the one who swam two lengths of the pool and then trod water for 5 minutes before he realised his mobile phone was in his swimming shorts pocket! To console himself he said to his wife "honey i'm gonna go to the gym for an hour to work on my aaaaabs!" I haven't a clue what an 'ab' is but I'm fairly sure I can't be arsed to work on mine and I thought of him as I ordered another beer and lathered chip fat over my one-pack.
4) Muslim countries really ought to get over their ridiculous aversion to pigs. Going a whole week without bacon nearly fucking killed me!
5) As far as I could tell there are no discernible road traffic laws in Morrocco. However, I did manage to deduce that it was mandatory to drive so close to the person in front that your bollocks are draped over their rear windscreen, whilst flashing your headlights and sounding your horn before violently swerving around them into oncoming traffic, people, dogs and donkeys. Our taxi driver resembled a demonic John Candy in 'Planes, trains and automobiles'! Had the last laugh when we walked off at Marrakech airport without tipping the crazy twat.
6) It takes 5 Moroccan men all day to paint a 3 metre square piece of decking. I'm sure it was because it was hot and they needed to do a thorough job, rather than the fact it was next to the pool where several bikini clad western women were reclining!
7) I could watch Blackburn v. Leicester or Coventry v. Birmingham several times during the week on Al Jazeera tv, but it took me bloody ages to find out the Man U. score.
8) Free wi-fi only works if you can find the one spot in the hotel reception that transmits it, and only then if you resemble a Madame Tussauds dummy so that you don't lose connection.
9) You cannot buy Guinness in Morocco. This is quite criminal. But not as criminal as charging 3 quid for a tiny bottle of Heineken that equates to one swallow for a fat, balding thirsty Brit.
10) Hammam scrubs stop you getting sunburnt. But you do look a bit of a prick sat in a boiling steam room with dogshit smeared all over you.
11) Until you've visited a dusty, barren, north african sweatbox you'll never fully appreciate how beautiful Britain is in the pissing down rain!
12) if you show veg and you go on holiday in July, August or September you will suffer all sorts of pestilence and problems while you are away! (more on this in the next few postings!)
13) The British bloke in this photo had a body like a Greek God!

Rock the kasbah!

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks or so as we're off on holiday at the end of this week to Morocco, to a 5-star hotel in the Atlas Mountains to celebrate 25 years of Leesa putting up with me. Current Foreign Office advice for Moroccan travel lists a very small risk of westener adduction but I figure they're more likely to want to to nab Leesa, so unless I get detained by an amourous raghead camel-shagger I'll be seeing you in September. I'm leaving the plot in the capable hands of my mother-in-law having realised to my cost that leaving watering duties to any of my 3 daughters is akin to asking Fred & Rose West to babysit for you and expecting to come back and find your children looking healthy and anywhere other than supporting a newly poured floor slab.


With each passing day I feel more and more content with my celery, by far the best I have ever grown and that's as much as you can really hope for, continuing to improve. The photo below really doesn't do them justice and with over 5 weeks to Malvern I'm hopeful of getting a set of 3 on the tables. However, I don't doubt that all the best celery growers will have had an exceptional year with this moisture loving crop so I'll only be making up the numbers but it will satisfy me merely to have an entry on the same playing field.

I've now started to let a few marrows form on the plants that I've trained along a metal framework. You can now see how they will hang downwards as they gain weight, fully exposed to daylight and therefore they will be green all the way around. Make sure they are regularly tied to a stout framework like mine as the last thing you want is the ties snapping and whole plant suddenly collapsing to the floor and spoiling your chances.

I'm now starting to get very confident of my tomatoes giving me plenty of good sized fruits for the later shows. From the 3rd truss upwards I have plenty of large round green fruits and it will be these that I hope to have timed ready for Harrogate and Malvern.

The bottom couple of trusses are virtually all red so I will pick these and disperse them to family and friends. A lot of the fruits are quite small but a few (like the one in the photo below) are pretty good quality and if I had a show tomorrow I would take some beating. I'm currently feeding alternately with Chempak no. 8 and soot water.

I've got 2 beds of Sweet Candle stump carrot and the one that is enclosed by polythene with just a mesh top could give me some excellent roots if the foliage is anything to go by. It really is bursting out of the top and forcing the enviromesh upwards so that any carrot fly could get in easily if they so wished, although phorate granules will soon stop them in their tracks. I have another stump bed that is all enviromesh and they are way behind this bed. During all that cold wet weather in May, June and July this frame really did give them a cosstted environment that they seem to have fourished in.

Similarly my long carrots have also benefitted from a similar structure.

Not all is going according to plan however. My brassicas have been an absolute disaster this season, and are as pathetic as Julian Assange and his supporters. They are clean enough (unlike Assange the dirty raping bastard) but they are very small and weak looking plants. I think the beds I grow all my veg on in rotation are perhaps getting a little tired and having spoken to Gareth Cameron i'm going to be giving the soil a drench with compost tea, something he's had some good results with on his pot leeks and which I'll be looking at in more detail and reporting on at a future date.

Until September folks................



وداعا



.....which apparently is Arabic for goodbye! Just looks like some fucking squiggles to me. Mustapha dance!

Requiem in P minor

I think I'm going to have to admit defeat in my quest to get a set of peas benched at Malvern this year. My hat goes off to anyone south of Yorkshire who can grow a set in late September as it really does seem to be an impossible task for me and proof if ever it were needed that peas are well worth all of the 20 points allocated to them in the NVS Judges' Guide. Many years ago Medwyn did a series of Garden News articles on the sowing dates top growers used for a late August and a late September show, asking 6 exhibitors from all around the country, and John Branham who lives in Aylesbury left the date for sowing peas for the late show blank as he considered it a complete waste of time trying. I now concur. The Scots are pretty much unbeatable when it comes to peas so I shall leave it to the last two years' champions to battle it out again, my pals Ian Simpson and Ian Stocks (below), who (along with his wife Linda) sent me and Leesa a lovely silver anniversary 'e-card' today. It's not actually until the 29th but appreciated all the same. And get your bloody hair cut before Malvern Ian!

Despite growing a mildew resistant pea called Dorian the plants are well behind what I'd expect them to be and are currently about 18" tall ....if that. They don't look particularly healthy either, although there is no sign of mildew. From now on I'm just going to grow some peas against netting the old fashioned way for eating purposes only in June/July and use the space for something else later such as lettuce/caulis/overwintering leeks. It means I will no doubt be subject to some not inconsiderable ridicule at Malvern but if you can't take it you shouldn't dish it out, as that means you're just a cunt and believe me there are plenty of those in the veg showing world. Don't forget the old saying.....

One veg I am starting to get the hang of growing are long beet ('Regar'), and I may well grow more than these couple of drums in future years. Biggest problem is hacking back the grape vine growing along the top of the fence above them...but that's another story.

I didn't sow these until early June as my early May sowing last year grew way too big, and the tops were like tree trunks come September. Thus far I have large healthy tops and the roots are a couple of inches diameter at the top and with 6 weeks to Malvern I think I might yet have a crack at staging a set of 5. If the colourful stalks are anything to by I'm on the right track.

Rather than growing them in drums of just free draining sand they are filled with a mix of sand, soil and compost that retains more moisture, and they are given a decent watering every three or 4 days. This should stop the twisting effect that I found 'Regar' prone to when I used to grow it. You don't want huge roots on the showbench, and roots about 3" diameter look more refined on the showbench, providing you can get the whole tap root out which is more of a task with long beet that parsnips or long carrots. However, I've been given some pointers on how to achieve this without snapping it so I'll report on that when it happens.



Gotta fly now....I think Jesus is trying to tell me something......

Please form an orderly cu!

Since losing two of my four cucumber plants to wilt not long after planting the remaining two have grown really well and are now at the top of the vertical supports. The foliage is fresh looking and very green and now able to support several fruits.

They will now be trained horizontally at head height meaning I will have to duck under them when I enter the greenhouse (yeah ok....that's about knee height to big thick Yorkshiremen then!). I am only growing the central stem and any side shoots are cut back to the first leaf axil. All baby fruits have been picked off up to now, but once the plant has 'turned the corner' I will start to allow fruits to form so that they hang downwards. If you look carefully at the photo above you will see the strings going off from the top of the plants for them to be secured to. This way the skins won't get scratched by the coarse foliage and good strong plants mean that there is a big engine for the fruits to form quickly, vitally important on the showbench as you want good size with freshness.

Cu's can be picked up to a week before your show and stored in clingfilm in the refrigerator. Careful the setting isn't too low as they will freeze and then you'll feel like a right dick. Try and keep the flower attached to the end of the cu, but if you do happen to dislodge it secure it back onto the fruit with a very tiny dollop of superglue. Do it carefully and no-one will ever be able to tell, since most judges are geriatric old sods with shite eyesight. Whilst this is technically cheating every fucker does it and don't let anyone tell you they don't. Besides, it's nigh on impossible to make a car journey without them being shaken off.

By picking the fruits over a week or so you can ensure they are all bang on the money for length, but do bear in mind they will grow very quickly, especially in a dampened greenhouse, so you need to keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't go over the length of the ones you've got in store. I've even heard stories of some growers setting their alarm clocks for the middle of the night when they'd calculated a time they would reach the required length!

I've been pleasantly surprised by my aubergines once again and I am looking forward to entering a few plates in the any other veg classes, not to mention using the rejects in some delicious mousakkas. However, a couple of plants have thrown down their leaves almost overnight, having looked very healthy beforehand. It's not red spider as i've sprayed with Dynamec and there isn't a tell-tale web in sight, and it can't be overwatering as plants next to them are perfectly fine. It is a mystery, but the same thing happened last season and after picking off all the droopy leaves to leave a pathetic looking plant, they did seem to recover and go on to produce a crop.

If anyone has any idea what has caused this please let me know as I asked Dave Thornton and he didn't have a clue.

To your marks.....

I feel a huge sofa and Guinness shaped void in my life now the Olympics is over. Despite the Scots' early attempt at sabotage it was a total triumph for Britain from start to finish, although getting shite acts Elbow, Emeli Sande and Muse into the closing ceremony spoiled things a bit at the end. Attention now turns to who stands on the podium at our summer and autumn shows! ( I really do shoehorn this shit in sometimes!).


Despite my recent attempts to get tickets at a higher grade of showing I just love the small village or town shows and will always try and enter as many as I can. Anyone who shows and who thinks these aren't worth entering needs his genitals feeding through a mangle and gobbled off at the other side by an Azerbaijani shotputter. I'd been bitten by the bug in the mid-90's after watching Medwyn pulling some parsnips on an episode of Gardener's World and resolved to have a go at the method myself having first witnessed a few sets at the sadly now long defunct Loughborough Show. I well remember pulling my first set of long carrots and parsnips from a couple of hastily prepared drums the next Autumn and proudly (and nervously) taking them to a local village show set in a marquee. The smell inside a hot marquee is a magical one as far as i'm concerned and it was made all the more enjoyable that particular day as I came back to find red tickets against my parsnips and globe beet.

I have hundreds of photos from my early shows which I love looking back on, and it's now plain to me that my early efforts weren't that great compared to what I've been producing recently, mainly thanks to the advice I get from fellow NVS members. However, over the years I've seen plenty of exhibits that were more than worthy of being shown at a much higher level and there is often a healthy level of competition, and you can always learn something new. On Saturday I visited Burbage Show and it was plain to see that the terrible weather has significantly affected exhibits in terms of quality and the quantity tabled. As I had a very irritable Oscar with me I was unable to take any photos, but congratulations to all those growers who managed to get something benched in this most trying of seasons. All being well I will try and enter next season as it's a quality show with most of the top Leicestershire growers competing. The Show has a website;

http://www.burbagegardeningclub.org.uk/

Because Malvern is hosting this year's National Championships the Midland Branch of the NVS moved their Branch Championships as part of last week's Shrewsbury Flower Show, and I'm as pleased as punch that blog follower Marcus Powell had some excellent success including winning the 3x2 class with his entry below, all the more impressive when you consider the likes of John Branham and Andrew Jones were competing.

Just about everybody I've spoken to says that their celery is without question their best looking crop this season which is totally unsurprising as celery is a bog plant in the wild. My celery is starting to bulk up now and I've been persuaded to put a 20" collar on at this late stage as we have some 6 weeks until Malvern, although I may leave a few on 18" collars for Harrogate which is two weeks earlier. Growing each plant in a large bottomless pot sunk into the ground really allows me to concentrate water to the plant's roots and I'm giving them all a good daily drenching. I learned last season that it's nigh-on impossible to overwater celery. I really proud with this row of healthy looking sticks, all standing to attention. The plastic coated twist ties mean I can undo the collars for maintenance purposes very quickly indeed.

The 'Prince' french beans have grown nicely since plating into 12" pots. I will take these into the greenhouse after returning from our holiday in 3 weeks time. It's one less thing for the mother-in-law to have to worry about watering while we're away.

A few days ago I started to get concerned about my parsnips, as the foliage was looking a little yellow and a mildewy type fungus was affecting the stalks. A spray with Maxicrop greened them up again and a new fungicide called Signum appears to have conquered the mildew. I also had a few stump carrots suffering blight (alternaria) and I've used Signum on these too.

Over on allotment diary Dan's pumpkin 'Simon' is 2 feet long and topping 30 pounds, and a fine, handsome beast he is. As Dan says it is half the length of his namesake but only 10% of his weight. Wanker. (Too near the truth for comfort though!)

Getting back to the Olympics my beloved Leesa won an Olympic themed cake compy at her place of work and was presented with a 'gold' certificate in recognition of her achievement. (If only the killjoys hadn't stepped in and spoiled our fun at Malvern!).

As a reward I've decided to buy her a new dress.

At the third exit....

The season just gets crazier. Due to a late sowing and planting I wouldn't expect my tomatoes to start colouring up yet based on 'normal' seasons, but last week the first ones started turning and now many more have followed suit. I haven't even thinned the foliage or had to hang up any ripe bananas! After several months of cold temperatures those few days of sunshine last month must have been enough to shock the fruits into ripening. It's a blessing in disguise as I can hopefully use up the fruits from the lower trusses which are usually not a great shape and will get plenty to choose from the 3rd and 4th trusses upwards. I certainly have many nice large shiny green fruits to come so I'm hopeful of tabling a set at Harrogate and Malvern this season. I've also got some cracking aubergines growing below the plants too.....which does make the watering a little awkward.

I pulled up all my 250g 'Setton' onions last night.....actually make that 150g onions as I only managed to salvage a dozen or so from this pile that might make me a set of 4 for the Millennium Class. They stopped growing when the rain stopped, basked in a few days of sun and basically said fuck it, we're ripe, dig us up before that wet stuff comes back. I shall have to make the best of a bad job as the Vento isn't much better.

With my leeks going to seed, my spuds being dogplop and my globe beet hardly germinating I am having to think of a plan B so i'm now turning my attention to other crops such as these Blyton Belle marrows which i'm tying to a sturdy framework of arching metal poles. I've taken off all embryo fruits thus far but fairly shortly the plants will be turning almost horizontally so I can then allow fruits to form. They will then hang down away from the spiky foliage and you'll get a blemish free skin with green colouring all the way round. In the past when i've trained them along the ground you will get one side of your marrow with a yellow face where it has been in contact with the ground. I tried putting a pane of glass between two bricks and growing the marrow on this with some success but it can be dangerous when you walk down the garden at night after a few bevvies!

My french beans 'Prince' timed for Malvern are ready for planting into large pots. I'll plant 3 to each of the pots that i've been growing the onions in and put these on the greenhouse staging for regular maintenance and titivation. Growing under cover should give blemish free pods. These plants come from seed provided by Ronnie Jackson who has won at Branch and National level. He grows them in his polytunnel borders but pots will have to suffice for me again.

And as I may have to rely on some lesser pointed crops to win a few quid this season i've started planting a few lettuce in succession. I've come up with this nifty little idea of some plastic covered wooden planks suspended at the ends on bricks. The plants are planted between the planks, themselves into 3" bottomless pots, the idea being that the roots grow through the pot into the soil below and the leaves rest on the clean surface of the plastic and don't get marked by the soil. The plants will be cut just below the bottomless pot and this allows me to wash the roots with a hose without splashing about too much soil onto the underside of the (hopefully very clean) leaves, The roots are wrapped in damp towelling and this keeps the lettuce fresh for a two or three day show no problem. Sometimes I really do get scared by the brilliance of my brain.

By the way if anyone's interested I'm selling a good line in cheap sat navs stolen (with some ease apparently) from thick northerners' vans. Let me know if you're in the market for one.

Tete de coq

I've got mixed feelings about this photo.

Apart from the fact that I am still devilishly good looking, these were my first two harvested onions at 19" circumference from last night. I was hoping to enter a jolly decent set in the 1.5kg class and Dan Unsworth (proof that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.....God made him as ugly as I am gorgeous) told me I should get them up at 18.5" or else they would be over that weight. Rather than take the advice of someone who has forgotten more about onions than I know I decided that I knew better than my neolithic northern mate and chose to ignore him, and these are the result. 3 lbs 11 oz or 1.67kgs. What a cockhead!



It means I will now have to consider putting these in the exhibition onion class at Harrogate and Malvern, (assuming I get another 3 to match them) which is a bit of a bugger as it puts you up against a whole different class of exhibitor entirely, such as Vin Throup, Ivor Mace, Andrew Jones and Dave Metcalfe. The 1.5kg class was introduced for those who didn't have the facilities to grow big onions, and the joke among some circles is it's for those growers who don't know how to grow onions! Well, I guess this proves that I can grow onions now? However, it also proves that I don't fucking listen!



These two had completely run out of steam and the foliage was spent, as you could see the neck starting to collapse to one side. I cut the tops off, discarded the M3 mix onto the garden, washed the roots of any remaining soil (which were very strong and healthy I have to say) and have laid them on their sides, necks downwards on a blanket in the conservatory with some polystyrene sheet over them to dry them off a bit, and will turn them over the next few days before storing them somewhere at constant temperature (don't know where yet!). I have 4 more that are about 1/2" to 3/4" behind and still growing quite well, so I'll get these to the same diameter (hopefully!) and cut the tops as soon as they do. I also have several more that are more squat shaped (not a shape I favour) and should be able to make a set of three for local classes. All in all it's been enjoyable watching them swell and wondering how big they'll get and i've learnt a lot about growing them in pots. I hope to repeat the process next season in a polytunnel that I intend to purchase for said purpose.



My thanks to Helen for supplying the plants in the first place and Dan for the advice during the season. As for our sidekick Paul Bastow, some of you may know that he is actually a security consultant and spends his days advising people on how to stay safe and how to protect their property. He is always one step ahead of the criminal mind, and employs a vast array of gadgetry in his daily quest to keep the streets of Britain free from evil. Well, last night his had his sat nav nicked from his van! Double cockhead!

Challenging times

There is absolutely no doubt that this season is like no other I have ever experienced. Aside from the weather I've been having unprecedented problems getting certain seeds to germinate, particularly globe beetroot which I have resown 3 times now and they simply refuse to germinate outside in any number. They normally grow like weeds! It can't be the seed, as I've used three different batches from 3 different suppliers so i'm at a headscratching loss to explain it. When I first popped them in at the height of the summer deluges I didn't expect any problem as the soil was permanently wet. Perhaps it was just too wet and the knobbly seed simply rotted? In desperation I sowed a couple of rows in one of my greenhouse borders and these were much more successful, proving that you need warm moist soil for good germination, not a cold, muddy swimming pool!

My 250g onions are also becoming a concern. I expected them to be ready for harvest around now and hoped they would get to 82mm diameter, but they seem to have stopped at around 65mm. The foliage has gone yellow and to all intents the plants are telling me 'that's it'. They just sat there for weeks on end as the rain lashed down, and once we had a few sultry days the plants seemed to swell out a bit then decide it was harvest time.
My first bags of Kestrel potatoes have been an unmitigated disaster. In normal seasons this bed is ideal as it acts as a bit of a sump for water draining from the surrounding land, ideal for thirsty spuds, but there is a limit and this year I fear they've just sat in waterlogged soil.

Last week the foliage went yellow and it was still barely a foot high so I had no choice but to harvest them. I now have a couple of buckets marble sized Kestrel which is about as much use in the kitchen as I am. If anyone has any clue how best to cook Kestrel let me know as my wife has nothing but utter contempt for them.

I was hoping to enter the Millennium Class at Malvern but seeing as I need 250g onions, potatoes and globe beet it looks like that plan is on hold for another year. My tomatoes are still not looking that great either.

I've given up on my blanch leeks, despite my wife insisting that the seed heads 'look pretty'! I planted 23 and so far at least 16 have gone to seed and the remainder look as if they're about to. This means I will have to be more reliant on celery for collections this season, a desperate measure for someone who until 2 seasons ago was without doubt the World's Worst celery grower! However, I learnt a lot about this crop last year with a little help from my friends, and so far I'm happy with how my plants are progressing. They certainly are one crop that should thrive in this summer's weather. I sowed a little later so that I had fresher plants, and they are just starting to bulk out now, having gone onto an 18" cardboard collar a couple of weeks ago. The soil had some seaweed meal worked into it and I've given them regular feeds of nitrate of soda and calcium nitrate and will now be switching to Chempak no. 8 until harvest time, as well as a few applications of soot water which is reputed to bring out the colour in the foliage. I shall also be giving them shitloads of water from now on, as when I harvested them last season the soil was surprisingly dry despite daily drenchings, proving to me that you can never overwater celery. And in the end I applied Slugclear to the soil despite the warnings of death on the packet as I simply couldn't allow the little snotfuckers anywhere near my plants.

My 'Regar' long beet have motored well despite a very late sowing and with two months to showtime i'm more confident I will have these the refined shape they're supposed to be rather than the weighty monsters I produced last year, and I'm certainly happy with the uniformity of the foliage. Last year 3 or 4 stations produced specimens that swamped the others. There are 14 plants growing in these two drums and I may have a set of 3 to take with me to the RHS Westminster Show in October. The NVS call for 5 in their National Championships which is too many for me and many other growers so no doubt there'll be very few entries as usual (dig dig). Long beet like moist soil at all times, and my drums are therefore filled with an equal mix of sand, soil and compost to retain more moisture.

And last night I planted my 'Dorian' peas with the National at the end of September in mind, 27 days after they were sown. They were all set against 8' canes 10" apart and any tendrils were snipped off. As soon as the plants get their roots down and perk up a bit I'll start tying to the canes every couple of inches. As it was another wet evening I also gave a liberal scattering of slug pellets. It will be interesting to see if 'Dorian' is as mildew resistant as it says on the tin!