A good job done.

Yesterday I was able to empty and refill the last of my 7 drums where I intend to grow my parsnips this season, 5 borehole 'stations' to each drum.

These now have 6 or 7 weeks to settle until I sow my pre-chitted seed. I shall just top up with more sand as the top surface level sinks over the next few days. An all-important pane of glass needs to be placed over each drum to stop cats digging and doing their business, as I have found to my cost over the years that this is something they particularly enjoy doing. In the past they have walked across the top of the fence and jumped onto the drums for their daily constitutional. Now they will just get a shard of glass up their jacksies!

The pressure's off then in respect of that particular task, so I can now turn my thoughts to doing the same with my long carrot drums. As I won't be sowing carrot seed until well into April I have plenty of time to get this done. I can also start to think about doing a bit of winter digging and getting my veg beds looking neat and tidy. I never seem to get the digging done in the autumn as the text books say you should.

I also have to get a chainsaw to 4 trees that I planted 15 years ago when I was more into ornamental gardening, among them a 40' tall eucalyptus and a 30' beech. As the veg showing has required more land I have gradually moved up the garden and the result is that these trees now have to go, firstly to give my spuds more growing space and also to let more light into the garden. I will be looking to get rid of them before the birds start nesting.

I can't believe......

....I got up early on a Sunday morning to watch Scotsman Andy Murray let England down yet again!

Always learning....

I've been getting some conflicting information about brown parsnip canker which i've now declared to be my biggest enemy. According to NVS information God, Dave Thornton, it is an air borne fungus that manifests itself as yellow spots on the foliage during the growing season. When the spores 'sporellate' (his word not mine) they land on the surface of the growing medium, in my case sand, and then work their way into the parsnip via the crown.

There is also a black canker which would appear to be soil borne and which i'm fairly sure I don't suffer from. Both diseases do not like free draining soil which my sand obviously is, nor the application of lime which I include in my borehole mix. When you consider I didn't get a spot of 'canker' on my Pinnacle parsnips in 2008 i'm at a loss as to why I've suddenly suffered from it in the last couple of seasons. As I have said, I shall be drenching the sand with Jeyes Fluid when refilling the drums which should kill any overwintering spores in the sand....if there are any!

Another consideration is that parsnips can suffer from carrot fly attack and i'm now wondering if it was actually these little critters that have caused me the problem. I've searched on the internet and the signs of attack on parsnips doesn't appear to look the same as it does on carrots. They appear to be shallower (perhaps the grubs don't find them as palatable as carrots?) and brown rather than the black tunnelling you get on carrots. Either way it means I shall have to erect a physical barrier over my 'nips this season to prevent all possible scenarios. When I exhibited these parsnips at Leicester in 2008 a fellow NVS man reckoned they would have competed at National level and I would dearly like to get a set of 5 at Llangollen to compare against the very best. I always pull quite a few parsnips for a couple of shows on August Bank Holiday weekend but as I am now committed to having a go at the National I shall hopefully be taking some with me to Wales instead.

And just a quick word to wish Andy Murray all the best on Sunday as he bids to become England's first tennis grand slam winner in over 70 years. Go Andy!

Scots wha hae

In deference to my Scottish pals on Burns night this was my dinner tonight, a plate of haggis, tatties and peas (non championship strain!). And very nice it was too!

A mixed day for the Scots today however as Scottish football pundit Andy Gray was sacked from Sky Sports for his disgraceful comments on female assistant referee Sian Massey. Such sexism has no place in today's society and Andy Grey will do well to read the match referee's comments "Sian made a superb job of ironing my shirt before the match and the sandwiches she made at half time were absolutely delicious!". Sian was due to officiate at tonight's Crewe v. Bradford game but had to pull out as it's her period.

Meanwhile my Vento onions are causing me some concern as they are very slow to germinate. The seed comes encased in a little green ball that is some form of fungicide but i'm convinced it hinders germination as I've had this problem in the past. They are coming through slowly but very sparsley. The other tray is Red Baron onions sown yesterday. Both trays are on the kitchen table next to a radiator at night and are transferred to the windowsill during the day.

Alliums

Yesterday I noticed the first shoots on my potted up shallots in the greenhouse so all is well there. It was well into February before they got started last season so they are ahead of the game. I gave all the others a bit of a tug and all of them came up with the pot meaning they have all rooted. I should think this is one crop I will definitely be putting on the bench at the National in August.




















I pricked out 24 exhibition onion seedlings yesterday into a 24-cell tray. I always like to prick out at the 'crook' stage when there is only an inch or so of root, as the plants soon perk up after planting if you do so at this early stage. These are now under the same light as my leeks. This variety (from Scotland!) has a nice flask shape and I only intend growing 20 or so, giving them each as much TLC as I can in an attempt to get a nice even set. I shall pot on regularly, not allowing them to get too pot bound so that there is nice even growth throughout the season. I'll never be a good onion grower until I can afford a proper lighting chamber but i'd like to try and get some bulbs to the 3lb mark this season.




















The rest of the garden is still a complete mess although I did manage to get my two long raised beds at the bottom of my garden dug over where I grow my leeks and onions. I keep saying every year I will get a tunnel over these but I never seem to get around to it. There isn't much activity in nearby gardens for the time being but at least I have next door's inquisitive springer spaniels for company.





















And today I was given a dilemma as Dave Thornton asked me if I wanted to help him man the NVS stand at the Edible Garden Show at Stoneleigh Park in March. I had already agreed to go up to Scotland that weekend to do some mountain walking. Toss of a coin methinks.

Here is a link to the event

http://www.theediblegardenshow.co.uk/

Never mind the length......

For quite a while now I've been wishing I had another 6 to 8 inches. Quite a few people have have said I really need them including my wife so today I took steps to make sure I'm going to get them.

Whilst exhibiting next to Dave Thornton's parsnips at Derby Show I could see I had a similar girth to his, and good uniformity but that his were several inches longer than mine. Length in itself isn't everything and condition and uniformity always has to be the major point scorers but on a local level some judges can be swayed by extra length and size.

I usually rest my long root drums on the sand contained within the metal frames but settling and sinkage means the drums can either lean to one side or sink into the sand causing the bore holes to distort meaning your roots have the potential to kink rather than being bayonet straight.



Therefore, I mackled together these wooden frames that rest on top of the metal frames....

......the drums are then rested on the wooden frames.....

.....and this is a view from above looking into the drum. The drum is barely resting on the wooden frame, just enough to be supported. The drum is then filled with sand, the wooden frame stopping the sand from spilling out sideways.

You can quite clearly see the difference in height between the new method on the right and the old method on the left.

As I've said in a previous posting you have to empty and refill the sand each year for a number of reasons, such as aerating the sand and also to get out any residual tap roots way down in the drums. I found this 12 inch piece in the sand in the metal framework. You don't want vegetable matter like this rotting away and marking your roots.

As I refill each drum I give the sand a drenching with Jeyes Fluid solution every few inches to kill any lurking nasties.

Two drums down, five more to go (for the parsnips!). The sand will sink back a few inches and so I will top up the drums before I sow the seed into the bore holes during March. It's quite surprising how much topping up you have to do as the sand settles, so you want to be getting your drums done several weeks before you need them.

My Sherine Amour

Always nice to get home and find a package on the doorstep. Today I got my first order of seed potatoes from JBA, the varieties NVS Sherine (white) and NVS Amour (pink splashes). I don't plan on growing a huge amount of tatties this season, but the ones I do grow I want to grow well in the hope of maybe (just maybe) getting a set on the bench at either Llangollen or Malvern. These two varieties are exclusive to JBA and used to be regular show winners several years ago until they were discontinued. Iain Barbour of JBA resurrected them in order to sponsor two special classes at last year's National for the NVS's 50th anniversary celebrations. Hopefully he'll be doing the same for this year's National.

Tonight I set them out in a tray in the garage and covered them to exclude light. Towards the end of February i'll put them in a warmer, lighter spot to encourage chitting.

Due to work constraints I didn't get my order in time into Dave Thornton's ESP so I've also ordered a small amount of Kestrel and Casablanca from JBA. Iain Barbour has kindly offered to personally select the spuds for my order from his vast set up to ensure the best quality for exhibition. Seems like a blatant attempt at trying to ensure his name is kept out of next year's Smithyveg awards to me!

Polar goaler or canker wanker?

A few decent hours weather today meant I could start the laborious but totally necessary yearly task of emptying and refilling my parsnip drums. I start by putting an old dumpy bag close to the first drum to be emptied. The sand from the first drum is emptied into the dumpy bag and the second drumis then emptied into the first drum and so on.

This task is made easier by the metal scoop that I had made and which you can see balanced on top of the two drums in the photo.......

This scoop allows me to reach down into the bottom of the drum and scoop out the sand easily so that the drums are emptied in little time.

After emptying each drum the sand in the raised metal frame is given a good forking through to loosen it up. In the past i've just rested the drum on this foot deep layer of sand, using a spirit level to make sure the drums are perfectly upright. However, whilst refilling you will invariably find that the drum may tilt slightly. Even if it doesn't it can still tilt during the settling process, worse still after you have bored the holes meaning there is potential for your roots to bend and the bore hole skews. Therefore I have decided to put some metal bars across the metal frame and rest the drum on these having seen carrot king Ian Stocks do a similar thing on his blog. I shall be doing this next weekend and take some photos to show what I mean. This will also give me a couple of extra inches of growing length as the drums also tend to sink into sand bed.

I still had a few parsnips in the drums from last season which didn't make the showbench, the double rooted monster on the left for obvious reasons. Still, they taste nice having been subjected to several weeks of frost.

The last few years I have grown 7 parsnips in each drum whereas the norm is 3 or 4 for the really top growers. I shall be compromising this coming season by reducing to 5 in each drum as I just don't have dozens of drums like them, just 7 giving me 35 potential roots to choose.

I have also taken a flyer by deciding that I will be growing the variety Polar rather than Pinnacle that I have grown for the last three seasons. Having had a few non-germinating stations last season with Pinnacle, and no Pinnacle seed left I tried sowing Polar in these positions after being sent a trial packet by Shelley Seeds. Whilst I suffered with canker on the Pinnacles there was absolutely no sign of any damage on Polar despite them all growing side by side in the same drums. The skin on them was incredibly smooth, almost opaque and cleaning up was a doddle. I shall also erect some form of barrier over the drums to stop the windborne canker spores in their tracks.

According to Dave Thornton, Polar has a lower canker resistance rating than Pinnacle so it should have been the other way round, but for whatever reason it worked for me. I also found that it carried it's weight well down the root although they weren't as big as Pinnacle as they were sown a good month later. If I can get the girth then I don't see why I shouldn't become National Parsnip Champion in August. What was that Oscar?......

Clippety doo dah

Got my second package of seed today from Medwyn's, including a packet of Vento onions for the under 250g class which I sowed immediately. I usually wait until the end of the month or even early February before sowing my 250g onions but as I want them for the end of August I've sown a batch now. I plan to grow these a different way this year, in large pots in the greenhouse. More on this in the next few months.

I also received these spring-steel clips from Medwyns. At the Scottish Branch NVS seminar it became apparent to me that these are a must for growing exhibition peas. I find it difficult to get 8' canes in my neck of the woods, let alone 10' ones. As you lose 8-10" of the cane in the ground this gives you barely 7' of vertical height which may not be enough.

By using a wire stretched between two stout posts the canes can be secured to the wire with these clips, meaning the cane only needs to be into the soil an inch or two to keep it in position at ground level. Once in position the canes don't budge a millimetre and it is certainly going to be a lot quicker and also less fiddly than messing about with bits of string. I can almost hear those Scottish pea growers screaming into their sporrans!

New Man City player takes a dig at Man Utd.

Yawn! 34 years since their last trophy and counting!

Why is it so easy grandad?

Well it now feels as if the season has really started with the planting of the shallots (Hative de Niort) into 3" square pots. As a tight bastard I used the compost from last years spud bags which I won't be using for spuds again as all my spuds were riddled with scab. I did add some Vitax Q4 and some nutrimate to the potting which should see them through to planting out time in late March/early April. In all I had 34 large bulbs and 14 for the pickling class that have survived through the Winter. I lost more than usual this season to soft rots for some reason. I also had a few bulbs that started shooting in December and these were immediately binned.

The shallots are in one of my greenhouses for now, with no added heat whatsoever. I did manage to get it cleared of the old necrotic tomato plants last weekend and gave the glass a good spraying with Jeyes Fluid inside and out so that any lurking nasties have been eliminated.


















The only other thing growing at the moment are these pots of show daffs for my local show at the end of March. Growing them in this way allows me to put them outside if I need to slow them down or leave them inside if I need to speed things up. It also means I can bring them under cover if rain is forecast just before the show that may spoil the blooms. I don't show any daffs anywhere other than my local show but I do like to have them at their best all the same.

















Yesterday I sowed a small tray of onions, the seed supplied by Ian Stocks from Scotland, a strain I believe from an exhibition heavyweight Kelsae type. I hope to be able to grow a few to 3 or maybe 4lbs this season.

I had some of my seeds arrive from Shelley Seeds on Friday, and just await the delivery of some more from Medwyns and DT Browns. It's always nice to get your hands on the varieties you want, and indeed I had a bad dream the other night that Shelleys were unable to supply my usual Cedrico tomato seed, but luckily they turned up in the package so no worries there. If I had to put money on one crop where I think I could realistically get into the tickets at Llangollen it would be tomatoes.

And finally today my grandson Oscar watched his first Man U match, the boys beating a 2nd rate Liverpool team in the FA Cup very comfortably. However, as you can see he was absolutely disgusted at the horror tackle that quite rightly got Steven 'over-rated' Gerrard sent off. His little Man U shirt was in the wash!

New year, new diary, new plans, new look.

I'm a happy man today. The Christmas decorations have come down so that's that nonsense over and done with for another year. The holiday period has been one of total inactivity as far as the veg plot has been concerned but I'm feeling quite smug about that as experience has taught me that there really is no rush. I managed to get my Pendle Improved leeks potted on at last but time will tell whether the check in growth will bite me on the bum later in the season.

The next task will be to get a few onions sown and my shallots potted up. I saved my best shallot bulbs from last season meaning I have about 30 to replant plus a few picklers. I shall use the compost from last season's spud bags with some Vitax Q4 and Nutrimate added to keep them going until planting out time at the end of March. I shall fill 3" square pots with the mix , water well and nestle the shallots to about a third of their depth. They will then be left to their own devices in a cold greenhouse and not watered again until the roots are well established or we get some unseasonally hot weather. If we get freezing temperatures again it won't bother the shallots as last season the compost was frozen solid at times during January and February and they still went on to become my best ever.

A few weeks ago I cut the neck of the bulb back to just above the growing tip which you can feel between finger and thumb. This helps stop the emerging shoots getting tangled up in the dry neck tissue and the new shoots can emerge quickly without hindrance. Dave Thornton scratches the base plate and dips them in Rovril fungicide which he says helps prevent losses due to soft rots later in the year after harvesting. My bulbs seem nice and solid and I have only lost a few during the Winter so I shan't be bothering with that.

I have also been filling in my 2011 RHS diary with the season's sowing and planting dates with the various shows in mind, working back from each one, for things like globe beetroot and french beans. My stepmum gets me the RHS pocket diary every Christmas and I now have a dozen or more to refer back to and alter my dates accordingly. In this age of computer spreadsheets and online blogs I still find these dairies invaluable and there's nothing quite like checking back on your own written words and seeing what worked for you in a particular year. It's also interesting to see the variety names that have come and gone and those that still rule the roost.

And finally I have grown something over Christmas that will hopefully help me to get amongst the cards at Llangollen with peas. I noticed that the last two National champions the two Ians, Stocks and Simpson both sport beards. Now, whether my newly acquired facial fungus will attract the mildew away from my pea plants only time will tell but i'm prepared to try anything that may increase my chances. So, not only do I talk like a fanny but from now on my face also resembles one.

The results are in!

It's that time you've all been waiting for and maybe some have been dreading. The 2010 Smithyveg awards when I take on board all the insults and ridicule that some of you have thrown at me during the year and spit them back out with interest. There are also some serious awards reflecting what has been an excellent year for top class veg when the National Vegetable Society celebrated its 50th anniversary. I've said it before and i'll say it again....if you have any interest in growing veg to show standard or simply just improving your yield then the NVS is a must join society. Forget the National Allotment Society....that's for lefties, hippies and new age lesbian mothers wanting to know how to grow bean shoots, okra and gourds for sticking their josticks into.

Anyway...to business.

The shows at Malvern, Westminster and Derby pitched me against some of the country's best growers and there were some superb dishes to be seen. As usual Sherie Plumb was nearly unbeatable with potatoes but when she is it's very often as a result of poor judging. For that reason she comes third in the 'What the hell were you smoking when you judged that?' award. At Westminster she came second in the white potato class because her spuds were around 12oz each and not the 6-7oz optimum size as suggested by the NVS judges' guide. They were so far better than the second placed set in terms of quality, shape and uniformity it was totally embarrassing.

In 2nd place were Dave Thornton's 8oz onions that won at Westminster. Even he was amazed at the result and it denied a keen husband and wife grower a first red card at such a high level.

The winner this year, but of course, is the blind Uruguayan referee that denied England an equalising goal in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The ball was so far over the line it was actually in Zimbabwe and had to get it's passport stamped on its way back into the stadium. If he had allowed it England would only have lost 4-2 and we wouldn't have felt nearly so humiliated! Still, it meant we could devote the rest of the year laughing at Andy Murray.

Best newcomer in 2010 has to be Ian Taylor of Nuneaton who had the audacity to beat me for most points at my local show in Seagrave. I say newcomer......he's that old he actually remembers cheering the troops off during the war. The Boer War!

For the next gong i'm going 'Back to The Future' for the Battle of Falkirk award for most scottish bodies lying around in a broken and defeated state! And the winner is 'Llangollen 2011', which will see the emergence of a brilliant and incredibly good-looking English pea grower who will leave the previously dominant scottish contingent crying into their Glenfiddichs!

The next award is the Garry Glitter "I love you love, you love me true love, I love you love me love" award for services to vegetable manlove. In second place this year are Dave Thornton and Medwyn Williams. Dave has appeared in Medwyn's Garden News column more times than every other grower combined, to the extent that I am now convinced that Dave must be Medwyn's secret love child.

But the winners this year by a country mile are Paul Bastow and Dan Unsworth for this unashamedly homo-erotic pose at Ingleton Show. When they die I may have them mounted....or perhaps just holding hands!

The next award is for the biggest 'looooooooser' in 2010. Sadly, perennial winners of this award Liverpool FC can no longer be considered as to become a loser you have to actually compete in the first place. So in 3rd position in 2010 is Gordon Brown who thankfully lost the general election in May but still managed to leave the country in such a financial fanny pickle it will take a generation to rectify. Thanks Gordon!

2nd biggest 'loser' in 2010 is the people of the United States of America, who in 2009 thought they were electing the most radical and forward thinking President ever in Barack Obama. Since his inauguaration he has done, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing!

But the winner is the great Medwyn Williams, current Chairman of the NVS who came 2nd to me at Malvern in the tomato class. As he presented me with my trophy on that Saturday night in September he whispered "I'd better not bloody read about this on your website!" It was already on!

Never mind Medwyn, you also provided me with the best day out in 2010 when I joined the NVS North East Derby DA (NEDDA) along with Dave Thornton (NODDY) on their trip to see Medwyn's operation in May. It was amazing to see the scale of his greenhouses at Bangor University and his new polytunnel on Anglesey just a few days before he started harvesting everything for his Chelsea Flower Show display, where he won an 11th gold medal as well as best exhibit in the floral marquee. This trip narrowly pipped the Scottish Branch's seminar in November which I hope to be attending regularly from now on. Three excellent lectures plus the chance to buy stuff you can't buy in the garden centres near me made this well worth the 600 mile round trip. I don't get out much!

I always end this awards ceremony by announcing the premier award of the night, that of the most gorgeous creature on Earth. In the past it has been won by my wife in 2008 and last year by a 19 stone pumpkin. This year I have a dilemma as I cannot split two worthy contenders so I have decided to make them both joint winners!!

First up is my first grandchild Oscar born on November 24th. Like his grandad he is just about perfect in every way although we recently found out that he is probably deaf bless him, so he will have a few life obstacles in his way but nothing that cannot be overcome. On the plus side however, he will never know what it's like to have to listen to a woman's nagging!

Then of course there were my 6 winning tomatoes from Malvern in September, six perfect, ruby red orbs that made me into the most unbearably smug man in the Midlands. Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glasses to Oscar and.....errr, my tomatoes that I may or may not have mentioned before, ad infinitum.

There isn't time to go into detail but there were several other minor awards presented tonight, among them the 'Not Bad at Growing Shallots I suppose' award (David Thornton), the Mussolini "I'll support whoever is the biggest" award' (Gareth Cameron) and the 'Most Handsome National Pea judge and the cheque is in the post' award (John Trim). Pot leek grower Bob Plant won the 'Person who sends me the most debauched, sickening and quite frankly outrageous joke texts of a sexual nature' award....please keep them coming Bob. And finally Mark Perry won the title of 'Most haunted look of abject horror' when he realised I had won tomatoes at Malvern and he would have a year of unending smugness to contend with. Your turn next year Mark?

It just remains for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I'll be back soon enough talking more bollocks and passing on as many tips as I can to help you all gain those elusive red cards at whatever level you choose to show at.

Merry f***ing Christmas everyone!

'Beeting' death once more

Regular readers of my humble blog will recall how I bravely hauled myself from the precipice of certain death in 2009 when I contracted swine flu. Well, i'm fairly sure i've got it again and have spent the last 3 days in bed with nigh-on identical symptons. I didn't think you could get it more than once but i'm told you can but my body will have built up antibodies from the first attack. Doesn't bloody feel like it!!! Good job my body is made from girders!

However, I'm feeling a little better now on what is an important day psychologically. From now the days are getting longer and growers are itching to get things going. However, a look out of the window from my sick bed tells me to forget all about any ideas for planting and sowing. Whilst the country is blanketed in thick snow and places like Heathrow are at a standstill here in Leicestershire we've escaped the recent flurries but the landscape has been bleached white by deep frosts.

At the start of the month I drove up to Nelson in Lancashire to collect 24 'Pendle Improved' blanch leek plants from Dave Metcalfe. These have been put into a hastily erected growing chamber under a grolamp in my garage but because I have been unable to get down to the garage for several days these have dried out and suffered a check. Ho-hum. 30 quid down the drain it would appear.

I am in no rush to get my onions sown in this weather but I shall try and get a sowing done towards the end of the month. I grew some seed supplied by Scottish grower Ian Stocks last year and whilst it was a late February sowing and they therefore didn't attain great size I was please with their shape and shall be having a better 'go' with them this year. I'm never after huge....just a couple of pounds or more with good shape and uniformity.

My shallots will go into 3" pots in early January. Last year I never saw any shoots until mid-February because of freezing weather early in the year so I see no reason sowing on the shortest day as used to be advocated. I had my best ever year for shallots and will be hoping to stage a set at next year's National.

Leaving all this aside, I think i'm better off concentrating on summer crops if i'm to have any chance of getting a ticket at Llangollen. Tomatoes will be a must but I'm always struggling to get enough fruits ripe by early August. It isn't quite as simply as merely sowing early. However, I know if I can get my timings right I'll have a real chance.

I shall also be giving cucumbers a real go with a few changes to my greenhouse set-up in mind after listening to Charlie Maisey a few weeks ago. French beans are another crop I'm sure I could grow to a high standard and despite general disdain from my NVS pals north of the border peas as well. I've often grown good peas in the past but it's rare that you will see them exhibited around my neck of the woods past the middle of August due to mildew attack. Because of the effort involved in growing potatoes to show standard I will probably grow less spuds and give the land over to growing quality peas up 8' canes instead. At this point in time my aim is merely to stage a set that doesn't look out of place in such exalted company. If I didn't genuinely think I could do it I wouldn't bother but thanks to tips picked up at the Scottish Branch seminar lecture by former National Champion Ian Simpson and the not insignificant ridicule coming my way from the scottish tribe that has stirred my determination then who knows? Anything in life is possible. I mean, who'd have thought someone who can't sing would have won X-Factor? Again! (Please tell me Matt Cardle had barbed wire round his bollocks! It's the only thing that can explain how someone can sing that badly....although not why so many of the Nation voted for him!).

Although there isn't a class for globe beetroot at the National I will be looking for a set of 4 for a class known as the Millennium Class. This is a real forward thinking class introduced by the NVS a few years ago (errrr 2000-ish i'm guessing?) requiring 5 plates of veg, namely 4 tomatoes, 4 potatoes, 4 stump carrots, 4 250g onions and 4 globe beet. I'd always had a good record with globe beet locally but when you visit an NVS show you soon see that you're not even in the same ball park. There you will invariably find blemish free roots, with little corkiness around the shoulder and long thin tap roots sometimes 8-12" in length.

I'd heard that several growers will grow globe beet in bore holes much as you would you long carrots and parsnips but to me that seemed a lot of hard work for a 15 pointer 'minor' veg. I needed an easier method to suit my means so last year I experimented with several half barrels and an old galvanised water tank that I filled with sieved compost from my compost heap. To prevent weed seeds coming up from the homemade stuff I put a few inches of bagged compost on top of this. This was only mildly successful as I still got quite a few weeds coming up. A top dressing of high nitrogen fertiliser was applied a week or two before sowing as beet need quite a lot of nitrogen surprisingly.

As you can see the raised growing area makes it easier to tend the plants and to draw compost around the shoulders which helps prevent corkiness. A scattering of slug pellets is a must as I find slugs tend to take a bite out of many roots grown in the ground.

The result for me was my best ever shaped roots and that nice thin tap root the judges seem to go for. If you compare my second prize winning set from Derby below, which were grown in this way....

......to a set grown in the ground (below) it isn't hard to see the difference in quality. Those roots grown in the ground tend to have a little swelling at the top of the tap root and of course it's a lot harder to get a long tap root out of the ground which is invariably baked hard by the end of the summer.

For NVS shows I shall make sure I take more care extracting the beet from the compost to get as long a tap root up as possible by reaching down into the growing media as far as I can and snapping the root off at the very bottom if possible.

Globe beet should reach optimum tennis ball size 15 weeks from sowing by due to the vagaries of the British summer this varied from 7 to 20 weeks for me last season! I had some the size of grapefruits and others like radishes all from the same sowings!!! Therefore it's best to have as many drums and raised beds as you can possibly get your hands on to give you as much choice come show day.

A-Maisey-ing

Went to North Mids DA meeting on Monday night to listen to the great welshman Charlie Maisey give a talk on growing tomatoes and cucumbers for show. Charlie is walking proof that as you get older you can more or less say or do what you like and everyone will laugh but I know he's ruffled a few feathers over the years.

He was well known for pushing the boundaries of the schedule so that he couldn't actually get disqualified but made sure his exhibits were presented at their best. He would display his tomatoes on cloth with curtain rings underneath them whilst everyone else's fruits were rolling around on paper plates. If the schedule doesn't say you can't do it then he couldn't be shown a 'NAS' ticket and he undoubtedly scored a few wins with his trademark presentation as judges came to recognise it.

These days most big NVS shows have specially made boards that you have to display on so it is now far more of an even playing field. However, it has to be said he does grow exceedingly good tomatoes but I was quite happy to realise that I knew 99% of what he had to say. However, one piece of advice that he was quite adamant about and which i'm happy to pass on here, is that if your show is staged in a large marquee rather than a building then do NOT stage your toms overnight. This struck a cord with me as Malvern is obviously held in a huge marquee and I didn't put my set in until just before judging, totally by chance as it was the last thing I got out of the car. Charlie reckons those fruits staged overnight in a marquee (it doesn't happen in buildings) are always marked down on condition as they become softer and the calyces look less fresh. Whether that had a bearing on my win in Malvern I don't know but what I do know is it gives me a pathetic excuse for showing my winning set again here. The tomatoes at Malvern were actually judged by Charlie as well!

Another good tip (and one that I did know) was to ALWAYS water your tomato plants with tepid water. Wherever possible I try and keep a couple of full watering cans in the greenhouse so that when I come to water in the evening they are at the ambient temperature of the greenhouse.

After the break Charlie touched on cucumbers and this was a bit more enlightening for me and will lead to me growing my cuc's a totally different way this year. More on this later in the season but it means I have to build some tables to fit my greenhouse so it's another job on the list. Charles has also won the National with runner beans a record 8 times I believe, at a time when you needed 18 pods rather than the 15 you need now. He gave a packet of his Stenner strain of bean up for the DA raffle, a strain that Sherie Plumb and Andrew Jones now use to win with at National Shows now that Charlie has given up competitive showing. And guess who won said packet of beans? Yup.....you guessed correctly, the old Loughborough gobshite himself. However, as one of the nation's worst runner bean growers I don't think Mrs. Plumb needs worry about me just yet. I can only dream about getting a dish of runner beans like this for now.

The snow has mostly gone from these parts but on the drive back from the DA I just had to pull over and take a photo of the temperature recorded on my car's dash. I know colder temperatures have been recorded in Britain but -13 is something I have never seen before. I just hope a lot of pests and beasties have been severely depleted and that next season will get off to a flyer as a result. Somehow I doubt it. They are more resilient than we think.