Veg4Show

Everything sounds so easy in these magazines suggesting this time of year is an ideal time to clean and tidy the greenhouse and garden..Yeah right, with 3 poly tunnels and a large greenhouse with a shed full of 1000s of pots, and an allotment that you could fit two football pitches on I find it pretty hard going. I will work now until January getting these jobs done with the main task's being my onion beds and getting the greenhouse cleaned ready for winter.

Talking of onions; I will sowing some seed from a 14lb onion in late October which I will grow on under my new lighting system that is yet to be built.

Finally managed to steal a few more trophies from the hands of those greedy professionals who should all be banned, just kidding barry micklethwaite.

Anyway the show I was going to enter this weekend is now a no go as my car blew a headgasket and the radiator. So this weekend instead of scrubbing veg and picking up shiny metal and cards with singing and chitchat, I will be lifting heavy lumps of metal about covered in oil and swearing at the top of my voice.

Trophies for:

Most points in members
Most points in open
Collection
err.. I will tell you this one when I remember what it was for lol. 6 trophies in total this year.

Despite the Turkey attack on my prize peppers I still managed to stage these 3. They were by far not my best, every pepper I looked at to make a set I was one short because a turkey had pecked it. I picked two perfect shaped fat peppers and knew I had the third to go with it, I could have bloody killed them all there and then when I picked the third one. Never mind they came in handy for my salad dish.

The other enoying thing about it, non of this was my fault as I always remember to put the polytunnel mesh down but no one else has the brain power... either that or they don't care.

Couldn't understand how a class such as "salad dish" could get so little entries, surley everyone grows some sort of salad?.

First time in quite some years that I have grown ridge cucumbers which I trained next to my marrows outside. Produced rather a lot of nice cucumbers and I didn't bother to look after them either, I almost forgot how good they do grow outside with little or no care.

Best sweetcorn I have ever had this year, I used some at my local show in the "Any other veg class" and it got a 1st. Fat and ripe right to the very tip, perfect for eating raw just how I like it straight from the field (I mean large allotment).

Saw a lot of newcomers this year making mistakes using sweetcorn, either stripping it back or removing all leaves. I never touch mine, instead I pick two corns off the same plant the same size and open one to check if its ready, the untouched one goes to the show, its a gamble but judges seem to prefer this as they will peel it back.

Over the weekend I picked up 4 trophies with 19 1st place cards and even got a few 2nd places with flowers. Not quite a new record for 1 show as I have been know to take 33 1st but I can live with it. I will post some pictures up later.

Has been a very bad year for me as far as shallots are concerned. Mangaged to stage a set eventually, (even came first) they just would not dry.

I won't be keeping any stock as they rotted anyway excpet 20 or so. The problem I had was they needed pulling but it would not stop raining when it came to havest time. I will be growing jermor next year as they are cheaper per bulb and if I get something off them it will be a bonus. I saw a lovely set of jermor at my first show and they beat everything else that was there, sow worth a try.

This is why I don't show flowers at the shows near me. The quality of the flower classes is amazing and this is just a small snippet at what was there; with over £700 in prize money to won it is very popular with dedicated top growers. Good job they split the trophies individually for veg and flowers or I would never have won Best individual vegetable exhibit.

Sorry was so packed I couldnt get any decent photos of it all without including lots of people that might moan at me for being on the internet.

I have always grown good tomatoes and lots of them as we love to eat them, but this year's are close to the best plants and tomatoes I've ever had. Each plant is just full of tomatoes, even the top trusses have large fruit on. To be honest we didn't take much time picking them, we just pulled off 20 and cleaned them on the way to the show lol.

Cedrico is by far the better tomatoe imo comparing to Goldstar. I have trialed Goldstar for 3 years and hardly got a tomatoe for a show. They just seem to produce uneven fruits and turn red when they are very small, eventually the top trusses start producing bigger tomatoes later in the season.