Veg4Show

To be honest I grow runner beans for eating and if they make it to a show and get a card its a bonus.

Not a great year for allotments with no water supply resulting in poor plants. With a class that normally see's so many entries only having 6 you know it must be global warming,runner beans will probably be extinct by next year.

I was surprised to win this class to be honest, but longer beans don't always win if they are uneven.

Good year for onions? I suppose if you have good ground and maybe the odd bit of watering here and there you could say it was. All my onions grown outside were better than I have had for some years and I didn't water them at all. No mildew this year on them aswell, so they should store ok.

Quite a few entries in the onion classes so I was happy to win with my Globo.

My granfather on a regular basis would get "Best in Show" and he has plenty of medals to prove it.

Since we took over from him we have never won any, which just shows how bloody good some entries are at these shows. We have come close, last year with the garden news tray, and 2 years before that with parsnips.

Again tho we took "Best in show in the vegetable section" but its just not the same. I personally feel it is impossible for us or anyone else infact showing vegetables to win "best in show" at any show I enter. The flower classes are so well contested and there is pretty much no way a judge will choose a vegetable over flowers. I have had and seen pristine, superb, best I have seen veg that didn't even get a look in.

I still have not worked out how my sweet candle got best in show for the vegetable section as my parsnips I personally feel were much better, but who cares.

(Pictures here later of almighty great flowers that always beat me), mind you they do give me some flowers to take home so I will forgive them.

(Best in show far right, I can't remeber how many times he has won, probably a good 15 years on the trot.

Well it all started at this show last year after seeing some fantastic asters on display that I decided to grow some using the vouchers I won at this show for the Garden News Tray.

Normally I grow bog standard asters but I was so impressed with the show variety I gave them a shot.

Out of everything at the show I entered this meant the most to me as I had grown some flowers for a show (which I never do) and they were a good standard and even won.. Shame we had so much rain just before this show or I'm sure we would have seen a lot more as I was the only entry

Pulled 7 parsnips to get 4, with 5 being good, one canker and the other forked..So pretty good going.

Pleased with my parnips this year, cleaned up very well and came an easy first.

I'm useless at taking photos of parsnips, so I had to take them at home.

Over the comming days I will post some pictures and updates up of my 1st show this season.

Collection of 6 result: 1st

Not the best of pictures as I forgot to re-adjust the display after the judges had messed about with it, parsnip slipped down a bit and leek had moved forward. Trust me they were much more even before everyone touched them.

Well few ups and a few downs, to be expected as I have not payed any where near the attention I normally would to my veg this year. I have tried my best to give them as much attention as possible and I know what needs to be done but it's so hard to find the time to do it right.

I really will do my best to get some photos up of everything below, maybe before Monday.

Parsnips: Noticed first signs of spider mite a month ago and some have already been hit hard but I have so many I'm sure the odd one or two that have gone yellow won't be a big deal. I have been using Predatory mites to help control the situation and so far they have done a good job, I opted for 2000 of them so plenty to work there magic.

Leeks: most got footrot or onion fly maggot, the remaining leeks look superb until a week ago when a mass of spidermite got on them and ruined most of the flags. Sprayed with everything you can get (no joke) every single day for a week with no luck. In the end I killed most of them with my fingers running them up and down the flags, Predatory mites would be to late now as it would take 4 years for them to be eaten. Tonight I tried some 79% linseed oil based insecticide.

Celery: Mixed bag, some great, some ok, some rubbish. Have had a few problem with some strange like scale maggot (never seen this one before) eating right in the heart of the celery causing a few plants to stress and consequently get heartrot.

Some of the celery got shaded by my potatoes that decided producing 7 foot halms would be a good idea, so again consequently have not grown aswell as expected.

The first bed of 6 is fine and most of bed 2 is also fine so I should be ok and these are now all on 18inch collars. Typical tho that my best two sticks of celery have split 4 sticks in so I had to remove at least 7 sticks from each plant to get the split sticks out. Way to hot for celery this year and with the lack of rain despite the watering it has been hard going.

Potatoes: Halms are massive, but I feel they are a tad shaded by the hedge. My kestrel should be near ready and a test bag showed 4 excellent spuds. My other test bag that is in full sun were ready but showed very slight scab but superb potatoes. I'm hoping the ones in the shade will be fine as they don't dry out like these other bags. I have been watering these bags every single day ever since they started to tuber, sometimes twice and they still got scab.

Carrots: All good, lost a few to willow aphid etc.

Tomatoes: All look fine, cedrico tho has some massive tomatoes on them which I have never had and some don't even look like cedrico so i'm not happy, poor strain this year.

Cauli: picked a good 40 so far, all been pretty darn good..Pity I marked my diary wrong or these would have been perfect for the shows.

Runner beans: Plants small but man some great beans already.

Beetroot: Rubbish.

Onions: Rubbish, have a few.. Onion fly had them all. 250g globo onions all pulled now and should make a decent set.