Just in case you were wondering whether our vegetables won any prizes in the village horticultural show – no, they didn’t (notice I have distanced myself by referring to ‘they’ rather than ‘I’ who didn’t win any prizes!). I had actually talked myself out of entering any of the categories as I had learned that there were particular standards of presentation for each category.  In the case of the shallots category each shallot has its top bent over and neatly secured with raffia or string and then placed in a little dish of sand. Suddenly it all sounded rather serious and as I haven’t been to a horticultural show before, let alone taken part in one I thought it would be best if just went along to see what it’s all about before I think about putting in anything next year.

Well, that all went out of the window when the evening before one of Thomas’s friends, who is on the committee, asked (read: made me feel like I ought to) if we were putting anything in as there weren’t many entries. So, the morning of the show, feeling obligated and rather excited at the same time, I dash over to the allotment and grab anything that is big and bright and beautiful (see photo) to enter in the ‘housewife’s choice’, as well as a bunch of sweet peas and five different herbs. I ‘arranged’ the herbs and flowers in two liqueur glasses as the stems weren’t long enough for anything larger and used our trug lined with a table cloth for the vegetables. Thomas took it all down to the village hall. I was actually quite pleased with it all at the time. That is, until I went down in the afternoon when the judging had all taken place and the show opened for everyone to see who had entered what, who had won and who had lost. All of the entries looked fabulous. The flowers were arranged beautifully, the chocolate cakes (there are other categories to appeal to a range of skills) were to die for and the vegetables were...not like mine at all. Mine was, shall we say, on the rustic end of the scale, whereas others were arranged in a manner which clearly indicated that they knew how it was supposed to be done, they were somehow more ‘polished’ than mine. I did feel rather foolish. You know, when you turn up to an event wearing jeans and everyone else is smart casual. You’ve got to quickly put on that thick skin and pretend it doesn’t matter. Oh well. It has to be said that mine was the only entry which included a swede, crown prince squash, an enormous red cabbage or curly kale. It must have been a matter of taste!

Loosely on the theme of you win some, you lose some, we planted some baby corn this year, Minipop I think they were called. Baby corn are really expensive to buy so I thought it was a good reason to spend some our allotment space on them. What a waste of time. I planted 12 plants and picked every cob (see photo). No wonder it’s so expensive.

'housewife's choice'

 In about three weeks’ time it is the village Horticultural Society’s annual show. It’s a chance for all growers of fruit and veg, makers of chutneys and jams, brewers of various alcoholic beverages and flower arrangers, among others, to  show what they can do and of course, to beat their neighbours and friends!

Both Hilary and Nick who have allotments are on the committee so the pressure is on to put in an entry or two. I have looked at the programme and am quite keen to give it a go (and I have been known to arrange the odd flower in my well-spent youth!) but I am concerned that anything on our allotment that might be worth entering in the show is ready now. If they could bring the date forward a few weeks it would help enormously. The last show the society put on was the Rose and Sweet Pea Show and my timing was out then – my first sweet pea flowered the day after. Now look at them! If they are still flowering I might try and get a second shot by putting them in the ‘floral art section’ perhaps.

Our main crop potatoes might stand a chance as the foliage is still looking really green and healthy but Nick has advised that I take any good specimens and store them in peat ready for the show. I keep forgetting to buy peat and I keep cooking the potatoes, so other than our Edzell Blues which might deserve a place on novelty value, that category is out. The carrots have been eaten by the badgers, there won’t be any peas or mange tout by then and when you look at the size of our onions compared to Nick’s we don’t have a chance!

However, imagining what the future might look like, the Cos lettuces are still in their early stages and might be ready for entry number 15 “Lettuce, two. See hints on page 5 for staging” and our tomatoes which are still green should be nice and red and ripe by then for number 12: “Tomatoes dish of five, one kind any variety”. If all our veg fail to be of optimum quality on the day, you know I think I might go for either entry number 33: “Penstemon, three stems,” because they’ve been looking good in the garden for ages, or number 53: “Sloe gin” because there’s still some left from our ‘vintage’ 2007 which was pretty good last time I had a wee dram. On the other hand, do I want to waste what’s left of it on the judges?

Bright!

 I wanted to grow more flowers this year.

   Bright!

The last of our carrots the badger left behind.

  Bright!

 The inside of Aaron's enormous beetroot before it was cooked.                                          

Big!

Some of our shallots drying on the shed floor.

Big!

Nick's onions - I'm sure he'll win a prize for those.

Big!

Our beetroot seem to like this rain we've been having.

Beautiful!

The sweet peas have been a real success, unlike the ones at home.