Vegetable Growing & Showing Articles 2001

Vegetable Growing and Showing Articles from 2001

by Medwyn Williams, MBE FNVS National Chairman of the NVS

These articles originally appeared on Medwyn's of Anglesey the web site of Medwyn Williams which includes an online shop where you can buy his vegetable seeds, books and sundries.

4th January 2001 - Potatoes for Chelsea and August/September Shows

My two lots of potatoes are all laid out in trays in my garage and just in case of some really serious frosts, I have a blanket at the ready to throw over them. The reason I say two lots is because I have ten varieties with fairly large shoots on them that I intend to grow for Chelsea whilst the others are just starting to break dormancy and those will be the ones planted during late April to early May to be shown at the August September shows.

11th January 2001 - Best Dish in the Vegetable Section

One question in particualr seems to be unclear in the mind of many exhibitors, show schedule writers, show secretaries and judges. That question is regarding the best dish in the vegetable section and best exhibit in the vegetable section depending on how the show organisers have worded their schedule.

18th January 2001 - Planting Show Potatoes for Chelsea

You too, without much difficulty, can enjoy your own freshly harvested early potatoes from the middle of this May and be the envy of your neighbours. Obviously I grow quite a lot in order to have some fairly large dishes filled up with a range of different varieties concentrating at the same time on a good colour range. For eating however you only need to grow a few and you can chose more for the taste that you like and varieties such as Sharpes Express and Kestrel are both excellent for eating.

1st February 2001 - Being Vigilant and never leaving anything to Chance

To get to the very top with your hobby you most certainly have to be vigilant in all that you do and never leave anything to chance. That's why I was able to spot a major problem that could have turned out disastrously to both my leeks and onions.

8th February 2001 - Growing Giant Cabbages

A lot of people derive a great deal of pleasure and fun from trying to grow a particualr vegetable to it's limits, and some of the results are often quite fantastic. This year in my seed catalogue I stock an old variety of cabbage called Brunswick and this one is in every sense a giant, once harvested you will need a wheel barrow to move it around!

15th February 2001 - Growing for Showing - Parsnips and Celery

Sowing parsnips is always the first job outside for me every year and this year will no exception as I shall be at it during this coming week getting my four raised beds sown. I shall today be sowing my first batch of celery seed with another further sowing in two weeks time. The first sowing will be 3 varieties, 'Starburst’ which is my new F1 hybrid cross between Ideal and Moonbeam, the other will be a brand new variety called ‘Redstar’ which is a cross between Ideal and Red Lathom and the third sowing will be my own selection of Ideal to maintain a stock for hybridising.

22nd February 2001 - Tomatoes and Onions

My tomatoes will be sown sometime today which will hopefully give me some to stage at the National Championships which are this year being held at Margam Park South Wales on the August Bank Holiday weekend, Sunday 26th and Monday 27th. The onions are now in 4 inch square pots and they will stay in these pots until planted out in their growing beds under a polythene cover. However as my onions will be planted on into a warm environment, if you haven’t got such a warm growing area, then it’s best to pot your plants up and wait until late April or even early May before planting out.

28th February 2001 - Potatoes and Leeks

Particularly vulnerable to frost at this time are the young sprouting shoots on your exhibition potatoes, do make sure that they are well protected. The problem with potatoes is that they can not be covered over with anything dark for too long as you want the emerging shoots to be green, strong and sturdy and this can only be achieved through allowing plenty of light to get at the shoots. My leeks are progressing along nicely and will soon be ready to be moved on into 6 inch pots as the roots are already well wrapped around the 4 inch pot. Leeks are undoubtedly hungry plants when actively growing so the mixture this time will contain more soil than previous and is as follows - 4 parts of Levington M3, 3 parts of soil sieved from last years leek beds.

8th March 2001 - Growing Cabinet

My growing cabinet has been fully utilised from early November with the leeks initially having the benefit and then followed on by the onions. None of these plants were subjected at any point to a 24 hour period of constant artificial lights. They were all given 16 hours initially and that has now been reduced to matching day length and towards the end of this month the lamps will all be switched off.

15th March 2001 - Gladiator and Excalibur Parsnips + Onions

This year, for the first time ever, I left my parsnip beds as they were without emptying them out to make the boring easier. I was therefore anticipating some problems and an almighty struggle to push the six foot 6 inches long steel bar down to a minimum of 5 foot 6 inches in depth. The onions are doing particularly well this year and I have now potted them up into their final pots from where they will be planted out in their beds which have now been completed.

22nd March 2001 - Long Cultivars of Carrots

There is no doubt that the vegetable that I've had more success with over my years of exhibiting has been carrots, in particular the long cultivars. They are particularly rewarding when you can pull specimens from the bore hole that are as near perfect as you can get in every way. I have grown them in a variety of ways over the years using both pipes, raised beds and drums and just last year, I grew some fantastic specimens for the Chelsea show in wheely bins.

29th March 2001 - Successfully Growing Exhibition Shallots

Last week I mentioned that growing and showing long carrots has given me more success over the years than any other vegetable. If on the other hand I had to chose the vegetable that I have had the least success with it would have to be the large shallots. The main reason for my failure probably was the fact that I never really put enough effort into them as well as not having an ideal position to grow them at home.

5th April 2001 - Growing Cabinets

My growing cabinet has now served it's purpose for another year and the surrounding hardboard panels that form the outer skin have now been kept. Next year though I will have to make some new panels to surround the steel angle iron that forms the skeleton of the cabinet. The hardboard ones have now buckled and some have even started to rot away so the next ones will be made from thin plywood with the same type of polystyrene foil glued on to the internal faces.

12th April 2001 - Criteria for Stump Root Carrots

The current criteria, in both the RHS and NVS judges guides, clearly state that a dish of carrots stump rooted or other than long should have a decided stump root. In other words the bottom end of the carrot should be fully developed being nice and rounded from which the intact tap root should protrude.

19th April 2001 - Tomatoes in the Greenhouse

There's no doubt that tomatoes certainly need more bench room than many other plants as they very quickly grow on under good growing conditions and before you know it, they will be tall and leggy unless given extra room to develop. My tomatoes are currently in 4 inch square pots and are spaced out on the bench so that the tips of the leaves are barely touching each other giving me sturdier, stronger plants to select from.

26th April 2001 - Runner Beans, Peas and Judging Potatoes

I intend to sow my runner beans this week in order to have some ready from mid August onwards. It is of course far too early to sow these directly outdoors as the moment the pop their heads through the soil they could be killed with the frosts. My show peas will go in a couple of days prior to Chelesea. The pea usually takes anything between 21 to 25 days from full flower to both the pods and peas being at their optimum. I had a letter the other week from a Judge who has a problem every year at his local show when judging potatoes. The schedule has two classes for potatoes, one dish of 6 white and a dish of 6 coloured. To quote from the judges letter he goes on to say 'the problem has a risen over the definition of white and coloured'.

3rd May 2001 - Growing Potatoes in Poly Bags

My potatoes will be the main task this coming week and I shall be reducing the quantities to concentrate on growing them back in large polythene bags which seem to give so many people success. The varieties that I shall concentrate on will be those that have done well for me in the past and regularly produce show winning specimens such as Kestrel, Winston, Maxine and Nadine.

10th May 2001 - Blanch Leeks

The blanch leeks that I am growing this year are from bulbils that were given to me by Peter Holden the current World record holder on blanch leeks, and I have to say that they are without a doubt, the best that I have ever seen at this time of year. The growth rate on the plants, right from the very beginning has been phenomenal and I actually had to take them away from the growing cabinet as early as the end of February as they were getting so big.

17th May 2001 - Preparing for the Vegetable Display at the Chelsea Flower Show

This week is the start of a very hectic fortnight culminating in the whole of next week being spent at the Chelsea Flower Show with my display of Vegetables. The year of growing has gone relatively well but I could have done with more sunshine during April.

24th May 2001 - Onions - Quantity, Quality and The Dreaded Thrips

Now is the time to keep a really sharp lookout for the dreaded Thrips which can totally destroy your chances of showing any decent onions as they just suck away at the plants strength and weaken it. It is no use just walking casually along the path hoping to see them on the foliage, if you do that then the next thing you will notice is that your plant start to take on greyish or silvery appearance.

31st May 2001 - Small Onions under 250 gram and Peas

Small Onions under 250 gram and Peas. Preparing for the National Vegetable Society Championships at Margam Park on the August Bank Holiday.

7th June 2001 - Feeling the Pressure - Short Carrots

The pressure of growing and showing vegetables for Chelsea whilst at the same time trying to concentrate on my competitive exhibits for the National Vegetable Society Championships gets worse every year. During April and early May I find it rather difficult to complete all the tasks that I would like to on time so some, unfortunately, have to be completed on a more staggered time table. The carrots for the short classes for instance is a typical example.

14th June 2001 - Promising Shallots for Large and Pickling Classes

For the first time in a few years I have some promising looking shallots for both the large classes and for the pickling. The ones for the large classes are being grown at my friend Jim's garden, two rows were planted at the end of February and were thinned down to three per station during early May. My main source of pickling shallots are grown in some 5 inch shallow square pots filled with Levington M2 and the smallest bulbs, often last years picklers, were planted during early January and kept in a warm house until they were moved to a cold frame during early February.

21st June 2001 - Vegetables grown to Show Standard taste better than those from the Supermarket

This verdict was given by the BBC at Chelsea this year when a top chef stir fried some of my vegetables against those from a supermarket and they came out on top for texture and flavour. Bearing in mind that the cooking didn't take place until the Wednesday of Chelsea and that my vegetables had been pulled a week previously and been boxed up under my stand until required, it says a lot.

28th June 2001 - Enjoying the result of all the Hard Work

My onions for the under 250 gram class look really well and some have already been harvested and are currently drying out in my greenhouse underneath some fleece. I am scared of saying that my leeks are doing well, just in case something goes wrong with them but they are, without a doubt, the best blanch leeks that I have ever grown at this moment in time.

5th July 2001 - Concentrating on three varieties of Potatoes

The big secret with show potatoes is to lift them at the right time so that you can get the best sized potatoes from every bag whilst at the same time having them on the right skin condition. If the potatoes are allowed to continue growing to maturity then you will very naturally harvest a much larger crop but the skin condition inevitably will be old, rough, or netted and very difficult to clean.

12th July 2001 - Travelling the country and visiting other growers gardens

The beauty of travelling the country fairly extensively to visit other growers gardens is the enjoyment of learning something new or seeing something being carried out differently but very successfully.

19th July 2001 - Up-date on the Leeks and Onions

I can't believe how well the leeks are doing at the moment, one leek in particular which was smaller at the time of planting than any of the others, was kept back in it’s pot as I had no room in my beds for it at the time. A fortnight or so later one of my onions in the second tunnel collapsed for some unknown reason so I planted this leek in the same planting hole. The growth was unbelievable and very soon caught up with all the other good ones and has by now passed them by. The onions are doing well too, I have a very even bed which was also measured on the 8th July and they varied between 20 and 21 inches in circumference and looking like they have plenty of growth left in them. The necks are firm, large and fresh looking with 15 leaves still on them.

26th July 2001 - Exhibition Celery - In need of careful attention now

If you have timed it for mid to late August then it should by now be really well grown and on at least fifteen inch collars and ready for the 18 inch ones. The attention that it needs more than anything is an adequate supply of water so that the bed is always evenly moist, even to the extent that it's really wet.

2nd August 2001 - The Craft of Growing Vegetables for Showing

Believe me there is no better place to learn the craft of growing vegetables to the highest standard than by visiting the Nationals and listening in on the conversation of three or four of the top growers when they gather together. One of the best parts of showing for me is the actual staging, particularly if you know that the quality of your vegetables are good; the other part is the comradeship between fellow growers.

16th August 2001 - Staging a Collection

The cauliflower is always classed as the queen of the vegetables but Mark Twain had another way of describing it 'the cauliflower is nothing more than a cabbage with college education' You certainly don"t need college education to grow it well as long as you have access to plenty of well rotted manure that’s been worked into the soil during last Winter.

23rd August 2001 - National Vegetable Society Championships

If you are a keen vegetable grower or even a grower with just a little bit of interest in vegetables I do urge you to visit this spectacle. You won't find better quality vegetables anywhere on this planet and contrary to what many people think, they are excellent to eat and far superior to any vegetable sold at your local supermarket.

30th August 2001 - Don't Get Disheartened

There's nothing worse than having no success at all from a season of hard work, nothing perhaps going well, only failures right along the way. If you have felt that way, don't worry about it, your not the only one, I have had a few disappointing seasons in my time. Tomatoes over the past few years have been a real nightmare for me with Botrytis in particualr making a mess of the plants and fruit.

6th September 2001 - Battling the Elements + Newent Onion Fayre

The first two weeks in August were a nightmare for me as far as the weather went, apart from snow and ice we had the lot. Strong winds, hailstones and heavy damaging rain played havoc with all stuff in the garden with my hanging baskets once more taking a real pasting. My biggest concern however were my stock plants from which I harvest some of my special seed for selling in my seed catalogue.

13th September 2001 - Welsh Branch of the National Vegetable Society

The standard of the Welsh Show has always been very high and certainly on par with the national itself. It was therefore a privilege and a pleasure to be able to judge this show giving me untold joy in handling vegetables that were probably superior to anything you would see anywhere.

20th September 2001 - NVS Championships 2001 and Weekend Seminar

The National Vegetable Society Championships were a great success once again this year, this time being held in Wales at Margam Park. I had a good show, probably the best that I have had for a few years coming away with a total of 6 cards with two Firsts amongst them for Tomatoes and a Mini Collection. My fifth weekend seminar for the keen vegetable grower is being held once again this year from Friday the 9th November through to Sunday 11th. There is no doubt that this weekend has earned it’s place in people’s diaries as the amount of information that can be gleaned from top growers over the weekend is phenomenal.

27th September 2001 - Laying the Foundations for Next Year

When you build a house the most important element is the foundation on which every wall in you house depends right through to the roof. One can easily draw a comparison with this in Show gardening terms, it"s from now that you start to lay the foundation for next Summers shows, and the better the foundations laid the better will be your success at the show bench.

4th October 2001 - Newent Onion Fayre and the Northern Branch Championships

On Saturday the 8th September I travelled down to judge the Newent Onion Fayre near Gloucester and what an interesting day it tuned out to be. Whilst I was at Newent my wife had travelled down to the Northern Branch Championships at Rotherham to stage a few entries for me, in particular a set of 5 onions for the over 250 gram class at the Rotherham section of the show.

11th October 2001 - Producing Leek Bulbils for next year and problems with Barrels splitting

All the leeks that I have exhibited to date have now been re planted with the purpose of producing more bulbils or pips from the same stock for next year. The way that I do this is to cut through the barrel of the leek about six inches or so above the root plate and then remove the current roots as well as removing a few layer of flags from the barrel to reduce the diameter to match that of the root plate. The problem this year with the barrels splitting was undoubtedly of my own doing as I'm convinced that I collared them too high too early in the season. This meant that as the leek had to stretch upwards to try and get to the light whilst at the same time putting on more weight, something just had to give. As this was happening the leek had to abort some of the outer skins or flags.

18th October 2001 - Overcoming the problems with Parsnips

This year I did an experiment to really try and find what was causing the problem and I placed some drums inside my leek polytunnel, along the back wall so that I would have sufficient height to bore a hole with the steel bar. The idea came to me late on in the season so the preparatory work was not as thorough as I would have liked. The drums only were filled with sand whilst the soil they were sitting on had a couple of spade fulls of sand worked in.

25th October 2001 - Greenhouses for Winter Growing Period

One job that needs to be done with some urgency this coming week is to clear out my greenhouses and prepare them for the Winter growing period. At the moment they are not particularly tidy having just finished the showing season, but very soon they will be thoroughly clean. The first job is to completely clear out the greenhouse and brush it out clean making sure that all dead foliage etc. are removed. The next job is to thoroughly check out the electrical system to make sure everything will be working fine.

1st November 2001 - Gardening - A Year Round Hobby

Whoever thought that gardening was a hobby to keep you going right through Spring to Summer must be having an easy time of it, in my case it's now an all year round activity and I love every minute of it. The main priority over the past few weeks has been in clearing up the garden and gradually getting the place back to some form of normality.

8th November 2001 - Best head of Leek Bulbils or Pips for many years

The pips you get off a head will vary depending on the quality of the head, some will be very small whilst others will be a few inches tall. There will also be few that are bent or curved as they have projected from the lower end of the head and curved upwards in search of light.

29th November 2001 - Sowing Dates for Showing Vegetables

To continue with the sowing dates and best varities to use for showing towards the end of August and the end of September. These dates were picked as the end of August is when the Welsh Championships are going to be held at nmargam park for the next two years. The end of September date is when the NVS Championships are beinh held at Malvern next year. This hopefuly will help all growers to tome their produce better.

13th December 2001 - Sowing Dates for Exhibition Vegetable Growers

To continue with the sowing dates and best varieties to use for showing towards the end of August and the end of September. This small series of articles has come about as a result of several phone calls and letters from growers who regularly request information regarding timing their vegetables for certain shows. The growers chosen were selected because they grew an extensive range of vegetables as well as living at different locations throughout the country.

20th December 2001 - Sowing Dates Used By Showmen

This is my fourth article on the sowing dates that top showmen use in different parts of the country for a given show date. The dates selected were to coincide with two major shows in the country that these growers have competed in.

27th December 2001 - Leeks and Onions

The leeks that I started off during early November are now moving away strongly and I have to say that each and every plant in the trays are looking particularly healthy this year. There's no doubt that the health of the plant is down to the condition that the leek head was in when the bulbils or pips were harvested from it for pricking out. For quality onions the secret is to get the onions growing away well and the tops keeping nice and green until harvest time. This way you will almost certainly harvest onions that will keep for weeks provided that the skin that you harvested the onion on still had a green leaf attached to it.

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