Topic: Timing veg for showing?

[Rose.mary]

We in Halifax have an agricultural show, and people show veg, flowers etc. It is not very well supported and I would like to do my bit to keep it going. It is always in the beginning of August and I would appreciate it if somebody knows of a book or website that would help me. Particularly on the timing as it seems almost impossible to get it right.
This year one lot of peas were finished and the next lot were not ready. My caulis were finished and so on....
Can anybody please help?

Rosemary   

[Eristic]

Timing results requires detailed record keeping. You must log the variety, time of sowing, time of germination, start and finish of cropping for reference in later years. As timings will very enormously throughout the country in a given year, it is not easy to get accurate sowing times from books for a specific date of cropping. Crops with a short production time such as your peas will also require repeat sowings at weekly intervals to guarantee top quality produce at the correct date.

Doing one show a year is probably more difficult than doing a succession of events. It is all so easy to visit a show and declare that last week mine was ten times better than this lot. Last week does not count.

[tim]

A noble thought, Rose.mary - I can't even time things for our own consumption!

[Tee Gee]

I am basically with Eristic on this one.

There is no hard and fast rules and basically it is down to experience.

I never got it right even after twenty years of showing so I can't imagine there are any books on the subject, meaning as Eristic says you have to keep your own records.

When you get into it you can sometimes manipulate the timings by a few days but generally not much more.

This is how my website come to be i.e. I kept records of things I did so that I had a rough idea as to what I would need to do next year.

But even that doesn't always work because of the great 'British weather'!

For instance; No matter how good your records were this year I guess they would have been rendered quite useless with the terrible conditions some of us have had to put up with, hence the reason for some shows being canceled in my area.

Unless you are going in for shows at 'National' level my philosophy would be grow your veg first and foremost for eating and if at show time you find something good enough to show then show it.

A little tip on what I used to do was at the end of the season was to look at my results from the current year and ask myself;  should I have sown earlier or later? should I change varieties? should I have fed or not and at what time, was my planting out times right. After answering these I made adjustments to my records for next years line of attack.

I mainly grew and showed dahlias and chrysanthemums and the number of times I grew what I called 'Wednesday flowers' i.e. those that were either three or four days early or late for the Saturday shows.

Quite often the decision was; cut flowers that were not quite ready early and fetch them into the house and bang on the central heating to open them, conversely flowers that were going to be over by Saturday were cut and placed in a dark cool place to slow them down.

Veg are generally a bit easier to manipulate. Having said that many a time I have flattened a few runner beans in a bath of water with the bath mat placed over them.

Then the onion section was often a fiddle i.e. I showed Japanese onions as opposed to maincrop simply because you could get them dried,dressed and the right colour easier than the new maincrop ones.

I'll close here as I could go on for ever about showing and finish by saying you can't win unless you enter and you have no right to say; as Eristic mentioned 'I have better at home'

[Rose.mary]

Thank you boys for replying to me. I don't know if I have got encouragement or discouragement. I knew it would be difficult but I thought there must be some magical formula that I could apply. :P
We did enter as an allotment to try to increase our funds and we did OK. I just told them to help themselves to anything I had ready, but I did think I could have done better.
I have suggested that next year we have a special committee that knows what they are doing and they will allocate certain veg. to each person who is interested. I am just preparing my carrot bed for next year so I thought I would try those.
There were lots of empty spaces on the benches where nobody had entered anything and sometimes there was only one entry (good as you had to get first). I will have to look on the net and see what I have to feed my plants on to improve them.

Rosemary

[Tee Gee]

good as you had to get first

This is not strictly true! it is up to the committee and judge to decide if the exhibit warrants this.

In the smaller shows what you say is generally true but not in the bigger shows, i.e. if it is not up to a certain standard the judge can can give it a second or a third or nothing at all.

In such cases they would leave an explanation as to why he/she didn't award a first.

Regarding encouragement ! I offer you every encouragement I can give but your question was;

I would appreciate it if somebody knows of a book or website that would help me. Particularly on the timing as it seems almost impossible to get it right.

hence the type of answer you were given.

We need more people with an attitude like you to keep shows such as you describe going. I would do so myself but for health reasons and the fact that there are so few around my area for me to enter.

Go for it I was just indicating possible pitfalls.

[Rose.mary]

Thank you Tee Gee.
There is going to be another small show just down the road from me. It only has veg. and flowers but the entry fee is only 20p and the prize money is twice as much as the larger Halifax show so I am wondering if the canny men hold back from the Hx and go for the small one.

Rosemary

[davyw1]

Growing to show is not easy and is time consuming, it takes away a lot of normal lottie hours.
Timing is every thing, for example i have 25 Cauli,s planted in fives three weeks apart just to hit two shows one week apart. I have been trying to brown off onions which is impossible without sun. Every time it rains i have to re earth up my Beetroot. I dont have one French bean at the moment because of the weather. Tomato,s and Cucumbers at the moment is in the hands of the sun gods and i am watching a years work on leeks going to seed. Long Carrots and parsnips, well i wont know untill i empty the tubes.
Iff i can help you in any way IE what is the best type of Cualli, Tomato etc to grow to show just ask.
This was taken some months ago

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r111/stumpinsci/Picture045.jpg

[Eristic]

May I add that all the empty places on the showbench probably indicate exhibits that failed to turn up due to bad weather conditions. Even at small shows, you often have to register your intentions and cough up the 20p's well in advance of showday. All the same, if you had good produce in these classes then you stand a fair chance.

Another point to bear in mind is the public entrance fee to visit the showground. If the event charges admission on the gate, exhibitors will normally get a free pass so it is possible to place a few exhibits for judging, see the entire show, and still be a £ or two in pocket. 8)

Finally, growing for show does focus the mind to assist getting the very best out of your plot which was the original purpose of the shows (apart from bragging rights). As Tee Gee said earlier, you still get to eat the produce which should be of the highest quality.

[Lesley Jay]

Good luck with showing your vegetables next year Rosemary. I haven't been showing vegetables for long but after the first show I was bitten! I decided what vegetables I hoped to show the following year and worked back from the show date with how long each variety needed to grow - this gave me an approximate  sowing date. Root vegetables are the worst because you just don't know what you have until you dig them up. If there is a class for table marrows or marrows try growing Table Dainty as this variety grows to the 11 inches needed for the class.