i will be on your ear next season for tips
Too late then......you start now...today!
My guess is you lost out to varieties rather than produce as some varieties are more suited for showing than others.
So now you note down what varieties ( if known) beat you.
Then come the autumn when the seed catalogues come out you study them along with your show schedule and decide then as to what you want to grow and show!
After all some stuff needs to be sown around Christmas or even before to have them ready for the big day!
There is the other thing and that is how serious do you want to be!
Some people grow to show, others grow to eat, only you can decide that!
I was one of the latter when it came to Veg showing, and the reverse when it came to flowers.
But there are some good eating varieties out there that are also good for showing, finding them is the problem.
But yes lets get a 'chat' going on in the forum over the winter months about this. There are a few other exhibitors and ex-exhibitors lurking about in the forum so their input would be useful as well.
The problem with my advice will be 'timing' as you are more or less at sea level down there in the south of the country, whereas I am getting on for a thousand feet above sea level up here in the wild and wooly north, so there could be as much as a month between when you can do something and when I can.
This is one of the reasons I don't want watch telly gardening programmes.
A few years ago an expert on telly was saying you can sow such and such this week and I looked out the window and my garden was covered in a foot of snow!
For all I know he might have come from sunny Clacton.
See what I mean ......Johnny