Vegetable Rules & Regulations

[Paulottie]

Our show was always the last weekend in July.

Wellie, I think you need to get the RHS show handbook or WI's 'on with the Show' as I recall it was follow everything to the letter.

There are lots of tricks though...polishing spuds with milk, onions with talc etc. wrapping your beans tight in a wet towel to keep them fresh and straight. I had to glue on a calyx to win the tomato prize last time.

[wellie]

Come on Folks - let's give 'em all we've got this year!!!
And Paulottie's right, having dug out all my back issues of magazines (!) I've torn out relevant pages on growing stuff to show, and I've started a file for myself, so that the talc, wet tea towel with a length of wood trick, the black velvet background cloth, the silver sand to stop your Tommies rolling, staging your beans last of all before you leave the hall, all helps to remind me of the perfection the judges are looking for, and hopefully win me 'more than a round of applause', as Flummery so beautifully put it.

Before we get into the exactness of which end of a runner bean should be facing the judge, or where the haulm end of the potatoes should be (uh huh... it does make a difference!), these are the Vegetables and Fruit classes I shall be facing:
1. Four salad potatoes
2. Four white potatoes
3. Four coloured potatoes
4. Four shallots
5. Three bulb onions, with roots & tops
6. Eight salad or bunching onions
7. Three turnips
8. Three beetroot
9. Five carrots
10. Three pods of bored beans
11. Five pods of peas
12. Five mangetout or sugarsnap peas
13. Five French beans
14. Collection of three kinds of vegetable for cooking
15. One lettuce
16. Five culinary herbs, labelled
17. A bunch of parsley
18. Three sticks of rhubarb
19. A dish or raspberries, with stalks
20. A dish of strawberries, with stalks
21. Five strings of blackcurrants
22. Five strings of red currants
23. A dish of gooseberries
24. A collection of three varieties of soft fruit
25. Three white eggs
26. Three brown eggs
27. Three duck eggs

You see? This is SERIOUS !
And that's not to mention:

Section 2: Cut Flowers, which has 17 classes to enter
Section 3: Floral Arrangements, which has 8 classes
Section 4: Cookery & Preserves, 16 classes
Section 5: Photography, 10 classes
Section 6: Handicrafts, 9 classes
Section 7: Painting & Drawing, 8 classes
Section 8 is for Children, not childish adults, so I'll give that one a miss....

I'm largely going to concentrate on Section 1, as many classes as I feasibly have produce for to take part, Section 4 (Cakes Breads, Jams etc. Chutneys) and prolly most definitely the Disaster Class! Trousers is thinking of entering Section 5 with his fantastic photo of the front of The Funny Farm taken round Christmas-time with all the snow & icicles (see blog, Wednesday 6th Jan "I See Snow Sheeps!", if you want a sneaky look) and I may, if time allows, enter Section 6, with something typically 'Wellie'.

Now do you see what I mean? To get remotely any of that lot ready to any decent standard (by 3rd July) will be quite a tall order. And I will just say, that ANY Slug or Snail that has designs on interfering, will be shot.

[Paulottie]

So your going to go for overall show? or is that just Veg cup and Home bake off cup...(streuth ...that'll put some noses out)

So from the top....and these are my secrets of success so don't go telling that lot on the Vine.

Potatoes...try and save as you go so as you get larger selection of similar ones
...We only eat it if its got a blemish here!...you just can't dig up a row in a day. Wash contenders and place in a ice cream tub

Shallots and onions....make sure you dry them in time. don't over skin, I use a heavy green cotton to tie over the tops...you can cut up a tube for the rings.

Beetroot ...they always cut em water regularly and pick the smallest not the woody ones.

Carrots...blimey START NOW...get a old dustbin....jet wash them out with a hose for maximum tap root. I think New Red Intermediate make a good bench carrot (St Valery not bad but takes too long now and more variable)

BBs...never shown em

Peas...must be picked with bloom on...use scissors and leave a little stalk.

Frenchies ...no seeds showing through pod ...must be snap fresh...they often do so.

Collection...always enter the collection with veg that are worth the most points...carrots etc. (its usually on a tray?) also it is worth the most points to your title....is there a cup?

Lettuce...successionally sow....always seem to have them perfect the week before or after myself!

Don't know much about straws and currants as normally all done before our show.

Raspberries and gooseberries...plenty of food and water, don't wet fruit...again preserve bloom...Mrs P always chooses...too fiddly for me..always look lost on a plate.

Again you must enter collection

eggs...Must be VERY fresh I guess...I won once but it eluded me why... they were small just come into lay things....I gave plenty of oyster shell and maize...all to do with consistency of white I believe.


Finally, I think all should be labelled with the variety. Normally allowed but check..I twist one end of a short piece of green wire round a pencil a couple of times to make the little card holders.

Jams, chutneys etc... GET THE RIGHT LIDS and jars square labels 2/3 way up ...Bake off is even more pedantic!!!...have to ask Mrs P....Marmalade prize is reason enough to not talk to neighbours round here!!

[wellie]

High Five Paulottie - Put it THERE...!

That's exactly the kind of enthusiasm we need on this thread, and the kind Rat will be looking for in his Show too, I'm convinced.

Actually, if truth be known, I'm not a wildly 'competitive' person at heart. But I WILL hold my hands up to being hugely, madly, deeply 'enthusiastic', with an absolute passion. Does that count?!

I knew you'd come up trumps Paulottie (see Wellie curtsey) and I shall annoint you my No. 1 Show Coach, if you'll let me, and I shall be taking notes, adding notes to my Show File, and asking you, Rat, and others, totally bizarre questions along the way. All help gratefully received.X.

Anyone else getting interested in their own local produce show now?
Bet you are! Bet you are!

[Paulottie]

I should be deeply honoured Wellie.

[Paulottie]

Wellie one other point...consider what you are going to do with all the produce...having dug up half the patch to get the perfect pair of thinggemybobs...you have a whole lot of veg to use.

I always booked passage to France and filled the boot up to feed the family for a fortnight.

...or ...any excuse...have a party.

[wellie]

Yeah, good point about the produce mountain Paulottie, but because the kitchen garden is right outside the kitchen door, I'm hoping to walk round every morning and evening leading up to the show, and label 'The Chosen Ones' ahead of time (so Trousers or I don't accidentally harvest and eat them!).

I shall need to select my class-entries ahead of time, as I need to declare which I'm entering by the Wednesday before the show.

And as far as root crops needing to be selected AFTER being dug up, I've got a deep plastic window-box trough full of already-germinated Amsterdam Forcing Carrots, so if my Nandor (a stump-rooted) seeds sown last Sunday into terracotta wine-rack thingies ontop of my new Salad Bar (see recent picture on blog) don't mature sufficiently in time, at least I'll be able to enter some of those maybe. Should I reposition the wine-rack thingies onto a much deeper compost-filled wotsit for a longer tap root to be on the safe side?

Potatoes have been chitting since January and I'll be growing in poly-pots (one tuber got planted into 5" pots (5 pots for each variety) of Charlotte, International Kidney, Kestrel, Nadine, and a red Rosevaal - to start them off last Monday. That way, they get my undivided attention, and will be much 'cleaner' for selection when finally harvested. Should I polish them with Skimmed, Semi or Whole Milk?

Will have many more (sensible) questions later, I'm sure.

No Chooks, so won't be entering any Oeufs.

As far as Awards, it kinda goes like this: a cup for most overall points in the show, The Missouri Dragon (whatever that may be!) for the most points in the Cookery & Preserves section, cup for best Floral, cup for best handicraft, plate for best photo, cup for Kiddy section, cup for most points in cut flower section, Millennium Clock for most points in the veg & fruit section, cup for best art entry and an award for best embroidery.

And Stormin' Norman normally walks away with a goodly selection of them.

[SarzWix]

IF you have a 'Victoria Sponge' category, the top tips that I put to use were:

Weigh off all of your ingredients against the eggs (if you don't have balance scales, weigh the eggs first and use that as the weight for your other ingredients)

Use GOOD QUALITY Self Raising flour, and sift it 'high' into the bowl. DO DOT use extra baking powder.

Use raspberry jam (preferably your own made), NOT strawberry, and DON'T for the love of Mike put buttercream in as well...

LIGHTLY sprinkle with CASTER sugar, not icing, and not so much that it looks like you're hiding something
--------------------------------------

Got me a first last year

[wellie]

Oh, now we're rockin'! Sarz, you're an Angel.X.

PS. Have you got a cold sweetie? (Do Dot?)

(See Wellie start a file on the Cooker & Preserves Section).... so please, please, all and any show-winning tactics very gratefully received.X

Edit: Do I line, butter, flour the tins? and what method/recipe mixing utensils do you use?
(You can tell now, seriously, that I'm not in the slightest bit competitive! but the bug is already beginning to consume me...!)

[Paulottie]

Goose eggs Wellie...they make the best sponges.

Dust your sponge lightly with sugar and use copious amounts of your best strawberry jam...preferably the one that didn't quite set properly.

I won 'best in show' with my men only Viccy sponge once!!!!....Mrs P didn't help me....no SHE DIDN'T...shushhh..well, maybe just a little.

[wellie]

Ah now Children... don't you just know it? We've got confusion at the first hurdle (Raspberry Jam vs. Strawberry Jam and Hens' Eggs vs. Goose Eggs)

What does the RHS/WI handbook on showing produce recommend/allow?
Because Rules is Rules, and we want to steal some points from Norman, not give them to him!!

[elsie-scot]

So your going to go for overall show? or is that just Veg cup and Home bake off cup...(streuth ...that'll put some noses out)

So from the top....and these are my secrets of success so don't go telling that lot on the Vine.

Great tips. Must find out when our show is and what the catergories are. Have two neighbours who will keep me right, but nice to have a few of my own secrets from the vine

[wellie]

Excellent news Elsie.... Let's see if we can't get some more 'Secrets' to work with, eh?!

[SarzWix]

Oh, now we're rockin'! Sarz, you're an Angel.X.

PS. Have you got a cold sweetie? (Do Dot?)

(See Wellie start a file on the Cooker & Preserves Section).... so please, please, all and any show-winning tactics very gratefully received.X

Edit: Do I line, butter, flour the tins? and what method/recipe mixing utensils do you use?
(You can tell now, seriously, that I'm not in the slightest bit competitive! but the bug is already beginning to consume me...!)

Ooopsy!

I used an electric hand whisk, creamed the butter and sugar with the inside of half a vanilla pod, whisked in the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of flour each, then folded in the flour.

The tins were lined with Lakeland's siliconised baking paper, so not greased.

Baked at 170c.

ETA: The Women's Institute say Raspberry jam - http://www.thewi.org.uk/viewNews.aspx?id=13815

[Paulottie]

Oh dear...now this is just the sort of thing I get disqualified for...you are, I am sure, right Sarah (indisputedly if you have checked in 'On with the Show')...I think it is Raspberry on reflection....and I now remember have the same discussion with Mrs P at the time!!!!....still prefer Strawberry myself but tish ....TO THE LETTER.