Produce show

Now I'm never one for the prettiest veg, heaviest this, longest that. Veg grows in all-sorts of shapes and sizes. It's this so called supermarket mentality which gets a lot of veg thrown out because it doesn't look right and people won't buy it. That to me is plain stupid.

The end result of veg is to eat it. So I prefer categories that allow you to show that. So I only entered two categories. Bread and Cakes. And to go with the alliteration, Courgette Cake and Beetroot Bread.

The Courgette Cake I've done before. Unfortunately though, it didn't come up to the standard of those who entered various cup cakes and layer cakes.

The Beetroot Bread though was nice and pink. Although oddly the insides, once cut, was just a normal colour. Just a nice pink crust.

Anyway, it tasted of a faint beetroot flavour and it came second... out of two entries.

Not much actually doing on the plot today though. Mostly it was spent sheltering in the greenhouse from the torrential thunder storm that rolled through.

But at least we hit over 100 courgettes during the week. I suspect there will be more tomorrow though.

The 2017 Courgette Tally:

101

Produce Show Categories

Belinda asked what categories we have for our show. These are they:

CATEGORY - FLOWERS & HERBS

• Class 1: Mixed flower arrangement in a vase (vase not taller than 20cm)
• Class 2: One scented rose to be judged on perfume only
• Class 3: A single bloom / flower spike
• Class 4: A gentleman’s buttonhole / lady’s spray
• Class 5: Tied bunch of 5 different herbs

CATEGORY - VEGETABLES & FRUIT

• Class 6: Selection of vegetables (min 5 different types) within 12” square (to be provided)
• Class 7: Longest runner bean (judged as straight-line length)
• Class 8: Biggest marrow (judged on both weight & size)
• Class 9: Five onions on a plate
• Class 10: Five potatoes on a plate
• Class 11: Five tomatoes on a plate
• Class 12: Heaviest pumpkin (weighed on plot)
• Class 13: Funniest vegetable (can be assembly of vegetables or single item)
• Class 14: Selection of home grown fruits on a plate (minimum 3 different types)
• Class 15: Five apples on a plate

CATEGORY - HOME PRODUCE

• Class 16: Jam, jelly, marmalade or fruit curd
• Class 17: Chutney/pickles/relishes
• Class 18: Cake (to include at least one home-grown ingredient)
• Class 19: Home-made or home-brewed alcoholic or soft drinks

CATEGORY - PHOTOGRAPHY

• Class 20: Plant portrait
• Class 21: The weather
• Class 22: Views of the allotment
• Class 23: Allotment wildlife
• Class 24: Dusk-to dawn (photo must be taken between these times)

CATEGORY - CHILDREN’S (under 16 yrs only)

• Class 25: Photograph of my plot (8-16 yrs)
• Class 26: Tallest sunflower (judged on plot, under 8 yrs)
• Class 27: Best scarecrow (under 8 yrs)
• Class 28: Best arrangement of garden flowers in a jam jar (8-16 yrs)
• Class 29: 3 decorated cup cakes (under 8 yrs)
• Class 30: Decorated stone (8-16 yrs)

We have a Best In Show award for each category. As well as we can also give out Special awards at the Judges discretion for entries which are innovative (whilst probably not a winning entry in their group). This year we had a number of classes which had no entries (Classes 4 and 24 for example) and multiple entries for some. Most notably Class 6 which is by far our most popular entry. Yesterday's winning exhibit was this:

The MAGA 2014 Produce Show

What a busy day. I was on site at 8am this morning to start getting things ready for the Produce Show. The Marquee hadn't been used since the Plant Sale back in May and the weeds in there had taken over. Much to do.

Before

After

Still when the volunteers started turning up at 10am things started moving a little faster and by the time 12noon came around we were ready for people to start arriving to set up their displays.

Unfortunately this year... I was in charge. Which meant I was busy and couldn't take many photos. So things were a little sketchy in that department. Still it all seemed to work out OK.

The final awards seemed to turn out pretty OK, and it was kind of fun giving out the awards at the end. Even if we were slightly delayed in that department. The thing which really slowed us up was the tasting of the home made produce. Some of it was delicious. Some was pretty foul. But it all got judged and people seemed happy with the end results.

Best in Show for Produce Display

Special Award for Unusual Vegetables

Some of the produce - Most notably the "five <things> on a plate"

The Flowers Section

Largest Pumpkin (No way was I going to weigh the damn thing)

2nd Largest Pumpkin (Still too damn big)

Best Scarecrow

Plant Sale

There has been little in the way of posts here for the past couple of weeks. The reason being is that a lot of hard work was done getting ready for the Plant Sale.

Well that happened this last weekend. Why no posts over the weekend? Because I was too damn exhausted once I got home to actually sit in front of the computer and write something up.

The Plant Sale is one of our yearly events. We order in a lot of bedding plants and vegetables, mostly in plug format. These we then pot on and keep in the various greenhouses around the site. Space in the greenhouses are donated by many plot holders. My own greenhouse was absolutely choked. No spare space at all. As a consequence I had to postpone the potting on of some of my own seedlings. This has had an adverse effect. For example my Pak Choi has gone straight to seed in it's seedling tray. This is not good and basically ruins them.

Slugs attacked my Sprouts that I put out a while back. Of the 26 plants outside, only 1 survives. The Red Onions and Beetroot however seem to be going great guns. The runner beans are showing leaves the potatoes got hit by a late frost a while back, but seem to have bounced back. Well, except for one which seems to have been slugified as there is no actual foliage left, just stalks. But we shall see. The Carrot are doing extremely well. Their fronds waving in the breeze above the tops of their bags.

But back to the Plant Sale. Things started out bright and early Saturday morning. We had already got some of the benches and tables set out the previous week. The Vegetable trays had been stored in the marquee since Monday and many trays of the bedding plants had already been moved in to join them. So it was just a matter of rolling up the sides of the marquee, last minute layouts and sticking pricing labels in.

Setting up.

Sure enough, come 10am the buying hordes started streaming in.

The weather over the weekend was brilliant. Thank goodness for the shade of the marquee as without that a lot of the plants would have been wilting in the heat. But liberal doses of water for them (and the workers) saw us through until 2pm when we closed for the day.

We also had a couple of off-shoot stands. Firstly was a charity stand run by our Bee Keeper in residence, Alison, raising funds for Bees for Development. Helping her was Phil who was also selling bee friendly plants, but grown from MAGA plants and the funds from that went to MAGA of course. I think there was some confusion in how everything was discussed before hand, because there were some rumours going around that all of the funds on the Bee stand were going to charity. Yet everything was clearly defined on the day to show which plants were being sold to support which cause.

Support the bees!

Sunday started out with a smaller amount of plants as most had already been sold. But we cut prices all over the place, and dropped the prices even more towards closing time. In the end we gave people a tray and told them to fill the tray for £2. We didn't want anything left.

Sales in full flow

But even so at the very end, there were still plants left. So we simply left one side off the marquee and put an Honesty Jar for donations inside and let people take whatever they wished. I suspect over the next few days we'll offload a lot of the plants. But anything that doesn't go by the end of the week will probably end up on the compost heap.

All in all, we raised over £100 for Bees for Development and over £1,000 for MAGA. Not a bad weekends work.

Next weekend we'll start the Plot Inspections before the sunny weather pushes the weeds into overdrive. Which reminds me. I have to borrow the strimmer to attack the grasses and stuff that suddenly wants to take over my plot.

Pumpkinfest 2013

Last year we held the pumpkin festival in conjunction with a MAGA meeting. This year, we had none of that. Simply a big festival, bonfire and barbecue.

The day started with the usual suspects doing prep work and getting everything laid out and sorted ready. In the days leading up to the event itself we had our handymen (Dom and Geoff) hard at work producing an excellent food prep area to surround our two BBQs. One being the "meat" and the other the "veggie" option.

There are two sets of fairy lights to distinguish which is which.

We also had a small mini BBQ to the side for the pork based products as there are some people who object to those being on the meat BBQ. We guessed we would get about 50 people, and at one point I counted 56, a dog and about 6 ankle biters. So we were spot on with the catering and stuff.

All in all, much fun was had by all and the evening went very well indeed. Since I was appointed the official photographer of the event, I have a whole load of photos. But here are some of the highlights.

Lesley and friend

Drinks table. Lot of home brew.

We had to keep the bonfire covered until the day itself.

Ugly at the gate to welcome people in.

Fairy hanging lights. Sorry, hanging fairy lights.

The Allotment breeds some scary creatures.

Random "man in the crowd" is invited to light the bonfire.

Rain doesn't stop play.

Fire's lit.

And the queue for food begins.

Phil has been at the home made cider.

Conan the Samoyed doesn't seem impressed.

The pumpkin carving entries. Children (front), adults (back).

Winners (walking pumpkins)

Runner-up (a truly demonic witch)

Adult winner. Prize was a hand made scarf from our judge, Madeleine Jude (left).

The Veggie Cook (Alison, left) and Meat Cook (Chris, right) have creative differences.

Somebody give them a hand.

But the food goes down really well.

Produce Show

Yesterday was the annual MAGA Produce Show.

As has been previously stated, I entered my Chutney, Jam (aka Compote) and Courgette Cake. Unfortunately I didn't win anything.

The day started out early for us volunteers to make sure everything was set up. We put up a smaller marquee along side our big marquee on a vacant plot.

The setup took us a couple of hours to do.

The small marquee was where we dodged the odd shower and eventually sat and ate cakes and drunk tea whilst the judging was underway.

The actual layout inside the big marquee gave us quite a bit of space to playwith. Something we needed as there were a few BIG items... such as a marrow that was nearly 6ft long.

And I managed to give away a whole load of spare courgettes.

But at the end of the day, much fun was had by all. It just goes to show that if you commit to the community spirit then being on an allotment is a very worthwhile cause. Friends and food. What more do you need?

A selection of prize winning produce...