03/08/15 – Just under 2 weeks until show day

With less than 2 weeks left until show day it was time to get stuck into some work in the garden. So yesterday I cracked on.

I gave all the onions a final measure to help me decide which one to leave in the ground for the ‘heaviest onion’ class. The scores on the doors were…

The largest onion of the 12 measured in at 17.25″ in circumference. Over the past week this one onion gained only 0.75″. But with all the others only growing 0.25-0.5″ this one was the obvious choice to leave in. It seems to grow 0.25″ less each week, so if I can get it to put on 0.5″ this week, and then 0.25″ next week, I’m hoping to scrape it to 18″ circumference.

Here’s a pic of the big boy…

I pulled up 7 of the other onions which were large enough, and similar in size and shape to maybe get a decent set of 3. Out of the 7 there were 3 measuring bang on 16.25″ each, and very similar in shape so these are looking like my set at the moment. I chopped the tops off them all, peeled back any broken skins, chopped off the roots and gave them all a rinse. I’ve placed them on some kitchen roll on a window sill to start drying out, and will turn them slowly each day to give an even colouring. Going from left to right, the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th are matching up well…

Weighing up one of these onions has already confirmed I beat my heaviest onion last year so my mission objective has been achieved. I will weigh the largest one a week on Friday when I lift it and share the final weights/sizes.

Over on the other veg, I’ve just cut all the potato plants foliage off just leaving a few inches of the stalk. I’ll leave the bags undisturbed now until show day to let the potato skins set and harden a little…

The tomato plants are doing well. Last week I cut a lot of the leaves and foliage off to allow the sunlight to get to the fruits to assist ripening. 4 or 5 of the tomatoes have ripened now and the rest of the green ones are just starting to take a hint of orange so they should ripen up perfect for a week on Saturday. The only problem with some of these is that some of the tomatoes have grown huge, some are almost the size of apples and I’m not sure if large tomatoes are what judges look for in this class…

I have a feeling they will be too big so we’ll have to see whats left to work with closer to the date. I’ll probably be able to get a set of 4 large ones, and a set of 4 medium ones and then see which gets judged best.

Pulled up my 5 garlic plants tonight. Very poor. It’s the first time I’ve grown garlic so wasn’t expecting much. I think I simply planted them into the ground too late in the season and resulted in small bulbs. Next year I’ll get them in 3 months earlier than this year and see how that does them.

The runner beans have come on loads. I’ve not mentioned these before as I was extremely late sowing them, and up until 2 weeks ago there were no signs of any flowers so I’d pretty much written any runner bean entries off. But looking at them tonight there are now some small runner beans developing, maybe 2-3″ long. There are 10 plants, so 5 of these I will attempt a giant long runner bean. I’ve chopped all the hands of beans down to just 2 beans per hand, in hope that the plant will put all its effort into quickly growing these few beans. The other 5 plants I will try and get a set of 6 good shaped beans from. Similar the other plants I’ve limited the hands to fewer beans but left 5 beans on the hands of these plants. Any that show signs of bending, blemishes or going misshapen will be cut off straight away.

Not long now, 12 days and counting.