Showtime 2016!

It was the second year for HAHA to join forces with the Royal British Legion for the Horticultural and Handicraft Show. With 32 exhibitors and 406 exhibits it was even more successful than last year - See how useful allotments are to local communities!

Setting up the Show

We were picking, selecting, washing and trimming our vegetables on Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning. We managed to gather together reasonable items for the following categories:

Tomatoes on a vine	5 Bush tomatoes
Matching pair of cucumbers	4 carrots with tops
Any 5 veg	Any 3 veg
3 onions (over 8oz)	3 onions (under 8oz)
Largest circumference onion	Plus a photo for each category

And now we have a flat full of slightly wonky carrots, dodgy spuds and damaged cucumbers. Also the cabbage that we were hoping to include but that is too holey - I think we're going to have lots of coleslaw over the next week! This is our trug of spuds. The Salad Blue are a great colour, but horribly scabby - they were grown in a bag. The white ones are Orla, grown in a bag, and are really good quality. The Kestrels were grown in the ground when we were searching for coloured potatoes to show.

Can't believe we couldn't find 5 runner beans that were suitable! And again our longest runner bean wasn't long enough - doh! We got 1st place for a couple of the categories but mostly 2nd, 3rd or highly commended. But all placings earn points so we got equal third prize so not bad considering the year! And we're always happy to share with Ted :-)

After a busy morning and afternoon it was good fun going along to the prize-giving in the evening. Along with the auction of exhibits and raffle and a bar to enjoy a shandy (ahem) or two or three :-)

It's such a fun event and great to mix with our fellow growers along with bakers, picklers and handicrafters!We're only sitting by the cakes - we didn't buy or make all of them!! 

Lots more photos here.