Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
It was our Horticultural and Handicraft Show yesterday. The Royal British Legion do most of the work, but HAHA are joint hosts and are responsible for the horticulture and floral sections.
Our 5 veg selection - I liked the unusual colours of each item, but it seems the judge didn't :-)
Burgundy potato, white radish, purple carrot, yellow stripey courgette, purple bean
It was a good show again with 310 exhibits from the 23 contributors. Not as many entrants as last year as some familiar faces were absent, but it was great to see some of our newest plotholders came along.
Along with some of us who come back each year now we know it's such fun.
On Friday afternoon Jamie and I retrieved our (reasonably) dry onions from the greenhouse and managed to find 3 that almost looked similar - it's amazing how 50 onions can all look so different! We didn't win a prize for them (they're the little ones next to the lovely red ones in the photo below), but got 3rd prize for our largest onion which was 35cm circumference.
Early Saturday morning was when we picked the rest of our exhibits. So many beans and carrots to find a few matching ones! We had an hour to do all the cleaning up and trimming before we went to the British Legion and set up and then I had to dash off and pick up our judge from Newbury.
I sat outside in the sunshine while the judging was going on and Jamie came to join me with a cake to relieve the boredom.
We didn't enter any pickles but did bag a couple of jars in the auction afterwards
I intended to enter some flowers, but my asters have been slow to bloom
and sweetpeas have pretty much gone over
Here are some of our produce that got first place.
And we got some 3rd places too:
I think a couple of the photos got placed but we were completely out-stripped by fellow-plotholder Kerry's amazing shots.
These are the photos we selected to show - one for each category
Still we managed to win second place in the Horticultural & Floral Section, so we were pleased with that! And we left with a lovely prize-winning cottage loaf to go with the pickle plus a prize from the raffle.
Loved this insect in the needlecraft section!
Such a fun, social event, with a spurious link to The Lightning Seeds song..
Thank you. Yes, it is fun when we have get-togethers. It's nice knowing that we have at least one shared interest, even though other aspects of our lives are quite different.
Along with some of us who come back each year now we know it's such fun.
On Friday afternoon Jamie and I retrieved our (reasonably) dry onions from the greenhouse and managed to find 3 that almost looked similar - it's amazing how 50 onions can all look so different! We didn't win a prize for them (they're the little ones next to the lovely red ones in the photo below), but got 3rd prize for our largest onion which was 35cm circumference.
Early Saturday morning was when we picked the rest of our exhibits. So many beans and carrots to find a few matching ones! We had an hour to do all the cleaning up and trimming before we went to the British Legion and set up and then I had to dash off and pick up our judge from Newbury.
I sat outside in the sunshine while the judging was going on and Jamie came to join me with a cake to relieve the boredom.
And we got some 3rd places too:
I think a couple of the photos got placed but we were completely out-stripped by fellow-plotholder Kerry's amazing shots.
Very lovely, I can see why you won first place with your entries. It must be very fun to be involved with a community of fellow gardeners.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Yes, it is fun when we have get-togethers. It's nice knowing that we have at least one shared interest, even though other aspects of our lives are quite different.
DeleteWell done lots of successes.
ReplyDeleteThank you. We were disappointed that we couldn't find one entry for the 'funny vegetable' and the 'longest runner bean' still alludes us!!
DeleteCongratulations on your efforts and awards.
ReplyDeleteThankyou. It was a fun day and evening
Delete