A Successful Show Day

Our first local event of the autumn season, the Horticultural Society Show, took place today. We both really enjoy gardening but we haven't entered anything in the Show for a few years now as everything always seems to be either not quite ready, or past its best

Barry tends the vegetable garden and this year he has been very pleased with a huge crop of tasty chantenay carrots. So on the spur of the moment this morning he decided to enter them in the show. That might sound a simple enough thing to do, but it's quite a palaver as there are unbelievably strict standards to be adhered to!!!!



We had to pick out and scrub 3 identically sized and shaped blemish-free carrots - which was not as easy as it sounds - then trim the leaves to exactly 75cm, tie the tops with raffia, and present them on a white plate. Unfortunately I don't have a photo to show you, but it was definitely all worth the effort, as you should have seen his face light up when his carrots were awarded 1st prize :)

My contribution in the garden is tending the flower beds and fruit trees but, as usual, nothing was really perfect on Show day. However, I did manage to find a few roses that hadn't been battered by the wind and rain, and I also entered some homemade jam. Now, although family and friends always reckon my strawberry jam is the best they ever tasted, I wasn't very confident because there were at least a dozen other berry jams entered in the same class as mine. But guess what? Once again my award-winning strawberry jam beat all the others to win 1st prize! And as a bonus, I also got a 2nd prize and a Highly Commended for my roses - not a bad result for last minute submissions, huh?!