Kitchen Garden Forum

At the Bucks County Show today I was green with envy seeing the prize-winning vegetables in the various competitions. But the leeks, parsnips, celery, carrots & onions were so enormous that I wonder if the growers ever eat them. Are there two types of vegetable gardeners - those who grow them to eat, and those who grow them for showing? I can't help wondering whether the size will have diluted the flavour and that spectacular though these vegetables look, they might be pretty unpalatable when cooked. Can somebody please enlighten me.

the simple answere is no, in general you can grow for taste and texture or for size and appearance its rare for both to occure together.

The simple answer is yes. The criteria required is size,shape,uniformity and condtion. The veg must be grown as near to perfection as is possible this is not to be confused with the novelty brigade;- longest carrot, largest marrow longest runner bean etc.etc.For example the RHS. show handbook requirement for marrows is "young tender,uniform fruits which should be less than 380 cm long and free from blemish.I could go on ad infinitum quoting RHS or NVS guidelines but I refer you to http://www.nvsuk.org.uk/index.php
having said that I cant help quoting the guidelines for celary;-"Meritorious, Large, well blanched, firm and crisp, free from stringyness,fresh clean and blemish free.
Defective. heads that are small or course or loose or have visible flower stalks or have a split base, or are thin,soft,pithy,stringy or imperfectly blanched. Hearts or leaves showing disease or blemish."
There is amongst some a reverse snobbery almost, that unless your veg is small, deformed,covered in dirt or muck then it cant be any good for you or taste as it should. Richard P, on what experience do you base your statement?...S.Tart.

Hi All,

I agree with Strawbery tart, all my veg I mean everything that I put on the show bench can and will be eaten, the only problem I have is with large onions which do not store that well but they make excellent soup and I frezze what is left of the large onions.

Kind Regards

Kevin

hi strawberry tart, stringy runner beans, wooden beetroot and carrots to name but three, my grandmother was chair of the local gardening club back in the stone age

Hi richard p, My point is that stringy runner beans dont win at shows and nor do wooden beetroot or carrots and I have been growing and showing for 30 years and we eat 80% of what I grow and give the rest away to friends and family.Strawberry Tart.

I grow Kestrel potatoes which are a show tattie and I eat then, really lovely, but don't show them. It's slug resistant which is necessary in our rain-sodden end of the world.

Of course you can eat show vegetables. We had our village show yesterday (we won 7 first, 6 second and 7 third prizes, in case you ask, though not all were for vegetables) and I spent most of today using all the veggies: leeks, carrots, french beans, peas, broad beans (though they were really past their best), kohlrabi, Florence fennel, borlotti beans, cauliflower, red cabbage, marrow and herbs, freezing some and making lots of different soups to use during the week. Two of the winning leeks (not ours) were HUGE and I asked the winner if he ever used these giants and he assured me that they were perfectly edible and tender though you need to have a fairly large family to cope with them!

Congratulations on your twenty prizes Monika, that certainly was a good result.

You weren't the only ones there were you.

Watch it, OH!! No, it was a very good and well supported village show. I don't know the number of entries but we had a job on to fit them all in. I was amazed at the size of dahlias and gladioli in spite of the windy weather recently. Particularly pleasing was the number of children's entries for a decorated potato, edible necklace, floating flowers, a garden on a dinner plate etc. Luckily, we also had good weather so that lots of people came to see the results which is always important to break even. Entering things for the show is free, there are no cash prizes for adults and the admission of 50 pence includes a cup of tea and a home-baked scone with home-made strawberry jam and cream. How is that for good value!

Dear Monika, i must say that really does sound to be a most fabulous day, and so glad the children get involved.

Long live the village shows.

strawberry tart wrote:Hi richard p, My point is that stringy runner beans dont win at shows and nor do wooden beetroot or carrots and I have been growing and showing for 30 years and we eat 80% of what I grow and give the rest away to friends and family.Strawberry Tart.

Having followed a vegetable judge around our show yesterday, as steward I can categorically state the following:

Runner beans, nine, one gets snapped to check for crispness and the halves are meant to seperate.

Beetroot, three, one gets cut in half and inspected for texture and woodiness.

Sweetcorn, two, get dehusked and thumbnailed on a kernel, the juice must be creamy.

Marrows, get thumbnailed, an impression must be left.

Judges do look for edibility.