Page 44 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2024/25

Following on from his success in the Scottish Branch Championships, Jim Gradie won the peas with Show Perfection and the Large Exhibition Shallots , Hative de Niort (Jim had won both of these classes at last National Championships too). Jim Gradie also achieved 3rd place in the 250g Onions class.
Following on from his success in the Scottish Branch Championships too, Alistair Gray won the Sherine Potato
class and came 2nd in the White Potato Class, also with Sherine. Ian Simpson was honoured to have been given Alistair’s potatoes to take down to Ardingly and to wash and stage. Ian reflected that it was
an absolute joy to wash Alistair’s potatoes, which only needed to be run under a tap and wiped with a sponge, just like he had told him. (Ian even tried using Alistair’s sponge on his own potatoes, but it certainly was not a magic sponge, Alistair’s just a magic grower).
Jim Williams came 5th in the White Potato class with a nice set of Harmony. Ted Low achieved 4th place with his Large
Exhibition Shallots, Hative de Niort and also 4th place with his 250g Toughball Onions.
Jim Pearson achieved 2nd in the Large Exhibition Shallots, 2nd in the Celery Class, 3rd in the Millenium Class with a very tidy exhibit, 3rd in the 20 point veg class, 5th in the Cauliflower class,4th in the Peas, variety Show Perfection, and 4th in the Sherine Potato Class. Ian Simpson achieved 2nd
in the peas and 3rd in the Parsnips with variety RMW02 (a new variety of Medwyn’s of Anglesey). Medwyn Williams was delighted to have won the parsnips, also with variety RMW02 and Simon Smith came 2nd with Viking. For those on the NVS Facebook members site, you will be aware of the banter with Simon, who, after having won the parsnips in 2021 & 2022 and coming 2nd in 2023 to Paul Grimes, Simon hoping to have won again in 2024. Just for fun, I photographed Medwyn
and Simon with their 1st and 2nd place parsnips, which I hope you enjoy.
Ian Simpson achieved 3rd place in the 15 points and under class again including
“sweet Bell” Turnips, Relon Broad Beans, Socrates Mini Cucumber and Hercules Onion sets. Grace Pearson and Fiona Shenfield also represented the Scottish Branch, by staging their Interbranch trug, coming 4th.
We cannot report on the National Championships without thanking our Scottish branch judge, Neil Muirhead, who travelled down by train with his wife Tricia. Neil enjoyed his judging experience, thank you.
Now, I have just two more competitions to report on from this weekend, both
from the social evening at the National Championships. Firstly, the Quiz, brilliantly organised and ran by Simon Smith. This was a really fun time, but sadly none
of the Scottish Branch members were
in the winning team. However, the final competition was an interbranch snail
race, where our wee Scottish Branch snail (Turbo McSlime) romped into 1st place, possibly helped by a little encouragement from Jim Pearson with a makeshift fishing rod dangling a wee bit of Cauliflower. What fun! and it rounded off day 1 of the show perfectly.
Finally, the next weekend, Jim Brown ventured back to the dark side again by travelling down to the Malvern giant veg show to enter a new set of broad beans
to try and beat his 2023 Guinness World Records and to continue the banter with the English and Welsh boys which Ian Simpson and Jim Pearson started a few years ago. There are still a few growers trying to beat the record but alas they have not quite made it yet. We are happy to report that whilst Jim’s 2023 record for the heaviest broad bean, at 192g, has not yet been broken, he managed to break his own record for the longest broad bean which now stands at 45.5cm (17.91 inches).
Congratulations to all our Scottish Branch Exhibitors.
Fiona Shenfield FNVS
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