Medwyn Williams
Hello. I'm Medwyn Williams – eleven times Gold medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show, Past Chairman of the Royal Horticultural Society Fruit Vegetable and Herb Committee and President of the National Vegetable Society.
NVS Welsh Branch Championships Wrexham 23rd 24th August.
There’s no doubt that the Welsh Championships were probably one of the best ever held and filled up a very large Hall in three sections with superb quality vegetables. For the first time ever, as far as I can recall, large shallots won the ‘The most Meritorious dish’ in the show. This was brilliant for Jim Robinson from Cumbria who has staged shallots before at numerous large shows with this win probably being his best yet. I’m sure he enjoyed the win immensely as it was a well contested class. Everything about them was pretty near spot on with their ‘Uniformity’ being unmatched for Size, Shape, Condition and Colour. Nine Shallots are required in the Welsh Championships and after I persuaded Jim to let me take them down to the National in two weeks time, he found another three spares in his boot and I now have a dish of the requisite twelve at home that you can’t tell any of them apart. I just hope they will keep well for him without anything adverse happening to them. They are currently in my Office which is nice and cool.
There were four excellent collections of six kinds of vegetables displayed on back boards and these undoubtedly are always show stoppers. John Branham (picture attached) was the winner by 5 clear points staging New Red Intermediated long carrot, Evening Star celery, Pendle Improved blanch leek, Panorama parsnip and Kelsae onions, each onion measured 25 inches in circumference and weighed 7lb 7 ounces. John actually had a dressed oinion staged in a mini collection weighing over 9lbs.
6 thoughts on “NVS Welsh Branch Championships Wrexham 23rd 24th August.”
I thoroughly enjoyed the show and your company Medwyn. It was a fantastic weekend. See you at Dorchester. 🙂
A few dodgy looking sorts in photos 1,3,5 and 6! Good job I wasn’t eating.
You’d best save me a packet of that new parsnip Medwyn!
I’ve been told by DT not to let you the seed as it’s only for the best growers!
On a more serious note though I now have Exclusivity on both of the new parsnips, and they are both as good as each other. The only difference being that one is classified as Early and the other Late. The names are Victor F1 the Early variety and Viper F1 the later variety.
I thought you had packed in the growing anyway, haven’t seen you at any shows so far this year, will you be at the National?
Just having a year (or two?) out to recharge the batteries Medwyn and enjoy the grandkids so won’t be at Dorchester or Malvern this year. Missing the banter though I must admit! Have been enjoying looking at the photos of all the winning exhibits.
Those are one very nice dish off shallots.. new parsnips looks good as well.
Hi Paul, The shallots really are excellent and probably the best I have seen. They are in my office now and looking very well and haven’t deteriorated at all. They need to stay nice and firm with no wrinkly skins until next Saturday morning for judging! I really do think that both parsnips are quite special.