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.
Tatton Park Show
Every time I judge the RHS Tatton Park Sumer Show I find that the vegetables appear to be fresher than at any other show. A classic case of this were the dish of Broad Beans shown by Gordon Lucas from Crewe.
The nine pods were really bright green with 9 beans in the pod that was opened by the judge and I have no doubt that the others would have had the same amount. You have to take your hat off to Sherie Plumb who seems to turn out runner beans like the welsh Rugby team used to turn out Fly halves! She will certainly take some beating in the shows that are coming up in the next few weeks. Sherie also won the two collection classes for a 6 and 4 kinds of vegetables with her dish of Runner Beans being awarded the Best Dish in the show in the collection of Six Kinds.
I thought the piece about John Bebbington and his grandson that was shown last Thursday night on BBC2 from the Tatton show did wonders for Vegetable growing and in particular for children who want to grow veggies. You can check it out on BBC I player. John’s Grandson Ayden is only seven and really does grow his own stuff on John’s allotment and he will be showing some of them this coming weekend at Nantwich show.
John showed three onions as grown with the biggest 19 inches in circumference, looking at the ones left in his tunnel he should have a very good set later on.
Graham and Jane Wagstaffe always support this show and they won with their turnips, Snowball, the three roots were well matched and perfectly clean. The only comment I had was that they were a little on the large side but they were certainly worthy winners on the day and far superior to the other entries.
The Northern Branch of NVS had a superb display of vegetables that won them a Gold Medal under the management of John Woods who has been staging these displays for many years now. The first five years he assisted David Hampsey and with the help of his DA committee he’s been doing it for 12 years winning 11 Gold medals.
There were two dishes of peas staged on it that were grown by John Done from Hatton Nr Warrington. John has grown top quality Show Perfection peas for many years and this year was no exception, he should also do well at the shows coming up.
I have to mention Fruit, because for the early soft fruit competitions, Tatton certainly takes some beating with one fruit grower in particular being very hard to beat. Adrian Baggaley from Nottingham staged a basket of fruit that was seriously mouth watering with 21 different cultivars beautifully arranged on it. Adrian has won this class since the RHS Summer Show has established itself at Tatton.
4 thoughts on “Tatton Park Show”
Wales used to produce good fly halves? Wow, you must be older than you look if you can remember that Medwyn!
Any tips on growing unmarked turnips? Mine always seem to have brown marks on them and/or little splits, which I assume is down to irregular watering?
I well remember them Simon, I’m not a young kid like you and David Thornton you know! what a great team we used to have in them days. There is always a problem with turnips when you grow them outdoors and in soil, all the bugs under the sun seem to have a taste for them and always underneath where you can’t see them! I now grow the majority of my turnips in either Link a Bord raised beds or in pots using Levington M2 or my own Potato compost. They grow very well in large pots, in a twelve inch pots you could probably grow 6 easily and have some nice quality roots. I allow ten weeks from sowing to showing. Scarid flies from the compost can be a problem but I can control them using SB plant invigorator.
Nice write , up on the show, did enjoy seeing John and his grandson.
Good to hear from you Paul, are you still growing veggies for the show bench? if so we’ll probably meet up in Dundee.