Sowing Dates for Exhibition Vegetable Growers

To continue with the sowing dates and best varieties to use for showing towards the end of August and the end of September. This small series of articles has come about as a result of several phone calls and letters from growers who regularly request information regarding timing their vegetables for certain shows. The growers chosen were selected because they grew an extensive range of vegetables as well as living at different locations throughout the country.

To continue with the sowing dates and best varieties to use for showing towards the end of August and the end of September. This small series of articles has come about as a result of several phone calls and letters from growers who regularly request information regarding timing their vegetables for certain shows. The growers chosen were selected because they grew an extensive range of vegetables as well as living at different locations throughout the country.

The timings given will obviously vary and if you are located nowhere near any of those selected then you can make a good calculated guess taking the sowing dates from the nearest location to you. You must not of course take any of these dates as gospel, many things can still put a spanner in the works, in particular the great British weather which can be totally unpredictable.

Cauliflowers and Peas for instance do vary greatly with the weather and can often mature weeks earlier than planned for. With cauliflowers in particular it never pays to depend on just the one single sowing as this could be a disaster. To guarantee that you have heads for as given show time, use the dates given by the various growers and then batch sow some more, 7 days before and after their sowing dates, just to be on the safe side.

The third grower to offer his sowing dates is Bob Herbert from Mosborough Derbyshire. Bob is a certainly one of the country’s top growers and has been particularly successful with cauliflower’s and celery having won the NVS Championships on more than one occasion. He is currently Chairman of his local District Association and Vice Chairman of the Northern Branch committee. For his unstinting service to the society he was  awarded the Gold Medal this year which is the Societies highest honour.

Bob is well known throughout the country having traveled extensively lecturing on numerous topics to do with vegetables and is always prepared to help any up and coming novice grower with words of wisdom gleaned from years of solid experience. Bob is also a very highly respected National judge.

Here are Bobs’ varieties and their sowing dates for those on the list that he grows:-