In message , Sacha
writes
On 2010-07-15 13:39:16 +0100, said:

snipwar.
In my village, peace broke out a few years ago, and the show is no
more - though it was pretty desultory. I was a bit cheesed off when
my borlotti beans were excluded as 'out of category' for French beans,
and the prize went to someone who had submitted runners!
Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In ours, one man won every singe year - his displays were stupendous.
Then one year he showed something-or-other which had a slug pellet or
two clinging to it and he was marked down. He refused ever to enter
again but does a display just to show everyone else what would happen
if he cared to enter again! What's shown depends on the show schedule
but ISTR ours has things like 3 onions or 5 runner beans on a plate, 6
potatoes, 6 eggs, things like that. There's quite a lot of info he
http://tinyurl.com/2wb37fs

Thanks Sacha and the others who responded. I know about the dressing
(with raffia according to those who know) but I went a blank when
wondering how early I should lift the onions. I know I rather messed it
up last year by not leaving enough time for them to be stripped to a
consistent skin colour and left to go golden. Last year I rushed it and,
while I thought they looked great, I had to admit that those chosen
ahead of me, looked much better. So this year I'm going to lift them 3
weeks before our village show...... if I remember. That means they have
10 days still in the ground. The rain will help the runner beans and
French beans while with the other bits and pieces it's "fingers
crossed". And then there's the Men's home baked Cake category - it
always provokes the competitive juices. The show certainly is deadly
serious .... in the most light-hearted and fun way however. Fortunately
we don't seem to have any examples of sulkers .... maybe it's the cider
that makes the difference :-))

Many thanks for the advice. Roll on 14th Aug.
--
Gopher .... I know my place!