NGS, Giant Veg, wonderful herbs, Carvings and a beautiful Romany caravan

Giant veg and NGS veg show 2010

Where does the time go, I can't believe it's over a week ago since we went to the national gardening show in Shepton Mallet. The main attraction for us was to see the vegetable show and giant veg show, but there was so much more to pack into the day. (warning: lots of photo's but worth it!).

On arrival we saw the shed with the veg show to our left but decided to leave that one until later in the day and walked instead around all the outside displays. Lots of plant sales and garden sundries, a little something for everyone.

We saw some absolutely fantastic furniture.

We love these chairs and table, so tactile

beautiful carved bowls

We visited the National Trust marquee and made some paper flowers (we did attempt to follow some instructions we had but they were harder to make than we realised). We also made a pledge to hang on the tree.

our paper flowers

The beekeepers

There was a wonderful Beekeeping display, cleverly they put up an 8ft-ish screen around the area so you could see the beekeepers at work, and the bees but you weren't getting them flying in your face as they were flying higher (genius idea for a show).

We then followed a woodland trail, and had our very own little going on a bear hunt explore. We met this lovely tree elf.

tree elf

On coming out of the woodland we fund animals, lovely range of chickens for sale, some friendly pygmy goats, and some fluffy alpaca who became aware of a dog walking by. Did you know that alpaca are great to have as company for sheep? They act as guards basically, especially in lambing season and will guard the sheep from wild animals and wandering dogs in fields. They are however very friendly if the dogs are pets or farm dogs.

Alpaca spotting a dog

Beautiful birds of prey

Lots of other displays, antique cars, tree houses, a lady woad dyeing, some wonderful birds of prey, and lots of wood carvings - some lovely work here too.

So beautiful, I loved this carving and the dragonfly

Are you wondering about the Romany caravan I mentioned in the title? Later ... there's still the flowers and veg show.

We then went around the show marquees, the dahlias were bright and very big. There were some wonderful floral decorations too, and this category of "delightful and delicious" - cakes but made from flowers and seeds, etc - they were beautiful and looked good enough to eat!

The winning floral cake

and look at this beautiful one - would be great at a wedding for decoration

Dahlia's as big as yer head

The plant displays were wonderful too, with herbs, flowers, and a favourite was the Heuchera's from the New Forest (not too far away). I do love heuchera plants. We bought a couple of plants at the show - a new perennial sorrel we hadn't heard of before (later I got some seed for it too, so more to grow) that was so delicious; a lovely Basil that I'm hoping to overwinter well as it was lovely and a Woad for dyeing of course. We picked up some other heritage seeds too.

Heucheraholics - aptly titled plant nursery for me!

Onto the veg show and wow, some great displays. Leeks way taller than Imogen, lovely big onions and this was before approaching the giant veg tables!

The veg show hall

Wonderful displays, tall leeks

The giant veg, well the pictures speak for themselves really ...

Giant beetroot

Want to know some of the weights and measurements of the giant veg winners? I'll tell you anyway

Heaviest leek - 8kg
Heaviest tomato - 2.28kg

Heaviest potato - 3.76kg
Heaviest marrow - 67.5 kg (yes, 67.5kg)
(Imogen demonstrating how big the marrows were)
Heaviest celery - 21.5kg
(yes, it's a celery!)
Heaviest Squash - 323.5kg(the squash (heaviest is 2nd from right) and pumpkins)
Heaviest pumpkin - 550kg (1210 lbs)

Longest beetroot - 548cm

Longest carrot - 477cm

Longest parsnip - 352.2cm

Wow, is all I can say - it was fascinating to see such lovely displays and the giant veg were just "massive" as Imogen put it. Great show, we will be going there again.

So, the Romany caravan then. These are newly built, insulated, can have electrics fitted into them, a lovely wood burner (forgot to photograph it though) and the company who makes them come to visit where you want to place it so they decide on the best axle to fit on it. It sparked off some lovely dreams of having the land to have one (or maybe two!), perhaps a study, or a little craft room - oh yes, I could see myself in there with the radio on spinning on my wheel, or weaving or .................. (sorry, where was I!).

So here it is, lovely aren't they?

and inside, beautiful

Great show, we will be going there again. Hope you've enjoyed the pictures.

Crafting post to follow I think as Imogen did some wet felting with me last week and I've been doing some knitting for her birthday coming soon and had the needle felting out too for Autumn crafts, and more planned.