Kevin Ward won the Best dish and Sean Egan won the collection of five kinds with some pretty impressive parsnips using my selection RMW02. Beetroot took some sorting out as there were 18 entries in the class

Huge congratulations to the Tullamore Show for staging such a huge event for just one day. 60.000 in attendance. Long may it continue. Best part for me was meeting up with old friends that we see every year- just for a sip of the Tullamore Dew!!

Pulled some seriously stressed out long beet this afternoon hoping to stage them at the NVS Championships at Ayr. Leaving Thursday morning and hoping to Meet up with some old friends

My son pulled what I thought was a good long carrot! Hope you like my washing gear!!

Started pulling my parsnips this morning and these two were the best of three. These two will go into collection of three kinds two of each. Off to the NVS Championships in the morning. They were 11 around and 5ft 6 long.

These are the parsnips for the NVS Championships on Friday, 2 for the collection and 5 for the class. It’s all up to the judges now.

What a show, after such a difficult year weather wise the NVS Championship at Ayr are a tremendous success. I had 2nd with my parsnips beaten by a good set from Paul Gromes who is a formidable competitor. Lots of pictures to follow

An excellent collection of 6 kinds of vegetables from Paul Grimeswith his long carrots and parsnips being so good he could use a bit of flair in his staging. Large onion were sheer quality with the mini collection from Alistair Gray top of the shop!

A lovely dish of 5 Amour from Sherie Plumb as were the 3 cauliflowers Zaragoza from Andrew Jones. The Millenium class won by Mark Hall, a collection of 5 kinds 4 of each. Celery Evening Star had the Red card for Keith Chambers

Runner bean class won by Andrew jones after 16 years of trying. A fantastic set of Sweet Candle stump carrots from Paul Grimes who won the RHS Banksian medal for winning the most prize money. Toughball onions from Sherie and long beetroot from Jim Thompson

Probably the best pickling shallots I’ve seen staged by Jim Robinson who also won the large shallot class. Alistair Gray had a good dish of Sherie potatoes and there were numerous entries in the Pea class considering the weather conditions.

A regular winner with Carmen Cucumbers is Sherie Plumb, the Uniformity is near perfect. Pot leeks were won by Peter Dawson who also won the large onions class. Hawkesbury wonder French Beans available from myself were winners as were the 5 B-road Beans

For the past few years the National has an inter branch competition between the 5 branches of the National Vegetable Society and the Midland Branch won it for the third time.

This dish of Winston was grown by Jim Williams and of all the vegetables in the show they were awarded Best in Show award. They were grown in Coir and still shine on the second day. Globe beet by Mark Hall who has become the one to beat now with his consistent attention to detail

Guess what, just arrived back to my favourite hotel The Bridge House at Tullamore Co Offaly Ireland. A few days break before judging the Irish National Vegetable Society 3rd annual show Sunday.This is held as part of the Moate show expecting great Veg.

Judging the Irish vegetable Society Championships as part of the Moate show and the entries were up as was the quality. Raymond Higgins is the organiser and is now National chairman of the NVS. We had a little chat after judging

Some winning exhibits at the NVS show at Moate. The two dishes of potatoes. 1 Amour and the other Winston were awarded the best in show award grown by Michael Mc Goldrick. The collection of three kinds two of each had 18 entries won by David Maoloney

I was amazed to see all the entries packing the tables with over 85 percent staged. The Courgettes class was sponsored by Marshall with their kind donation of free seed o their new variety Jaguar.

More pictures from the Irish show. The pickling shallot class was won by John Martin from Scotland with a brilliant set, he missed timed the staging at the National in Ayr Raymond brought them over and they were truly an excellent set. The small fruited tomato was won with Apero

Raymond Higgins won the collection on the Moate side of the show. He had some really good peas particularly for this time of year. He also made good use of Sweet corn and very clean pot leeks