A View From (Inside) The Greenhouse; A Taste Of Englishness

As we get nearer to the end of the growing season the house has taken on a verdant if somewhat chaotic aspect. Normally, by now, the green would be interspersed with shades of red, orange, purple and yellow, but there’s little other colour to be found, apart from one or two notable exceptions. I don’t think the early warm spell helped and the lack of sun, apart from the odd day or two during July, at least in this part of the world, has seen most things being slow to fully form, let alone ripen. That is. of course, unless you’re a fan of the cucumber, which I’m not. Although it may rankle with the B & M department, I think we’ll plant maybe half as many next year. When people see me coming down the road now, they’ve started to either hide from me, or scurry past (on important business) for fear that I foist another huge cue or two on them. I can’t even give the buggers away!

My loyal reader may well remember seeing a similar picture to this one in previous years. I like to get the potential show onions up a week to ten days prior to showing, to allow them to dry out a little. This allows me to remove an outer “tissuey” layer or two of skin, so as to present the bulbs with a little shine. This is the first year (if I recall correctly) that I’ve grown and shown white onions so a second in show, in a fairly strong field, was quite acceptable, although I awarded myself a “must do better” silver star. The shed, as you can see, remains the repository for all those many and various things “that might come in handy one day”.

Although the potatoes (as previously mentioned) have generally been good eating, everything else, apart from, the onions, some of the carrots, the solitary turnip and the mangetout has been very slow in developing. Burt has, of course, put this down to the vagaries of the weather rather than any dereliction of duty on his part however, over the last couple of weeks things are starting to happen. The broad beans are doing well, but they need to be harvested now, blanched and frozen and the baby corn and swede patch are beginning to look the part. The runner beans, along with the other couple of climbing varieties are starting to flower and the single row of cabbages are starting to form “hearts”. Gluts of all kinds, incoming!

I couldn’t tell you what initially made me do it, but I decided to stick half a dozen lemon pips into pots of compost. I suppose I wanted to see if anything would happen with them, but more in hope than expectation. Any road up, two (so far) have germinated. All we have to do now is find a way of nursing them through the winter (should they survive that long) and devise a way of growing them on. It’d be a shame for them to germinate, only for the cold to get them. When I moved here from Essex I brought a small lemon tree with me, expecting it to winter in the greenhouse, but it didn’t survive. I suppose I’d better do some research if I want to grow these ones on.

As disappointed as I’ve been in tomato progress, these little beauties, a middle sized, oval cherry type (I’ve forgotten the breed) that I’m growing for the first time, have an excellent flavour to them. Acidic to the first bite, but sweet and (for want of a better descriptor) as tomatoey a flavour as it gets. I have maybe half a dozen of these, the trusses are very long, but I’ve cut them back to leave a couple of dozen fruits on each one. They make good eating as a snack and in a salad. They’ll be getting both the mixed bruschetta treatment and the pan fried breakfast treatment over the next few weeks, with plenty more to cook down and freeze for the winter months. I’m not going to faff around trying to make soup with them, I’ve got that covered elsewhere in the house, (hopefully).

One of the categories in the show is for “a flower and a vegetable”. It comes with a memorial shield, which I was lucky enough to win last year. There’s a family connection to the shield, so although I did want to put in an entry, I wasn’t really too bothered about winning it. I’d considered both the beetroot and the long green pepper (not strictly a vegetable) to accompany a budleia, but in the end I entered an overgrown cornichon! I needn’t have worried about not winning, my entry was disqualified on the grounds that a budleia isn’t a single bloom, but rather a collection of tiny blooms on a long stem. We live and learn and I’ll have no such qualms about doing my damnedest to take the shield in 2026.

I’d planted a row of “fancy” carrots, a mix of purple, yellow and white, with an idea that the judges would be impressed by the colours on offer, as much as the shape and size of the eventual product. Sadly, neither the purple ones, nor the white ones had grown to a “show-able” size on harvesting, although several of the yellow ones looked, at least to my rough gardeners eye, as prime specimens. I got a second for my orange carrots (the winner of the class received the best veg in show accolade) but my yellow carrots singularly failed to impress the judges. I will try again next year. Conventions are there to be challenged!

Even given that I hadn’t tied the tops on my red onions I still managed to retain my crown, as it were. Growing them outdoors has led to them being slightly smaller than in previous years but they still carried the day, due, I suppose to the depth of colour and the (relative) evenness of size and shape. The horticultural section of our little show has as many categories for flowers and other non-edibles (pot plants etc), so although I did well by achieving six firsts, four seconds and five thirds (including a first for sweet peas, my only non-edible entry), I missed out on the overall “most points” trophy by half a dozen points or so. I may have to find the time to up my game a little, for next year.

My inability to get four decent sized tomatoes ripened cost me a heavy price. So much so that I actually entered these four tiny specimens, alongside four of the previously mentioned cherry plum variety and four of an orange cherry variety. Normally I’d have entered three different varieties of “salad” tomatoes and taken two of the three prizes on offer, including a first. To be fair the entries were down, as the majority of tomato growers in the village have had the same problems as I’ve had. The red plums actually got third prize, so low was the quality on offer. My orange variety didn’t make the cut. Clearly, orange tomatoes are the yellow carrots of the “pomme d’amour” world.

There were seven categories in the photography section of the village show, a category that now commands more entries than any of the other adult categories. I took four firsts and my younger daughter took two of the other three. Several people remarked that we seemed, as a family, to have the “eye” for what makes a decent photograph. I didn’t argue, but unless you set out specifically to take a picture, then there’s as much (if not more) luck involved as there is skill, but the subject of what makes a decent photograph is, by nature subjective.

The village hall (opened as a reading room in 1905) was busy for the whole afternoon of the show. The exhibits, along with their prize tickets are arranged along the walls and down the centre of the main hall, for people to peruse and comment on at their leisure. Tea, coffee and home made cakes and biscuits are available to all for a small donation (if anyone feels so inclined), because nobody bothers to check who puts what in the pot. The concept of the “high trust” society lives on in some places! The parish, which contains the small village where I live and several surrounding hamlets had, until very recently, a population of no more than five hundred or so souls, but the demographic of this quintessentially English rural enclave is changing, although not in the way it’s rapidly changing in some urban areas. It’s noticeable that younger people with children (along with a smattering of older, retired folk) are purchasing both older houses as they come on the market and some of the new build properties which are springing up. I wouldn’t say we’re experiencing the full on effects of “white flight” but it’s clear from the make up of our newer residents that English village life, which goes on much the same as it has for many years (notwithstanding “progress”) has much to recommend it to those who don’t want to be in a position to have to deal with the “multicultural” benefits we see now in many of our cities and market towns. There are, as we all know, many facets to “Englishness” but the simple pleasure of dwelling in a place that’s virtually crime free, has no migrant hotels, kebab shops, mosques, or moped driving food delivery drivers who can barely speak the language of the country they’ve (frequently) entered illegally, cannot be, in my (subjective) opinion, overstated. Unfortunately, the way things are going under both this current authoritarian, statism driven government and the previous incumbents, such parishes as the one that I’m lucky enough to share with my neigbours will, I’m afraid, become increasingly rare. There’s nowt to be ashamed of in wanting some things to remain much the same as they always have. Roll on the 15th chapter of this reincarnated village show, a tiny beacon of traditional English light in our ever (not for the better) changing nation.
 

© Colin Cross 2025