Planting the seed for showing

The date for the annual Ballinagh Gardening Show has been set and everybody is encouraged to show off their produce at this year’s event.

Whether you’ve been gardening for years or have just started out on your growing journey, you are encouraged to bring the fruits of your labour on Saturday, August 23 in Ballintemple Hall. Running for the past twenty years, this is the first time the show has been held on a Saturday to encourage everybody to get involved.

“It always did well but hopefully we will even have more this year,” Ballinagh Gardening Club Committee Member Mick Goldrick pointed out, adding that it will give those who are working and even green-fingered children the chance to get involved.

“Anyone can enter,” he encouraged.

Mick enters the competition every year he can, and this year will be no different. He plans to bring potatoes, parsnips “hopefully”, courgettes, cucumbers, peppers “fingers crossed”, “definitely” garlic, “maybe” onions, “hopefully” cabbage, and “probably” cooking and eating apples.

“There’s a lot of hopefuls now,” he laughed.

The changeable weather as of late is posing “a little” challenge as “produce seems to be a good bit earlier this year.”

“Will we still have enough produce for the show?” he wonders, describing how part of gardening is about taking the weather that comes and adapting to it.

“It looks like the weather is going to settle down a little bit and that might slow up the produce. Watering in real good weather can be tricky but every year there are, we’ll not call them problems, but I’d call them challenges.”

“You can have very very wet summers and we cope with that, mainly because a lot of people would have raised beds and they can control them better. If it rained a lot the rain would get away so you wouldn’t have to be watering as much.”

He said you “can’t predict” what produce you will have at the end of the year, but try your best to battle the elements to help the plants thrive.

Despite the hopefuls listed earlier, he said the ultimate decision of what to bring is usually made about one week before the show. Thankfully, there are plenty of categories of fruit, vegetables and flowers for gardeners to enter.

At the competition, there is a tray of produce where you can place five different vegetables on the 24 inch by 24 inch tray.

“That’s kind of a big event for people who would have quite a lot of produce.. It would be sought after prize,” he said.

The T. O’Rourke Cup will be presented for the Best Tray of Vegetables where there must be a collection of five items including three of each kind of vegetable except cabbage, lettuce, turnips, or cauliflower where two heads are required. Cut greenery from the garden may be used as decoration only.

Staying in the vegetable plot, individual entries which can be presented on a plate or dish can be made for best three onions, best three carrots, best two heads of cabbage, best three Roosters, best three of any other vegetable, best three tomatoes, best three eating apples, best three of any other fruit, best three exhibition onion, best three parsnips, best three Kerrs pinks, best three of any variety of potatoes, best three beetroot, most ugly vegetable and best three cooking apples. A cup will be presented to the person with the most points in vegetables, excluding the tray, while a cup in memory of John Lynch will be presented to the person with the most points in fruit.

There are plenty of other cups and plaques up for grabs on the day. Among the categories you can enter are a hall table arrangement with a max height of 24 inches, where the J.Scott trophy will be presented to the winner. A cup will also be presented to the person with the most points in flowers, which excludes the table arrangement. There are also categories for window box (max size is 24 inches by eight inches), best sweet pea arrangement in a vase, best three stems of roses, best house plant, best three Dahlia, best three Gladioli and best arrangement of wild flowers (no ragwort). A cup in memory of past members will be presented to the owner of the best rose.

Mick himself plans to enter categories of vegetables individually while concentrating on the tray. The gardener came second last year in the tray competition however has yet to win the title.

Meanwhile he is looking forward to the start of the showing season with the dates for Arva Agricultural Show, Virginia Show and possibly Ballinamore Agricultural Show marked on his calendar.

“I’d encourage people, if they’ve something reasonably good, to put it into the show. That will get them into showing vegetables and it will get them into producing better vegetables and fruit and flowers.

“Go along and see what’s happening and see how things are presented,” he encouraged.

The Ballinagh Gardening Show will take place in Ballintemple Parochial Hall (H12XF76) which will be open for entries at 1pm and will close at 3pm, after which time the judging will take place. Ballinagh Gardening Club meet on the first Monday of every month with a presentation given on some aspect of gardening.

To get involved you can contact the club on their Facebook page.