Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => The Show Bench => Topic started by: gavinjconway on September 05, 2013, 19:26
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Hi all our show boffins..
How do I prepare / display sweetcorn to show it?
Also how do i keep my runner beans fresh if I pick them the night before the show?
We have our plotty show on Saturday.
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With the corn, I try to leave a stump at the base, cut cleanly about an inch and a half long. Peel a couple of the tatty outer leaves off if need be. When at the show, peel back around a quarter of the leaves in a strip, so as to show off the well pollinated straight lines of kernels ;)
As for the beans, if you can pick the amount needed for the show in one go then that's perfect. I don't grow too many runner plants, and started picking them 6 days before the first show this year. The first one was 18in long and you use that as the measure for the rest. Get a small towel and soak it, get a piece of batten the same length as your beans and roll it tightly once. Then just hold your bean straight and tight against the batten, and roll it up. You can then add more and more beans to the towel as and when they are the right size leading upto the show. So long as you leave a good stalk on the beans and keep the towel really moist, in the bottom of the fridge they will keep perfectly fresh for ages. And you will be surprised at how much you can straighten them.
Put them on some black material, with all stalks cut to the same length and all beans facing the same way.
I have the last show of the year this weekend too. All out of beans now though. Let us know how you get on.
Totty