A practical, behind-the-scenes guide to all you ever needed to know about preparing for a British flower and produce show.
Reviewer Jojo Tulloh is a garden writer.
Borrowing from the name of the Great British Bake Off – the nation’s favourite cake-baking contest – this book seeks to shine a light on every aspect of preparing for a country show, whether you’re growing or making your produce, and would be just as useful for anyone organising a community, school garden or allotment show.
The mysteries attached to growing for the show bench can be hard to decode. If you’ve ever stared at rows of fruits and vegetables laid out with military precision – the onion necks tied with string, the carrots with long, clean, tapering roots – and wondered what on earth was going on, this book will explain. Each page has a photograph of the relevant fruit, vegetable, jam or cake displayed just as the judges would wish. There are tips on how to grow the perfect specimen, avoid defects, prepare your produce and score highly. I’ll definitely be growing a giant pumpkin with my primary school gardening club. In the culinary section, there are recipes for all the traditional offerings, from scones and sponges to lemon curd and cordials. Thankfully the novelty class of animals made from various vegetables has not been overlooked.
Although the graphic design has a retro look, this book has more to it than nostalgia. Philip Larkin elegised the phenomenon of the show in his poem, Show Saturday, describing it as ‘something they share / That breaks ancestrally each year into / Regenerate union. Let it always be there.’
I can’t imagine Larkin growing prize cabbages, but I feel he might have approved of a book that celebrates an annual expression of community and opens up the traditional skills of kitchen and garden to a new generation.