Ten-times Chelsea gold medal winner Medwyn Williams is an expert veggie grower with decades of experience. In this interview, we've persuaded him to part with some of his favourite growing tips. Read on to discover how to grow your own award-winners.
The best beans are always harvested from a well prepared deep trench which has had some well rotted farmyard manure incorporated into it, or homemade compost. Once the beans are in flower, water regularly, and never allow them to dry out around the roots. Pick the fruit regularly to ensure a continuous crop.
Buy your potatoes in plenty of time to allow you to be able to chit them. Chitting breaks the dormancy cycle of the potatoes, allowing a growing shoot to emerge from the eyes of the spud. For your local show, grow them in large polythene pots using a peat-based compost only: never allow soil near them if you are to harvest potatoes with smooth clear skins.
Sow early on in the season, before the dreaded carrot flies lay their eggs. The resulting maggots will destroy all your efforts by tunnelling into the growing carrots. Use a lightweight fleece over the bed to increase the temperature of the soil while also preventing the flies from laying their eggs.
Start onion sets off early in a cold greenhouse or coldframe, and plant them in multi-celled trays filled with a multi-purpose compost. By the time the soil is warm enough to receive the plants, they will be bigger and stronger than if you had planted them directly into the ground. This way you will harvest your onions earlier, in better weather and with well dried out skins that will help the onions to keep for longer.
Never sow a whole row at once, a small row about 60cm (2ft) long is adequate for most households. For a continuous crop, sow short rows every two weeks. You could try the coloured lettuces as well as the 'Cut and come again' varieties like 'Salad Bowl'.
Sow the seed around the third week of February in a propagator to benefit from juicy tomatoes from July through to October. Once the plants are visibly growing, give them a liquid feed which is high in nitrogen, followed by a balanced feed two weeks later. When the tomatoes start to show some colour, feed them again with a feed which has a high potash content. Any side shoots should be removed to encourage the plant to produce fruit, but don't throw them away. The shoots can be easily rooted by sticking them in some compost and placing them underneath the 'parent' plants for some initial shade – tomato plants for free!
When sowing peas early (particularly in the autumn), use a smooth- seeded variety such as 'Feltham First', as there is less chance of them rotting away before germinating in the soil. Make sure your soil pH is approaching 7.0 to get a really heavy crop. When clearing the peas at the end of the season, hoe the stems off rather than pulling them out of the ground as the nodules on the roots will fix valuable nitrogen into the soil.
When you prepare the ground in late autumn, make sure that you add plenty of well-rotted manure to the soil. The brassica family likes a pH of around 7.0 so test the soil a couple of weeks after adding the manure and, if necessary, add some carbonate of lime early in the new year. After germination, seedlings will often be ‘leggy’, so plant them as deep as possible to really anchor them into the soil.
As the developing roots of radishes can often be attacked by soil pests, try sowing them about two inches apart in large shallow pots or window boxes filled with compost, This will give you a delicious, pest-free and clean crop.
Peppers hate growing when their surroundings are cold so if you haven’t got a warm greenhouse, don't worry about sowing the seeds until mid-April. They are greedy plants, so it's best to grow them in a grow bag and feed them regularly with a liquid tomato feed. They can be prone to aphids and thrips so position a sticky fly-trap close to them.
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