Goal! Tottenham 3 Wigan 0 - Aaron Lennon. Why could they not do this all season?
The plants are all grown in double rows across the allotment. I can get up to 34 plants in a double row about two feet apart. The poms are planted a little closer than this. A home made soaker hose is run along the rows and small holes have been drilled into normal garden hose so that watering and feeding is easier later in the year. Having a full time job that involves nearly 4 hours travelling a day makes getting to the allotment in the week difficult and so a watering system that can just be attached to the tap and turned on by the old chap on the neighbouring allotment makes sense.
As the weather is warm, the plants grow strongly through May and June and soon the scary bit arrives. I read an article a few years ago about double stopping plants in one go (Fred Bishop I believe) and gave it a try. The plants are really stopped very hard and any side shoots are also stopped at the same time. This leaves the plant with a very strong root system that is desperate to grow and a dozen or so shoots too small to even see.
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Experience tells me that for most miniatures and smalls it will take between 56 and 63 days for these miniscule buds to turn into flowers and so by counting back from my first planned show (Essex on August Bank holiday weekend) I get my stop dates. The small shoots are reduced in numbers a couple of weeks later depending upon variety and so the plants are not checked by disbranching. Poms are grown in the more traditional way with another formal stop and then removing buds when they are seen until 32 days before the first show