I have spent today at the Malvern Autumn Show with my eldest son (21) and my niece (7). It is interesting how visiting these shows with different people gives you a whole different viewpoint. The Autumn Show used to be very much an agricultural show but this seems to have faded in recent years with more focus on gardening and in particular growing edibles. I suppose this makes sense as late September is when vegetable growers are really reaping the rewards of their efforts.
The edible growing ranges from designs for vegetable gardens which is where I took the above two photos. We were rather taken with the soup ladle water feature and at least your squashes would be clean! I did like the modernist look of the salads growing in colanders but I always wonder just how practical these really are and whether the vegetables would really grow as well as that if they had been planted as small seedlings or even sown.
Then there is the vegetable show starting with the giant veg. This isn’t the largest pumpkin, there is one larger but it was busy having its photograph taken by many people so I didn’t bother. In the past when I have been to the show on my own or with gardeners we have browsed through the show tent, with my tent we went at a brisker pace especially once she had caught onto the fact that there were first, seconds and thirds. We really motored from one category to another.
I managed to slow things down a tad while I looked at the dahlias but not very much after all there was still discovery zone to explore where owl pellet dissection and dragonfly making beckoned.
As I said the show used to be more of an agricultural show and there are still show animals. We saw donkeys, horses, a few sheep, a pig and many dogs including those being trained as gun dogs – this was my niece’s favorite bit as she loves dogs. We looked at the show rabbits and decided the lop eared ones looked depressed and to be honest I really didn’t like seeing them in the small show cages. Then there was the acrobatic flying and tug of war which was quite entertaining.
I did manage to get half an hour in the floral ‘marquee’ but will save that for another post.
All in all it was a nice day, the sun shone and the refreshments were good.
