Shropshire Magazine

The Ingrams take a break away from their fabulous vegetables and bountiful baskets and containers.

Ken Tudor marvels at the success of Ray and Denise Ingram

Super-keen Shropshire gardeners Ray and Denise Ingram have created a production line for high-quality produce around a restored 18th-century cottage in an idyllic spot in the south of the county.

This hard-working couple, who moved to the flower-loving village of Stottesdon three years ago, have worked tirelessly to create a lovely cottage home and specially constructed raised beds and polytunnels to produce super veg and flowers.

Ray knows his onions — and checks them out before taking them to Burwarton Show.

Together they have grown produce of the highest quality to win show prizes against the best growers in the region, at Burwarton and Newport and Tenbury Wells and the especially competitive classes at Shrewsbury Flower Show.

They moved in October 2007 when retiring from their farm in Codsall Wood, and looked for a special plot for the quiet life, and land to produce crops good enough to take on the best exhibitors.

“It was a great decision to come here — we’ve been very happy because we have a lovely new home and the chance to grow crops and have made very many new friends,” Denise explained to me.

That is certainly true because in June the Ingrams’ was one of 10 village gardens opened for charity, and it was clear that they are vital new members of this attractive village between Bridgnorth and Ludlow.

And the vegetables they have grown have been exceptionally good, especially the ones for the collections for which Ray has been renowned at shows throughout the county, and which he sees as the ultimate challenge for exhibitors.

When I visited recently the veg plots were lusciously productive and the Ingrams were preparing for shows at Burwarton and Shrewsbury after coming back from Newport Show with a clutch of prize cards including collections, carrots and kohlrabi.

Ray is known for his meticulous growing methods, producing lovely specimens to Royal Horticultural Society judging standards. His celery and onions and leeks are well known and his potatoes are always the ones to beat.

He grows his lovely long blanch leeks — the ones that grow into white gun-barrel-like stems — wrapped neatly in silver foil.

“This helps to bleach the stems and stop them going green and keeps them clean and undamaged,” said Ray.

His large cabbages are grown in special raised beds, covered to keep out butterflies and other pests and to keep them clean and the leaves undamaged.

And his peas and beans are grown lushly, with lots of moisture at the roots with the pea row grown cordon-style, with just a single stem being allowed to grow up a bamboo cane.

“This means that all the energy goes into growing really good pods which are needed to reach show standard,” he said.

The soil at the garden is heavy soil — very, very wet or very, very dry — but of course as a former farmer he knows the value of packing in the humus by using compost and lots of manure.

“I am fortunate to have a nearby farmer friend who can drop me a load down when I need it,” he said.

He uses only general fertilisers, such as Vitax Q4 and calcified seaweed in the soil, and waterings of Phostrogen feeds later, in the wonderful soil mixture he has built up in his beds.

Ray loves going into battle with his prize specimens and Denise enjoys the experience too. “I really enjoy entering the shows. It is good fun and I particularly love the social side of it all.

“To go along early in the morning and put up your exhibits and then get together over a good breakfast is lovely,” she said. “It makes it all so good.”

Denise climbs to water one of her huge baskets.

Denise plays a big part in the exhibiting. Generally speaking Ray grows the veg down on his special patch but when it comes to harvesting and cleaning and presentation Denise is fully involved.

“I do enjoy selecting potatoes for the shows. I weigh them and grade them for uniformity and then set about getting them perfectly clean,” she said.

“I surprise people when I tell them what I clean the potatoes with — a good old Brillo pad,” she said. “Someone told me about it and I was surprised but gave it a go and it  works, as long as you use it very lightly.”

It is a tentative business because it is vital that the skins of these near-perfect tubers remain unbroken and undamaged if they are to be given a prize card.

The couple grow a large range of potatoes, but particularly like Kestrel, Arran Comrade and Nadine for showing, in special bags of peat with fertilisers so that tubers do not get damged by stones and grit.

Denise plays a big part in fighting the many slugs and snails which thrive, if left unchecked, on the heavy clay soil on the site. Again, the method she uses to fight the pests was suggested by someone at Shrewsbury Flower Show.

“The idea is to boil three crushed cloves of garlic in two pints of water for five minutes and then strain it,” she said. “Then put a table spoonful of the liquor into a gallon of water and spray the plants under attack.”

Myth

She is anxious to dispel the myth that exhibition vegetables, often so large and so perfect, were not suitable for eating.

“They are wonderful, they have been grown so well, and to have a slice of onion, which is so sweet, with bread and cheese is a real treat,” she said.

A colourful corner around a goose ornament.

At a recent Newport Show Ray and Denise were among the prizewinners, winning the collection, carrots, kohlrabi and French beans. At Burwarton both took trophies for the most points in one group of classes, and Ray the collection with some superb celery, protected from the snails by that garlic mixture.

The fact that the Ingrams have settled down well in the village is confirmed with the village’s big onion competition Ray instituted during bragging sesisons at the local pub.

“I have given 12 people five plants each for them to grow on, and then we have a prize-giving session at the Fighting Cocks pub,” he said.

“It is great fun and we have a lovely little get-together but there is a lot of teasing going on during the growing season,” he said.

“I am told that people in the pub used to ask about each others’ wives and daughters, but now all they talk about is how the onions are going,” he said.