Flower and Produce Show 2025

The Show

The summer flower and produce show has been a staple part of British village life since the 18th Century. We’re not sure how long our own local show has been running, but we’ve entered every year since moving to Appleton Le Moors.

The 2025 Flower and Produce Show took place in Appleton’s Village Hall last weekend. Four villages take part: Lastingham, Spaunton, Hutton Le Hole and Appleton le Moors.

The Rules of the Game

There are strict rules for entrants ; from the presentation of onions (dressed when grown from sets) to the right way to present your Victoria Sponge (castor sugar on top, not icing). The show includes all the expected classes for fruit, vegetables, flowers, household produce, photographs, and crafts. And perhaps some you wouldn’t; Floating Flower in a Small dish, and Fat Rascals made to a specific recipe.

Everyone waits for the entry form to arrive with details of all the classes ; a mere 86 this year. Then it’s time to review the classes to enter. Ian and Jackie have a strict rule each year: they both must enter the same number of classes (25p per entrant). This means that any winnings can be counted up and an overall winner crowned. Ian tends to major on his bread and photographs, Jackie on her jams, chutneys and baking.

Preparing for the Show

The week before is a flurry of activity as growing conditions are assessed (this year wasn’t a good one for potatoes) and baking supplies bought. Honesty Egg Boxes in the area were continually empty as bakers ramped up their ovens. Many people made good use of their freezers and planned ahead. Others worked until late to prepare for the show. At Town End Farm we agreed on 5 classes each and set about preparing. Friday night saw us baking, mounting photographs and labelling for Saturday morning.

We’ve now learnt the drill to nonchalantly saunter up to the Village Hall before 10 am. This gives us time to label produce with our assigned numbers and surreptitiously assess the competition. Not that we can do anything about it.

The Judging and Results

Late morning, the Village Hall closes its doors, and the important business of judging begins. The independent judges have no idea whose entries are whose. Then at 2pm the doors reopen, and everyone crowds in to see how they did. And catch up with the community over a cup of tea and a piece of cake. Obviously, everyone has an opinion on whether the judges’ decisions were the right ones.

Like any good village show, there are over 20 trophies for some of the best in show classes as well as most points for overall competitors and villagers. As well as special rosettes for a few. Then it’s the compulsory village raffle and a slight scrum to collect anything that you don’t want to be sold off in the auction, and to collect any cash prizes (First £1.50, Second £1.00 and Third 50p).

This year, much to her surprise, Jackie managed to beat Ian by £1. Only the second time she’s done this, so she was delighted, as you can possibly see from the photograph.

If you’d told us 15 years ago, that we would be living in a community like ours, entering our local show, we wouldn’t have believed you. We are so very lucky. And if you stay at the Long Barn over the summer months, rest assured, we’ll let you know when the local shows are on.

Postscript

We are delighted to announce that our hens eggs (entered by our Poultry Partner Meg) won First Prize. So they are now officially prize winning.

And Ian is already planning his revenge….