The Great Dorset Chilli Festival announced the dates for this year’s festival: Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th of August. This popular food festival will return to the Stock Gaylard Estate, near Sturminster Newton, DT10 2BG, for a weekend of great food, music, entertainment and competitions, with a bit of added spice!
Chilli Plant Growing competition launched
Chilli plants are fun and easy to grow and can look spectacular, with the bonus of having tasty fruit, and if you want to grow your own the seeds need to be sown now for summer fruiting. The Great Dorset Chilli Festival is holding its annual Chilli Plant Growing Competition to be judged at the event to be held at Stock Gaylard, near Sturminster Newton, on Saturday, August 5. Amateur gardeners should be sowing their chilli seeds now.
The Chilli Plant Competition is an established part of the Chilli Festival, where amateur chilli-growing enthusiasts can enter classes to compete for the best-looking chilli plant. “Judging is taken very seriously, and the competition is fierce,” says Festival Director Miles Halton, “but the joy is that anyone can take part, and anyone could win. It’s always worth having a go.”
Chilli Plant Competition:
There are two classes. Class 1 is only for the chilli variety “Dusk”, a really pretty bushy chilli plant with masses of fruit ripening to red and purple. Class 2 is the open class into which any chilli plant can be entered. Plants are judged on appearance, development, condition and fruiting.
Judging is by two respected commercial chilli seed growers, Michael Michaud of Sea Spring Seeds (Sea Spring Seeds developed the hot Dorset Naga chilli) and Matt Simpson of Simpson’s Seeds (as seen on TV shouting “grow, damn you” at his chilli plants). The winner of each chilli plant competition class will receive a £50 gift voucher from local in-store and online cookware and gardening retailer Harts of Stur, which is based in Sturminster Newton.
Free seeds:
The organisers of the Great Dorset Chilli Festival have been supplied by Sea Spring Seeds with a limited supply of ‘Dusk’ chilli seeds to give away. For a copy of the rules and to claim your seeds, email info@greatdorsetchillifestival.co.uk
You can read more about the festival here www.greatdorsetchillifestival.co.uk
