Editor’s note: Get Growing, written by the La Plata County Extension Office’s Master Gardener Program, appears during the growing season. It features timely tips and suggestions for your garden and landscape.By Jill Hoehlein
I’ll bet you are like me – you enjoy your vegetable garden – all the yummy, fresh food that you can proudly serve or share with your family and friends.
You also enjoy your beautiful flowers: those you purchased, planted and watched grow to their beautiful blooms – or even the native plants that you planted or cultivated on your property. Every time I look out my window and see all the beauty in front of my eyes, I am so thrilled with each and every one of them.
But, do I feel that I could enter the La Plata County Fair’s horticulture show?
Heck, no. I am sure that everyone else’s flowers or vegetables are so much better and bigger than mine. I don’t grow them with a contest in mind, and do I really think they are the best in the county?
Heck, no. I am not a professional grower, I don’t have a gardener (other than myself) do all the fantastic care that “show” quality flowers and vegetables must surely have, and it’s just me.
But then I go to the fair and think to myself: My cucumber is just as good as those in the horticulture room; my zucchini isn’t as large, but it sure is a nice specimen; and even my daylilies are so very gorgeous and they delight pollinators – butterflies, bees, flies and even hummingbirds.
All my native plants – poppies, sunflowers, pussytoes, black-eyed Susan, golden weed, daisies, lupine, blanket flowers, death camas, salsify, etc. – they are just grand all across my septic field, with so much color and so many animals enjoying them (yes, even the deer). But do they belong in the fair?
Heck, yes. After thinking about it, I’ve decided that I should bring some of my plants and veggies to display, and I hope you will, too.
To enter the fair’s horticulture show, bring your best to the Exhibit Hall at the La Plata County Fairgrounds, 2500 Main Ave., between 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Jill Hoehlein has been a Colorado master gardener since 2014. She lives in La Plata County.
