Deirdre Price proves you don’t have to have a big garden to be a Pass Creek Fall Fair winner.
“Just go for it,” says the south Castlegar homeowner. “You don’t need to be a large-scale farmer or gardener to enter.”
Indeed, Price’s garden isn’t overwhelming at all — just three 5 x 10 raised beds, plunked down on the side of her front yard. As the summer wanes, these little plots have produced several months’ worth of corn, carrots, lettuce, beans, and tomatoes. Bright orange pumpkins show she’s well prepared for Halloween too.
But she’s modest when complimented on her garden bounty.
“My gardening skills are not all that great,” she says. “Mostly I stick seeds in the ground, water them, and hope for the best!”
Whatever she does, it works: Price won the Grand Aggregate in vegetables at the Pass Creek Fall Fair last year, which comes with a $50 first prize.
And it seems to run in the family: her 13-year-old son has won the Biggest Sunflower category two years in a row.
This year, she’s not sure what she’ll enter.
“Probably some tomatoes,” she says, pointing to three plants heavy with the deep-red fruit. “And maybe some carrots, if I can find enough that fit the size criteria.”
Indeed, the rules for each vegetable entry catches up many gardeners. Your cucumbers or beets may be the biggest, or prettiest, but if you don’t abide by the rules, you’ll be quickly disqualified. (Carrots should be four to seven inches.)
Price advises would-be entrants to check the rules page in the program guide carefully.
“Read the instructions and submit the number of items required,” she says.
Price isn’t worried about competition — she’s hoping more people will join in and compete.
“I want more people to enter, to show off what we can grow in the West Kootenay,” she says.
“Give it a go, it never hurts to enter anything.”
Judgement time
Should Price enter her tomatoes, they’ll go up against the keen eye of Nancy Boucher.
“So you are looking at the fruit, and what criteria it is being judged against,” says Boucher, explaining the process. “You look at the colour of the tomato, are there blemishes on it, the firmness of the fruit, etc. And then compare each entry to the other.”
She says it’s a pretty subjective process, but she’s knows her stuff. She grows about 120 varieties of tomatoes every year in her garden, selling the plants at the region’s spring garden fairs. With the help of a colleague, she will go through the entire vegetable table in about two hours.
“I enjoy it, it’s something different to do, and it’s supporting a community event,” she says. It’s why she’s done it the last three years.
And like Price, she encourages everyone to get involved.
“I think, just do it. If you don’t think your garden or vegetables are good enough, you never know,” she says. “It’s a good event to support, and we need the entries. We don’t want it to go by the wayside without participation of the community.
“It’s just something fun to do.”
The 25th annual Pass Creek Fall Fair will be held Sept. 22 and 23.
An online copy of the brochure, which contains the entry rules for the garden competition (amongst many other events at the Fair) can be found here.