Starting A Vegetable Garden

Choose vegetable varieties suited to your climate, soil type and taste. Sow seeds or plant seedlings at recommended times, based on the advice on the seed packets.

Site your garden close to a water source so you can easily keep the soil moist until crops mature. Water deeply so that roots infiltrate into the nutrient-rich earth.

Giant Pumpkin grower Tim Parks of Canfield is a regular in the pumpkin barn at the Canfield Fairgrounds. He is pictured here with a special sun cover to protect his giants until the time to bring them to the fair.

Special to Salem News

CANFIELD — Canfield Fair Director Craig Myers is looking forward to a good year for fruits and vegetables being displayed at the fair.

He expects a good number as there has been a renewed interest in gardening.

Myers has charge over the grange and Myers International buildings as well as the popular pumpkin display building.

He said a change took place eight years ago.

“After the first fair, people started bringing vegetables from their gardens,” Myers said. “Each township had a grange, which is like Rotary, only in rural areas. About eight years ago granges were starting to hang it up, so we’ve lost grange. When that [organization] started dying off, so did our vegetable growers.”

It meant fewer entries it the grange building and the Myers International Building was having trouble getting volunteers to work it as well.

But Myers said a change took place in the past three years that is reigniting the passion for gardening.

COVID-19 “brought about a rebirth of having a garden,” Myers said. “We have seen an increase and we want people to know they can show at the fair.”

Besides the usual categories, Myers said one additional category — oddities — has seen a lot of interest. Oddities are any unusual-looking vegetables or vegetables that resemble a famous person or actor.

The veggies are on display in Building 5 — and the pumpkins in Building 3 will be another favorite. Building 3 will feature the best pumpkins, watermelons, and gourds. It is also where the heaviest of those categories are awarded the blue ribbon.

“Our largest watermelon weighed in at 140 pounds,” Myers said.

All the vegetables are brought in the Monday before the fair began. The entries are submitted earlier, but Myers said it was extended to Aug. 20 so entrants could see if they had something worth displaying.

During the fair, the building has superintendents who go through the building and discard any rotting vegetables. Anyone wanting to see the most entries should do so on the first day. At the end of the fair, the number may have diminished.

Source: salemnews.net