Find out what it takes to grow vegetables with prize-winning potential on the fair circuit.
The garden is growing to WTQR on this pretty , late May day . ordinarily the radio on top of the post is localise on WBRF out of Galax , Virginia , but the place was playing Bluegrass Country for some reason . So Harvey Moser dialed around for the George Jones brand of nation euphony he and his wife , Susan , prefer . They are n’t just thinking of themselves . “ We usually have it loud when we ’re working in the garden , ” Harvey says . “ I think the plants like it . ” Every vantage help when you ’re growing to succeed ribbons .
The Sunday over their garden in King , North Carolina , is fire on all cylinders . Soon the Mosers will be hitting the fair racing circuit : Stokes County , Surrey County , theDixie Classicin Winston - Salem , and theNorth Carolina State Fair .
A small blemish on a hot pepper might entail the difference between a downcast ribbon and a red ribbon , or no ribbon . As much as they can , the Mosers assay to keep condition in their garden just right for raising winning vegetables . The effort is n’t much different from growing them for your own consumption , unless you ’re fixated on gigantics . The Mosers are n’t . The tough part is nonplus enough vegetable contenders at the right time and then shepherd them through the fairs .
The ground where it grows
The Mosers start gardening in the Piedmont about 25 age ago . “ We wanted to be like hippies and arise everything we ate , ” said Harvey . “ That was back in the LXX . ” They start with three beds . “ Then we took that in , ” Susan suppose , with a wave down the south - sloping expanse of the garden . “ Then we took that , ” she said , motioning toward the eastward . “ We ’ve probably got more than we can handle . ”
Not yet . mound bed , which the Mosers have enriched with compost from the city of Winston - Salem , travel along the grade of the domain . The bed are packed with diverse plants . “ We expend a skilful vacation on seeds every year , ” Harvey said .
The Concord grape derive courtesy of a booster who did n’t want to take them with him when he strike out of the elbow room of a raw road . Harvey went over in the wintertime ahead of the bulldozers and dug out the vine in a big frigid pulley , keeping the roots entire . “ They did n’t even know they ’d been moved , ” Harvey state .
The pair of agriculturist acknowledge they must be “ on their toes ” for competitions . The garden demand to be kept up and there ’s the weather to worry about . But the garden rewards them .
“ We wish to amount out here after work , ” says Susan , who has a job at a vet ’s office , while Harvey is a painter for the county . “ It ’s easy to unwind out here . We do n’t need Valium . This is our Valium . ”
Preparing for competition
Four years after getting started , the Mosers go in their first vegetable competition at the Stokes County Fair . “ We would go over there and see , ” Susan say . “ We thought we had thing that were that good . ” They ’ve added more competitions and found more class to enter as they ’ve increased their horticultural holdings of scores of plant multifariousness . live on to shows has turn out to be a great manner to learn , verbalize to other gardeners , and expand their gardening horizon .
The Mosers do n’t necessarily pick out their entries based on their own taste . “It ’s not what ’s our favorite , ” Harvey say . “ It ’s what wait best at the time . ”
And what they ask the judges will appreciate . The Mosers bask the balmy flavor of their ‘ Red Cylinder ’ common beet , about 8 inches long and tubular . So Susan , a steady winner in the pickled beets category , switched from the ‘ Detroit Red ’ motley she had been acquire and pickling . But then she startle losing . The judge did n’t value the modification , and she come back to the more familiar beet . She started make headway again . “ They picked up on the milder tang , ” Harvey said .
You always get ideas when you ’re out on the fairish tour . “When I first got started I did n’t know a winning Solanum tuberosum from a nonstarter , ” Harvey read , noting it ’s the still , shallow - eyed spuds the judges like . But you ’ve got to grow them first . The Mosers said they ’d had some trouble with seed potatoes rotting in the ground in lactating weather condition . Harvey work out the problem by bore a hollow with a bulb planter , dropping in the seminal fluid murphy , and leaving it uncovered . It pullulate and grows fine in the cool wickedness of the hole .
Toward the eye of October , the Mosers start thinking about the North Carolina State Fair . The rite is the same every year . They take the week off to prepare by locomote through their garden to notice seed - catalog - pure specimens .
All the pepper did well , despite the lack of rain . Harvey rummaged through the foliage of the hot ‘ Cherry Bomb ’ peppers in hunt of contestants .
With red-hot peppers for the State Fair , you have to add up up with a dozen samples . “ All 12 of them have to be as close to perfect as possible , ” Harvey said , as Susan look the jalapeño plants for worthy launching . So while anybody might be able to come up with a few perfect peppers , the real test is total up with a plate of them . Back at the house , the Mosers will cull the best of the best from their crop and then trim , organize , and label them for the competition .
Judgment day cometh
The N.C. State Fair vegetable contention is about beauty . Taste , endowment , and personality do n’t count . The intimately - looking and most unvarying debut get ahead . By 8 a.m. , hundred of entree on disposable blanched plates cover a retentive row of tables against the bulwark of the education building at the fair grounds in the state upper-case letter of Raleigh .
It is n’t just the power to grow slap-up vegetable that count . You have to transport them from your garden to the fairgrounds . There they sit overnight , and unknown set up them for judging . You have to hope for the best , that someone does n’t shed your comely moolah on the concrete floor or bruise your perfect ‘ Scuppernong ’ grapes . Greens do n’t obligate up well . The only family for greens was collard greens , which were in a wilted mass .
Every unveiling is judged . Some family — broccoli , for case — drew few contestants , while others , like hot peppers , were herd . The judge had 44 live common pepper entries to value , admit the plate of 12 jalapeños the Mosers submit .
The Mosers attend for some hint about the outcome fromjudge Charles O’Dell , a horticulturalist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg . “ We watched him go back and forth , looking ours over , ” Harvey sound out . “ That ’s a good sign . ”
Hundreds of mediocre goers file by the vegetables , checking out the array . Inevitably , the behemoth pumpkins and watermelons take out the most interest . The big - produce competitors are a breed apart .
Rodney Morris of Pittsboro took second place with his 171.5 - pound ‘ Carolina Cross ’ watermelon vine . He beak it September 18 and put it in the barn .
“ I looked at it pretty much every 24-hour interval to ensure no rats got at it . ” Rodney said . He move it around with gunny from the baccy markets . “ I get one final stage and my wife gets the other death and we lift it up , ” he said .
A booster of the Mosers win a ribbon with a large autumn pumpkin in the Dixie Classic fair . “ He should have contribute it up here , ” Susan said . “ But he did n’t believe it was big enough . ” Sometimes distaste for hauling is strong than the desire to gain . “ I help him load it in Winston and suffer my back , ” Harvey say , undeterred . “ If it does n’t win , you just put it back in the truck and take it home . ”
The Mosers ’ first - place showing in grapes bear witness their degree . “ There is no room I could have dreamed those muscadines would deliver the goods , with those great cock-a-hoop honkers up there , ” Harvey said . “ That ’s what ’s fun about entering fairs . You never know what ’s going to deliver the goods . ”
A fig tree catches the first light in the Mosers' North Carolina Piedmont garden, where scores of plant varieties grow in the mounded beds.
The fair is a situation to patronage pointers , tip your hat , and rent in a piddling friendly spar . Elmer M. Parsons of Foster , West Virginia , was down visiting his Logos , a local landscaper . He report grow some big vegetable of his own , such as a cauliflower 12 inches across . “ It was on television in West Virginia , ” he sound out .
No one ’s cause copious on their profits . The good plate of grape vine gets $ 7 , hot peppers , $ 15 . The Mosers attempt to cover some of their expenses , like the hotel and gas .
The 1998 state fair was a dependable one for the Mosers , who enter individually . They won 43 ribbons for vegetables , include first places in red-hot peppers , Zea mays everta , white potato vine , grape , and lowly tomatoes .
Harvey Moser primps his hot peppers by trimming the stems so they are uniform in length.
“ you’re able to see how well-fixed it is to get hook on these thing , ” Harvey aver . “ It ’s almost like gaming . ”
— John Brayis an associate editor at Kitchen Gardener .
Photos : John Bray .
Harvey Moser displays the winning jalapenos he and his wife, Susan, spent the summer and fall nurturing.
April 1999
fromKitchen Gardening#20
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