Today is a big day at our house--the first Fair entries. My wife works for days (sometimes weeks) getting ready for her Fair Garden Display at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer. She has won the Grand Champion in this category 20 times or more and is a source of pride for her and our little farm. Even in bad years like this, she manages to present a good display. We also enter stuff in the "giant categories", although not the big ones--cabbage and pumpkin. When the season isn't good, we don't enter much in the collections--berries, apples, greenhouse, etc. Posters are made and props gathered. Everything entered must have been grown or produced on the property in the last 12 months.
Good luck to the Missus!!! So how far away is Palmer? Do you make multiple trips to get the stuff there? I would think that the giant stuff might require a crane to load it and a flatbed to transport it.
Thanks! That is one of the reasons we don't do the serious giant stuff--the cabbages only weigh in the neighborhood of 100+ pounds, but the pumpkins are well over 1000 pounds and have to be lifted with a crane or forklift. Both are usually transported on a pallet, and the pumpkins are grown on heavy-duty pallets and a greenhouse is built around them, them removed at time of transport. Palmer is 50 or so miles from here, but the roads are good. We stuff the wife's Camry to the brim and there is no room for a passenger, so I am home and she just left.
So for all that trouble with the huge stuff, is there serious money in it, or is it just bragging rights?
Top prizes for cabbage and pumpkins are: 1st-$1000, 2nd-$500, 3rd-$250. In addition, the winners also sometimes sell the seeds of their produce for big money to competitors in other areas. Howard Dill in Nova Scotia has made an industry out of selling his giant pumpkin seeds. Most giant pumpkin competitors have some of his genetics in their entries. Cabbage is much more complicated since they are biennials and have to be overwintered. I talked with one of the cabbage winners in past years and he got some of his genetics from a grower in the UK and paid a good bit for 5 seeds.
Spent the entire day at the Fair. Wife got a grand champion like she usually does for her garden displays. We also listened to an Everly Brothers imitator group which were very good and went on a hayride. It was the first one I have been on in over 60 years. This one was sponsored by the Antique Tractor Association.
What happens to a 1,000 lb. pumpkin when the fair is over? Does it make a lot of pumpkin pies or just left to decompose?
Here it becomes food for animals, but I can't speak for other competitions. There is a "ranch" south of Anchorage called the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center where animals with problems are rehabilitated or sheltered, and they are given all the produce form the fair that has been stored in the open and not deemed suitable for human consumption. The moose, bears and musk oxen there are happen to process it for us. https://alaskawildlife.org/
Yesterday was a busy day for me. I fixed a walk-behind lawn mower, sharpened the chains on two chainsaws, and felled two sizeable trees, bucked and split them. When I was in my 50s, that would have been a simple morning's work, but now it takes me all day and , as I told my wife, I was as tired as I could be and still walk. Keeps me going though. No frost yet, and most years in the past we have a frost by the first of September, so I hope it keeps up since the gardens and orchards are about 3 weeks behind what we expect. Our cherries are just now getting ripe, and they should have been ripe and harvested by now. Apples are still coming. Potatoes are not ready for harvest yet, and that usually is done by now. Beans were a total failure, both in and out of the greenhouses. Cabbages are still coming and should have been almost ready by now. Pumpkins are behind, but if they get to a certain point they will ripen in the house just as tomatoes and peppers do.
Harvesting stuff today as it may frost tonight. The big greenhouse if pretty much cleaned out, and all our pumpkins and winter squash are out of the field. Most of the apples are picked in preparation for the apple pressing on Sunday. Kind of a big party, with folks from all around showing up. There is a couple of legal immigrants--he is from Moscow and she is from Odessa. They have 4 children. I didn't see them last year, but I could have missed them or they were just afraid of the questions, especially since many if not most Americans aren't even sure where Ukraine is. I still have firewood to process, as my knee has been acting up and the tractor has been in use for harvest. I also have to get all the irrigation stuff and hoses put away. When all gets frozen, the tiller will go onto the tractor and everything will be turned under. We harvested corn today as well--just 6 ears. There is still ore out there, but it may not have time to mature. Corn is an iffy crop in Alaska and most gardeners don't even try to grow it. We have the room, so it is fun to see if we can get some corn out of the garden. It has been so wet this year that pollination has been bad, even with me manually trying as the tassels are always so wet the pollen doesn't release. Wife mowed the lawn around the house and one of the orchards, but it was too wet to do a good job. We added horse manure to the compost pile and the garden refuse was added today then it was turned with my hillbilly device on the tractor buckets to make sure all was mixed. One turkey from the freezer was cooked and canned today to make room for some of the stuff coming in from the garden. Slowly getting ready for winter when everything slows down.
You say "the apple pressing" as though it's a community event. Are you having people bring their apples to your place, or do you take yours somewhere else?
It is something of a community event, although it is not open to everyone. Our friends with a small commercial orchard (something of my idea) have a small commercial apple grinder and press. It was a one-a-year event in the past, but has become a twice-a year event now as it has gotten so popular. People who have orchards or have bought trees from our friends bring their apples to press into cider. Everybody brings a dish for potluck and the hostess provides a stew or some kind of main dish. It is usually on a Sunday after church, as almost everyone who goes are church-goers, although that is certainly not a requirement. People with smaller orchards usually go first, as those with more apples take longer. We all bring containers of apples and some of us return with those containers full of apple pulp, sometimes for the chickens, sometimes used for vinegar production, and sometimes used for compost. @Mary Stetler mentioned she has an apple press in her basement. I don't know if she also has a grinder. maybe we should all gather at her house for a potluck?
That sounds like fun and a way to connect folks who might otherwise never have met. Now I understand that this is a commercial press, not a converted churn with the threaded shaft and a wood steering wheel attached to the top, sitting on someone's front porch. That's generous of those folks to share it.
It is that, @John Brunner. These folks also have a spring get-together that they call the "Turkey Shoot". No turkeys are shot, but I may have posted about it in the past. There is a campout that is only open to boys and dads, and a party the following day that includes everyone invited. In recent years, about 150 people participate. There is a competition in sling shots, small bore rifle, large bore rifle, shotguns, archery, tomahawk/axe throwing and probably things I don't remember. We don't go anymore since it is really designed for families with children and all ours are grown. There is also a qualified firearms safety instructor on site who conducts classes (required before any firearms are used). A potluck follows that also.
The leaves are falling in large numbers and the ground is covered with them now. The birch trees here turn mostly yellow, so we don't get the dramatic color changes that I grew up with on the East Coast, but the tundra colors are very much the same as those tree colors but covering the ground instead of the trees. I started re-reading Dante's Inferno this morning in preparation for a lecture I am to attend next month. I read The Divine Comedy 5 or 6 decades ago in college, but recall very little. As I began, I came across references to Rachel and Leah, Jacob's wives, and I wondered bout parallels between them and Mary and Martha, Lazarus' sisters in the New Testament since they were contrasting active woman vs. contemplative woman. maybe those of you more versed in Bible scholarship can help me with this. @Bobby Cole @Ken Anderson ? The apple pressing went well, and there were many new faces there, so I met a few new people who live in this area. We are having the hosts of the pressing over for dinner next Sunday if all goes well. Wife opened one of her bottles of apple wine from last year to taste to determine if she should make more this year. It was quite good for a white wine, so she will make more from this year's pressing. A specific wine yeast was required, so more was ordered and will arrive next week. The hoses were picked up yesterday and the irrigation lines blown out by compressor, so we are nearly ready for winter. The greenhouses will be cleaned over the weekend and the gardens will perhaps be tilled if it is dry enough. Where did the year go....?