Whitsend Market Garden

 

Hello Everyone.

I am a bit jealous of this picture.  It is the posture I would prefer to be in these days.

This post will focus on our entries in the MacDonald's Corners Agricultural Fair.  How such a small village can put on this big a show is quite impressive, and I have no doubt that the volunteers who make this happen are deserving of a big rest once the clean-up is finished.

One of the categories is the "Best Vegetable Basket".  I have considered doing this one for the past few years, and decided this season would be the year.  But I'm not very visually artistic and every combination I came up with seemed cluttered and disorganised.  So I just stuck to peppers and that earned us an honorable mention.

The winning entries had much more variety.

There were two pumpkin categories - largest pumpkin overall, and largest table pumpkin (one used for eating).  I entered two New England Pie squashes and took first place.

In hindsight, maybe I should have been disqualified, as High Mowing Seeds describes this as a 'dual purpose' pumpkin (jack-o-lanterns and eating).  

The other squash pictured next to my entry is an example of the unusual varieties of produce  that are on display in the competition.

There are three potato categories:  Early potatoes, late season potatoes and biggest potato.  I've seen some monsters in the big category, so I didn't try - nothing I had came close to past years winners.  

Size is not everything.  I selected my five largest "Onaway" tubers and they took 2nd place, likely due to the uneven shape in some of them.  (The dimples and grooves are typically caused by grass rhizomes or pebbles that the tuber grows around).

The first place entry was an early red variety called "Red Norland".  The tubers were smaller but had a much more uniform shape.  I grew that type for a couple of my first years in Stittsville.

Maybe size does count.  I entered five "French Fingerlings" in the late season and took first place.  I was surprised, given that some of the thin skin this variety is known for looked a bit flaky.  

However, the judges must have been impressed by the sheer size that these fingerlings are.  I know of at least one grower in the area who dismisses fingerlings as too small.  

Eat your heart out over these!  Fingerlings are regarded as the most flavourful of potato types, so you won't regret it.

Green with envy.  My three peppers placed 2nd in the sweet pepper category.  

The hot pepper entries were adjacent, and you can see that someone has diligently grown their jalapenos well enough for them to turn color.  

I'm struggling to get my green bell peppers to start turning to any color...I'm just hoping that I can get a bit of a tint into my last harvests of my own jalapenos.  The chemistry going on within the fruit changes the color and creates a richer, more complex flavour.

Muck soil is perfect for growing prize onions, so I am not surprised that we continue to dominate this category.  No-one else came close (in fact, no-one entered onions this year except me.  So first place was a fore-gone conclusion).  

Muck soil is all over the place up here, so I would expect that if anyone tried growing onions, the only real challenge would be European Leek Moths, lots of rain at the right time and the arm strength to pull these from the rock hard surface that is indicative of muck soil in dry conditions.

My only complaint about the onion category is there are subcategories for red and yellow.  So I could not display my white onions.

Most season's I place second or third for garlic.  In fact, most of my garlic varieties this season would have probably had "Thanks for Entering" judgment.  But our "Susan Delafield" porcelaine types were splendid - I new I had some potential winners as soon as I started to pull them from the ground last July.   

This year, the fair's theme was "Women in Agriculture".  Maybe that was on the judges mind when my garlic entry was considered.  Susan Delafield was the grower who brought this variety to the attention of the seed garlic farm who had the samples tested to confirm a unique variety.

There are no categories for lettuce at this fair.  So with a bit of trepidation, I entered a red boston lettuce "Alkindus" into the "unusual vegetable not covered in other categories".  I thought I might get kicked out for this sort of mischief, but no they rewarded me first place.  The prizes must be going to my head, as I see the ribbon is more prominent than the actual lettuce.

Runner up (also pictured) is a strange cross between a cucumber and a water melon. Apparently, there are several names for this crop, though Cucamelon was the name given by this entrant.

Here they are, the 2025 Whitsend Winners:

Finally, we are proudly the winners (again) for the best honey.  

The competition just did not have a chance.  Well that's one way of putting it.  With all of the bee keepers around here, it is surprising to us that no-one bothered to enter, leaving the ribbon free for us to claim.

On to the regional competition in Maberly, in November.

The frost in recent weeks destroyed most of Julia's sunflowers, and was particularly bad for the 15 foot tall specimens (there were some much smaller plants up by the house that were untouched).

I was thinking might have a chance in the "Tallest Sunflower" entry.  Last year's winner was probably taller, but I thought it was worth a try.  Transportation to the fair would likely have been a problem.

As it turned out, there were no entrants at all in that category this year, so we could have garnered another prize if we had entered the 4 foot tall plants that survived the frost.

So we have had some successes this season, though it was hard won and not without several setbacks, of which I will speak more of in future posts.

This mishap happened on a particularly trying day; it felt like so much salt in a wound...

After days of chasing turkeys from the new field.

Typically, I place row covers over the freshly seeded beds (in this case, a cover crop to prepare this bed for peppers next season).  This helps hold in moisture, but also keeps the crows and jays from eating the seeds.

Turkeys just rip the row cover to shreds and then tear up the soil eating everything edible - oats, peas and buckwheat.

The ground hog not only burrowed into a potato bed, it ate some of the tubers and got a drink by taking a bite out of the irrigation tape.  

Sometimes all you get in the end are the flowers and a few prizes...