Great Plains Gardening

By Edith Koeller

August 27, 2004

This is the final article in this garden series. I hope you have enjoyed the articles and learned something beneficial to you. Since the Kiowa County Fair will be coming up and many of you will be considering exhibiting some of your garden produce, this weeks column will again be a repeat of the CSU Extension Committee Prepared List of vegetables and fruits and their selection and preparation for judging. Following these recommendations will give you an attractive exhibit for judging.

The list is a lengthy one so I am only going to cover the ones listed in the Kiowa County Fair Book. Even doing this, the column may have to be continued next week. I encourage you to clip these suggestions and keep them for reference when the time comes to enter your exhibits.

Vegetables will be judged on the basis of consumer acceptance for immediate consumption. Therefore, prepare the exhibits to attract the eye of the shopper, while adhering to the guides listed for each vegetable. Remember, while all exhibits are to be free of soil, none are to be moist. Roots may be washed, but fruit should be shown unpolished, in its natural state of excellence. Uniformity is the key to success in judging vegetables but type is important and the entry must possess good quality. Uniformity in size, shape, color and maturity are important. The ideal is reached when one specimen cannot be told from another.

Beans, Snap: Garden fresh beans with stems attached. The pods should be well-formed, tender, firm, succulent and be string less and they should snap when broken. The color should be bright, the seeds should be small and the flesh should not have any voids. The pods should be uniform in shape and size. Varieties having straight round pods are preferred.

Beets, Table Use: 2-21/2 in diameter with1 of petioles. The beets should be tender, smooth, free of side roots, have a small crown, and should be rounded, symmetrical and uniform. The root should not be removed.

Broccoli: 6 long and head at least 3 in diameter. The stem should be solid and loose leaves removed. The heads should be compact and dark green with uniform buds of medium size. Over-maturity, leafiness in the head, and damage to the buds are to be avoided.

Cabbage: 4 – 6lbs. with l or 2 wrapper leaves per head. The stems should be cut l/4 below the head. Avoid split or heads with brown stains at the stem end.

Carrots: With 1 of petiole remaining. Carrot should be coreless and have a deep orange color. The roots should be clean and free of side roots. Avoid large crowns, second growth, and green shoulders.

Cauliflower: Heads with wrapper leaves trimmed even with the curd. The curd should be pure white, smooth and compact. Avoid over-maturity and riciness. The stem should be trimmed ½ below the last remaining leaf.

Cucumbers, Pickling: 2 classes, small: fruit 2 – 2 1/2 long; and large: fruit 3 –4 long. The typical fruit has warts, is slightly triangular in cross section and has a slight curve from petiole to blossom end. It is blunt at both ends and has a length roughly 3 times its diameter. The fruit have spines and a natural bloom, which should not be removed.

Cucumbers, Slicing: Includes both slicing and burp less. Neither type should exceed 2-l/2 in diameter. The slicing cucumber is usually white spined, dark green, tapered at both ends and has either no warts or small warts. The burp less cucumber is longer, lighter green, and has a corrugated surface. Unless the burp less cucumber is trellised, the fruit tend to curve severely which is undesirable.

Eggplant: Fruit with calyx cap and ½of stem present. A good quality eggplant is firm, heavy in relation to size, with a uniform dark, rich, purple color. Egg plant should not be washed, but it should be cleaned by wiping with a soft cloth.

Kohlrabi: 2 – 2-1/2 in diameter. When displaying, remove root l – 2 below the ball. Neatly trim all petioles leaving ½attached.

Muskmelon (Cantaloupe): A muskmelon should have a stem which has slipped without tearing the skin, and a blossom-end which gives under thumb pressure. A strong aroma or sponginess indicates over-maturity.

Okra: Pods 4 – 6 long. The pods should be fresh and clean and should snap when broken.

Onions: The onions are displayed without tops. Select bright, clean, hard, mature onions with intact dry skins and small well- dried necks. Do not wash. Remove only jagged and dirty outer scales.

Parsnips: 1-1/4 – 1-1/2 in diameter with 1 of petiole. Parsnips should be smooth, firm, clean, and well shaped. A white creamy color is preferred. The crown should be well hollowed. Avoid green shoulders, side roots, rough spots, fibrous, or shriveled roots.

Peppers: All classes are to be shown with stems attached. All peppers should be clean but not polished.

Potatoes: Shallow eyes and smooth surfaces are much preferred. They should be washed clean, but not abraded, and dried before exhibiting.

Pumpkins: Pumpkins must have the 5-sided stems and the stem must be attached. While size is a major factor in the large field class, the winning pumpkin must be symmetrical, mature, and free from defects. The most important requirement for the small pie pumpkins is that they be nearly identical in appearance. They should be mature, of good size and symmetrical.

Squash, Summer: 3 possible classes, yellow crook or straight neck, zucchini, and scalloped or patty pan. Each entry shall be shown with ½ of stem. The straight and crookneck types should be 5 – 6 long, the zucchini 6 – 9 long while the scallop types should be 3 – 4 in diameter. The skin should be tender, the seeds immature and edible, and the flesh solid, light colored and free of voids.

Squash, Winter: 2 classes, small and large. The small class will consist of 2 fruit of acorn, butternut, buttercup, or other small squash. The large class will consist of l fruit of hubbard, banana or other large type. These squash should be mature and have their stems attached. The skin should be hard and soil free.

Sweet Corn: Husked, with shanks trimmed even with cob. Because of the perishable nature of sweet corn, the husking may be done at the place of exhibit. A soft brush may be used to remove the silk. The ears should be well formed; cobs should be tightly packed with plump kernels and free of damage. The kernels must be tender, and filled with a thick, opaque, milky juice. Even, straight rows of kernels are best.

Tomatoes: Fruit should be uniformly colored, and the interior should be bright and meaty with no green gel around the seeds. Tomatoes should be exhibited with stems. They should be soil-free but not washed or polished.

Turnips: 2 – 2-1/2 in diameter with 1 of petiole. Specimens should be smooth, have a small crown, free of side roots, round, crisp, with a color pattern typical of variety. The taproot should be untrimmed.

Watermelons: Melons at their best eating stage will usually have a velvety appearance and a yellowish ground spot. An inch of stem should be left on each melon.

Largest Pumpkin: The winner in this class will be the heaviest fruit after the judges have weighed all fruit and determined that the winner was not ballasted in any way. Only Mammoth or Big Max pumpkins should be grown for this contest since they are the only ones that have a chance of winning because of their large size. These pumpkins have a round stem…the accepted method of producing a pumpkin for this class is to remove all other pumpkins from the vine except the one pumpkin, which you wish to enter in the fair. It is almost impossible to produce a prize winning pumpkin if more than one pumpkin are on the same vine.

Fruit will be judged according to consumer acceptability…fruit should not be washed or polished, but ever effort should be made to preserve its natural bloom and beauty.

Apricots: The fruits should be of good size, mature, and uniform, with stems attached.

Apples: Mature apples as indicated by their aroma and color will normally be preferred over immature or mature green types. Stems must be attached.

Grapes: Placing will be determined largely by the condition, uniformity and maturity of the bunches.

Peaches: Fruit with stems attached. Maturity, uniformity, size, and flavor will be the primary factors used in placing.

Plums: Fruit with stems attached. The natural bloom of a plum is very important and this should be preserved.

Strawberries: These strawberries should be and uniform and exhibited without caps. When a number of varieties are contained in the class, flavor could very well be a determining favor.

These are your exhibit guidelines. Have a good time putting your exhibits together. I’ll see you at the Kiowa County Fair next month, or perhaps we will meet somewhere along a garden path…