The decline of the county fair

The El Dorado County Fair has come, and gone. It's turning into the amazing shrinking county fair, and if the trend continues it may just disappear. Why do we have the fair in June? School is out, and they need kids spending money on the rides to make it work. If they wait till late summer, when fairs would normally be held, the kids have already headed back to school.

According the the fairs website, "The purpose of today’s fairs is to promote agricultural and animal husbandry, local resource and industrial promotion, education, entertainment, competition, youth development, and community outreach. Several trends over the years have allowed the fairgrounds to become revenue generating entertainment and exhibition venue that operates on a year round basis." How can you have a "biggest tomato" or " best tasting apple pie" or "plumpest chicken" contest, when the first tomato hasn't even ripened on the vine?

I wish the fair would go back to being what county fairs once where. A place to show off local agricultural wonders, and have some fun.  The fair has turned into a carnival, with a smattering of agricultural displays. Let's hold the fair in the late summer, and emphasize the agricultural side of the show. Since the fair is already struggling, let's have a make over where the interest in growing your own, and competing with others is the main focus. Sure, the kids will have gone back to school. So what? Hold the fair on the weekend. Give us a place to share and compete with others with real agricultural products. The time is "ripe" to re-emphasize the importance of fresh food, agriculture, and seasonality in our lives by bringing back the county fairs of the past.

Exciting times in gardening

I have been remiss in cultivating this blog, and thank a long time reader for reminding me to do just that. We have been busy at the nursery with a spring not dominated by cold and rain, like last year. The weather has cooperated and people continue to buy edibles like there is no tomorrow. I enjoy the edible crowd as they have put a lot of effort into their garden, and they will do what's right to keep it productive. When you hear that generation x or y are not into gardening, check the source. No sign of that here. My customer base is at least 50% under 30 years of age. They are excited about growing the stuff they consume and want to patronize local business, if you have what they want. They don't want synthetics! Get your organic groove on, because they want to know how to do it all! I disagree with those who say we are not in the job of education. I think that's exactly what is needed, and what we should do. Teach a person how to garden...

Small is cool! After thirty years in this biz I can say, keep it small and keep your cool! It's so easy when everything is riding on your decisions to work yourself to exhaustion. If it feels like it's getting out of control, slow down. Take the time to focus on the person in front of you at the moment. That's what it's all about. Not saying we don't need to "make hay while the sun shines", but we can only do so much.

There is no better time for the smaller garden business. Being small means you can react to changes that come faster and faster every day. Being small means you can excel at your craft, and command the price for your work that you need to stay in business. The future of garden bio-diversity rests in the hands of gardeners, and small garden businesses.

How great it is to be alive when so much is changing. In the garden trades we get to help guide people in their efforts to live better.It's a trade that is perfectly suited for the world we live in. Did I say these we're exciting times?

Where the "new plant" action is

According to the American Nursery and Landscape Association (ANLA) the winner of the "Garden Idol 2012" award is "The Scallywag Holly" from Monrovia Growers. The Garden Idol awards are are held at The ANLA annual clinic and are for what attendees think is the best new plant introduction of the year. Each grower presents their new introduction, with some presenters putting on quite a show.  In the case of Scallywag Holly, Monrovia Growers put on a skit complete with pirate gear and song. It can be viewed here.

While the presentation by The Monrovia staff in their pirate gear is great, no amount of "song and grog" will change the fact that the winner is a holly. What are the outstanding attributes of this plant? Here is the description according to Monrovia. "Ahoy Maties! "X" marks the spot for this four foot, dense, Ilex Scallywag. This is your next garden treasure that is sure to bring in lots of loot. This will make all other dwarf hollies walk the plank. An exciting discovery, this attractive sport of Little Rascal® Holly is a more upright grower, still having a dense, rounded form. Shiny dark green foliage takes on attractive purple-burgundy tone in fall and winter. A wonderful foundation shrub with improved disease resistance. This male holly will not produce berries; use as a pollinator." Yarrrr, a pollinator.

If "Scallywag Holly" doesn't have you running to the local garden center, what will? How about  a local grower who is crossing various heirloom tomatoes to get new varieties? Wild Boar Farms is "Located 40 miles North-East of Berkeley bordering Napa County to the East is the Suisun Valley which is located in Solano County". Check out this page with pictures of all the new tomato varieties. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the future of garden diversity is in the hands of the amateur and small gardener. Wild Boar Farms currently sells to restaurants around The Bay Area. "'Wild Boar Farm's Tomatoes are Beautiful and Flavorful. They're Tomatoes You'll Never Forget'. The Office and Staff of Alice Waters at Chez Panisse". Wild Boar Farms is starting to sell their seedlings to smaller, local garden centers. Now that's exciting!

From the pictures and description I cannot attest to how "exciting" Scallywag Holly is, nor have I tried any of the tomatoes from Wild Boar Farms. It just seems that the action in the gardening world is increasingly in the hands of the smaller operations who are not afraid to take chances, or have no other choice but to take chances. Look for the real exciting stuff in gardening to come from the smaller players in the corners, when you least expect it!

We have strayed too far from the garden.

This from Fred Hoffman in Sacramento. He has a listener who writes,

"Fred:

Thought I would let you know the Home Depot at Folsom Blvd. & Power Inn Road just got in a shipment of one quart, Bonnie brand, Early Girl and Cherokee Purple tomato plants at $5.98/ea.  Great looking plants, no tomatoes on any of them but a sign on the front that said 50 days to harvest.  I asked the nursery clerk why they had tomatoes now (when they haven't had any for at least six weeks) and she said the vendor assured her this was the time to plant them.  Do you think Bonnie knows something about 'climate change' they aren't telling anyone else?"

50 day harvest means will start picking fresh tomatoes around the end of October.  In places like Texas they plant tomatoes in the late summer, but here in northern California they die when the frost comes, in October. So was the Home Depot in Folsom, CA sent tomatoes meant for Texas? No. According to the "nursery person" at The Depot the vendor  say's it's time.  Well that settles it!

What more disturbing? That Bonnie Plants insists it's time to plant tomatoes here, or a "nursery person" working at The Depot goes along with it? We have strayed too far from the garden. Something that our grandparents would have known, the first frost date has been forgotten by the later generations. They don't even know that in a month tomatoes will be done. What most disturbing is perhaps these nursery people questioned tomatoes arriving now, but because the vendor say's it's time, it's time. No one willing to stand up to the boss as ask, "why are we doing this?". Keep quiet, keep you head down, and be thankful you have a job. Now sell those tomatoes!

Late blight, the box stores, and you.

The recent late blight problem has huge implications for the garden center business, and home gardening. The idea that one supplier can produce all the vegetable starts for all the major box stores is a bit scary. When things go wrong, as they did in this instance, it can affect millions of people. Of course the box stores have gouged and "pay at scanned" all the other players out of business. So we end up with a few, very large suppliers that can deal with the box stores. The choices of where they can get their plants are shrinking. Because of the late blight Bonnie plants has said they will not grow heirloom tomatoes nest year. You choice of vegetable varieties just shrank, if you shop at the box stores. Web sites should be used for getting information out to the customer. I checked out the web pages for the box stores, and I could not find any mention in their garden pages about the blight. Bonnie plants, where much of the infection occurred just changed a section in their web site this last week to address, "brown spots and yellowing leaves." The link takes you to a Teaxa A&M "Tomato problem solver".  No mention of their part in this mess. A huge opportunity to let the gardening public know what Bonnie did, and what it intends to do about this serious problem in the future. Why don't the box stores want to help their customers solve this problem, that was likely spread through their stores? Where are the press releases?

The New York Times article quoted a  John Mishanec, a pest management specialist at Cornell ,  who said, "agricultural pathogens can easily spread when plants are distributed regionally and sold by big-box retailers. Farms are inspected, greenhouses are inspected, he said, but garden centers aren't, and the people who work there aren't trained to spot disease." Now is he talking about box store garden center employees? If the box store garden center employees are not trained to spot disease, what are they trained to do? Makes you wonder what they would tell you when you bring that little plastic bag in with your problems inside.

I think this whole affair proves that box stores work at reducing the choices for the customer. Less choice means fewer suppliers to deal with. Few suppliers that become bigger, and bigger, and find that less choice (no heirlooms next year), means fewer problems. Of course when something does go wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. A huge potential for smaller garden centers to fill a niche. More choice, expert advice, smaller locally owned business, with numerous smaller suppliers.