This is the time of year when gardeners glory in their months-long toil nurturing their gardens. Everything is coming on strong and the flavors of fresh fruits and vegetables straight out of the garden is unmatched by anything you can buy in the grocery store in the winter.
And then there are the county fairs, where gardeners of all sorts can display the bounty of their efforts. People take these judging contests seriously and I have known people (such as myself) who grew highly annoyed when some fair judge awarded a blue ribbon to somebody else’s tomato or cucumber or pepper rather than my own, which, as any fool could tell, was far superior.
It’s not the money, although the $2.50 per blue ribbon does sweeten the pot somewhat. It’s that my tomato or cucumber or pepper clearly fit the definition of what that specimen should be. The exhibitor whose produce outperformed mine obviously did not read the premium booklet as carefully as I did and his or her tomato is misshapen, or has a bulge or in some other way is not the champion tomato the judge thinks it is. Boy, I’d like to find that judge behind the sheep barn and give him or a piece of my mind about this.
It’s when you start thinking like that, getting competitive over a vegetable, that you realize you ought to take up some other hobby besides gardening.
Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.
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