County fair entries judged on own merits

  Back to the subject of helping you prepare for the Yuma County Fair. Once again in your fair book on Page 36, Department E,  Open Horticulture. Superintendents Marilyn Thornbury, 819-0190, and Val Colvin, 783-3686.

  There are general horticulture department rules, which you need to read over, mostly commonsense type things.

  Look at No. 7 - awards are the Danish system. Read this over for the breakdown of the point system. Basically it is telling you that your entry is not being judged against other entries in that class, but against perfection. So that means there can be more than one blue ribbon in each category as well as other colors, too.

  To enter your specimens in the fair, all you need to do is to take a stroll through your yard and you will be surprised what you have that you need to enter in the fair. Remember this fair is to show off what we have here in Yuma County. You need to help us do that.

  Bring in anything growing in your garden: flowers, shrubs, small branch of a tree and potted plants, too. If you don’t see it listed, bring it along anyhow – they’ll figure it out.

  We would like to have more entries than ever before! Can you help us? Sure you can.

  Notice in your fair book on Page 36, below the rules is a section that says: conditioning plant material. It is probably best to cut your specimens the night before so they can be conditioned (kept in water) overnight. You can put all of them in a bucket of water and bring in the bucket and all. The specimens will be transferred to other containers to be displayed.

  Hopefully you will know the common name of your specimens. If not, there will be someone there to help you.

  If possible, for your sake as well as the group taking care of the entries, have your entry tags filled out, at least as complete as you can. There will be garden club members there at the first table to help you if you could not complete them. Every entry needs an entry tag.

  Now some entries can be brought to the fair Monday night from 5 to 6:30 p.m. That is easier on you and also helps the ones who are taking entries. Again take the Pacific Avenue entrance, the same one you used when you came to pick up your fair book.

  If you have something being judged that just will not stand up well overnight, then bring everything else in on Tuesday morning. They will take entries from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Know that anyone in line at 9:30 a.m. will be accepted. After that, you will be turned away.

  We don’t want to do that but we have to. They have to have time to double check that everything is in the right place, arrange it all, clean up and get everything ready for the judging. The area is closed from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the judges to do their work. The horticulture and floral design judges come from Phoenix and Tucson.

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  Sharing more responses about recycling:

  "I was excited to see you promoting an effort to do more about recycling in Yuma.

  "I am one of your winter visitors from Canada and live in Country Roads Resort for almost half of each year. This is just our second winter here and we love it. I was distressed last year to find so little being done about recycling, when it is so easy to do your bit. I did try to send a message to the governor with some helpful suggestions; however, the e-mail did not get through.

  "The major cause of my concern last year was alleviated when Habitat for Humanity started taking the clear plastic water bottles as well as the aluminum soda cans.

  "When I say it is so easy to do your part, our park has many bins and barrels for different things: newspaper, cardboard, aluminum tins and clear plastic bottles.

  "Since your winter visitors comprise of a huge part of the population during the winter months, and since we have more time than most people to sort our trash, we are quick to take up the offer to recycle. By simply making the bins available and having them emptied on some workable schedule, a good part of your effort can be handled in the RV parks.

  "I would encourage you to suggest that during your discussions with government. We don't need to be using expensive and damaging fuel (emissions) to get to some other destination to do the individual drop-offs at a recycling center. So many people in our park of 1,300 homes use bicycles, electric carts or even 'shanks pony' (walking) to drop off their garbage and recycling on most often a daily basis."

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Ellen Gardner, a Master Gardener who writes this column for the Federated Garden Clubs of Yuma, can be reached at 343-4020 or at gardner3028@netzero.com.