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Saturday Morning Garden Blogging v. 21:21 State Fair! [1]

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Date: 2025-05-24

Good morning and welcome to the Saturday Morning Garden Blogging diary! This long-running tradition appears every Saturday morning at 9am Eastern, and lasts well into the week as conversations percolate. A core crew of us reads every comment, as far into the week as it goes. And, yes, I stole this description from previous diary authors. But it works!

All are welcome whether or not you garden in any way. Houseplants count and those indoor kits for growing herbs and salad greens Also travels where you visit public gardens, parks, anything with lovely foliage. So post those photos!

I just LOVE the NY State Fair and hadn’t been since before the pandemic. My two master gardener friends invited me to go with them during the 2024 fair on a day they were doing some green leafy judging. I didn’t get a chance to do a diary then as the calendar was full. To be honest, the election knocked me into a stress loop. So the title photo really fits. I’m much better and doing this diary brings back some fun memories so I thought that you would enjoy seeing something of this wonderful fair’s horticulture experience. That particular day, they were judging Hostas in the Horticulture Building. And there were a LOT of Hostas! One leaf per display container. And Hosta arrangement displays. I think it took the judges at least 3 hours. I didn’t get an up close photo of all the entries as I didn’t want to bother the judging going on. A church friend was there judging, too. I don’t know how they picked the winners.

So, on to a tour of just a small part of the wonderful NY State Fair. If you can ever visit, I hope you will. There truly is something for everyone. Seniors and kids under a certain age are free! The usual ticket price is $8. Not sure if that goes up this year.

The horticulture building goes back to the 1930’s. Here's a description by a company that did repairs to it and the youth bulding.

I took this photo standing at the entry doors looking up. Those tiles are in some of my favorite colors.

A close up of the beautiful craft artistry decoration around the main doors.

A couple Hosta displays. The Hosta leaves being judged were in a separate area. I just love this arrangement of minis in a dish garden.

This was BIG. What a great use of a strawberry style planting container. Those mini Hostas are so cute but are hard to find where I live.

More displays. Some won awards. I like the community sentiment.

I just love the creativity that goes into the arrangements. Lots of awards.

These look like Dahlias?

Some Dahlias in this one, too? I get those mixed up with Chrysanthemums sometimes.

I love old trucks! I forget what group did this display. This year, take notes!

Close up of the plantings in the truck bed.

I forget if this was a USDA or state DEC display. Lots of great information from both groups. I hope the USDA can be there this year. The people working the booth gave me a big roll of neat, informative posters that I passed along to the master gardeners group.

The annual sand scuplture is a highlight of the fair (along with the butter sculpture which I did not get a photo of this time). It was very much a children’s theme this year.

LOVE THE LIGHTHOUSE!!!

I never miss the arts and crafts display in another nearby building. This is just one of the amazing quilts with a plant an animal theme. I thought the snake was pretty friendly looking. I’m hoping this year to take more photos of the floral/plant themed entries.

When my two friends were done with the Hosta judging, we went back to the arts and crafts building for a cooking demo by a nice chef from the Wegman’s grocery stores. If I remember, he did something with scallops and summer squash.

Before we left the fairgrounds, my friends took me to see the master gardeners raised bed area near the main entry of the fair. I thought I took photos of a huge swiss chard planting but couldn’t find it. These two came out nicely. Couldn’t NOT take a tomato photo, right? The harvest was all being donated to food pantries/food bank. The group is expanding the beds this year. Hoping to get more and better photos.

All the horticultural related displays are just a small slice of the fair. There’s food! On our way to the parking lot, we spied a lone food truck. It seemed out of place but it was an ice cream vendor handing out free dishes of vanilla soft ice cream with strawberries and blueberries. Sponsored by a berry farm! What a nice treat to end our day.

Hope you enjoyed this quick sampling. Tell us about your state and county fair experiences. Gardening gives us hope. Just seeing those seeds sprouting is miraculous!

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