The East Mont Garden Club and the Meadowbrook Library are sponsoring the 14th annual Garden Day and Tractor Show from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 5 in the courtyard of the Meadowbrook Center at the corner of Route 460 and Alleghany Spring Road in Shawsville.
The family-friendly event, with iconic local band Fort Vause setting the tone, the event is designed to increase awareness and participation in any type of gardening and small-scale farming.
Made possible by multiple community volunteers wearing many hats, the event is tied to the EastMont Tomato Festival, Shawsville’s exuberant celebration of all things tomato, slated for Aug. 18 this year, Garden Day calls on the community to take, plant and raise tomatoes for the late summer event.
Free tomatoes are heirlooms with names like Kellogg Breakfast, Cherokee Purple, Speckled Roman and German Johnson.
They were started indoors by Garden Club stalwarts Marie Goodwin and Meredith Novak.
“The deal is that people grow up these tomatoes and donate at least 10 pounds of tomatoes to the Tomato Festival based on the number of plants they get,” Dave Angle, co-coordinator of the event, “They can donate more, of course, and then keep what they want,” he said.
Angle’s wife, former Cooperative Extension agent, Diane Relf raised the seedlings through spring that was long in coming.
“In early April, I opened up my green house and moved them here,” Relf said. “They are smaller than most year’s because of the low light. But that seems to have happen to lots of folks and they will take off when the weather warms and they get set outside,” she said.
Festival volunteers wear many hats, and Dave Angle is also the Garden Day Olympics coordinator, and has been at it for about 13 years.
“What Garden Day is is a spring sort of thing and we have vendors and displays, but the Garden Olympics is something for the kids to do,” he said.
As a springtime prequel to the region’s tomato celebration, Garden Day is potato oriented.
“The Garden Day Olympics will have a Tater Toss. There will be big rings on the ground and we’ll be tossing potatoes,” Angle said.
In the “Mulch Move,” a big pile of mulch and big buckets and smaller buckets for smaller people and everybody runs back and forth.
You have to do all these things while carrying a small basket of potatoes. Because tomatoes aren’t in yet,” Angle said.
The many benefits of gardening and garden-themed games are worked into the event to be fun and fair.
“It gets kids moving and down in the dirt a little bit. And the smallest people are closest to the mulch pile. It’s more about participating than scoring, really.”
Olympic prizes are packs of flowers or vegetable plants.
“We give plants as prizes. It’s something kids can actually do something with and nurture.”
The Garden Day’s Tractor Show is a central event and tractor registration begins at 8:30 a.m and judging will be at 12:30 p.m.
The show includes both regular size and riding mowers with prizes for people’s choice, most original tractor and most unique riding mower.
“We have about 10 or 12 tractors in the tractor show and we’re always looking for more,” Cindy Minnick, Meadowbrook Branch Library Supervisor said. “Anybody can bring their tractors.”
Organized by the Floyd Tractor Fun Run, the tractor show is a group of men and women who bring their tractors to events to raise awareness of the region’s agricultural heritage and raise funds for community efforts.
“We let people vote on which one they like the best,” Minnick said. ‘ The Most Original’ and ‘The Most Unique Riding Lawnmower’. We’ve had old ones – all cleaned up and one was super-duper lawnmower on steroids!” she said.
Community groups supporting and participating in the day include the Shawsville Farmers Market, New River Valley Beekeepers, NRV Master Gardeners, the Friends of the Library Book Sale, the Link Letter, the Shawsville Rescue Squad.
For information contact Marie at margood1010@gmail.com or the Meadowbrook Library at 268-1964.
