Tomato Day On Its Way
Tomato Day
Do you love everything tomato? Have you struggled to grow great tomatoes? The 21st Annual Tomato Day is for you! The event will be held at the Sedgwick County Extension Education Center at 21st and Ridge in Wichita on Saturday, July 24th from 7:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. This event features information on selecting, planting, maintaining, cooking with tomatoes. Admission is free.
Gardeners, bring your home grown tomatoes and enter them in a contest for Ugliest, Largest, Best Heirloom Specimen, Best Plate of 3 Standard tomatoes and more! The cooks in the family can enter Fresh or Preserved Salsa. Preserved salsa must meet USDA approved processing methods; this information is available at the Extension Office. The Tomato Photography contest returns with categories of Mr. Tomato Head, The Artistic Tomato and Best Unique Tomato Growing Method. Prizes will be given in all contests and categories. For more information on contests, please visit http://tinyurl.com/TomatoDay2010.
In 4-H Hall:
- Enter Tomato & Salsa Contests
- Get Plant Problem Diagnosis
- Taste Fried Green Tomatoes & Salsa
- Make Tomato Critters with the Kids
- Buy Garden Magazines
- Buy Iris from the Wichita Iris Society
- Eat a Tomato Brunch by La Familia Senior Community Center
Shop the Kansas Grown! Farmer’s Market in the parking lot for great local products. Donate your extra garden produce to Plant A Row for the Hungry for the Kansas Food Bank to help those in need.
Seminars in the Demonstration Garden and Sunflower Room include a wide variety of gardening and cooking subjects.
Seminars in Demonstration Garden:
8:00 Composting Demonstration
8:30 Growing Vegetables, Flowers & Herbs in the Demonstration Garden
9:15 Making the Most of Your Garden Space
9:15 Shade Tree Tour in the Arboretum
10:00 Gardening with Kids
10:30 Preparing for a Fall Vegetable Garden
11:00 Growing Heirloom Tomatoes
11:30 Growing Tomatoes in Containers – Marty Johnson, Johnson Garden Centers
Seminars in the Sunflower Room:
9:00 Making and Canning Salsa
10:30 Fresh, Tasty, Fast Tomato Appetizers – Damian Lehman, executive chef of Wichita Country Club
See Contest Details and Rules at http://tinyurl.com/TomatoDay2010
Posted on July 8, 2010, in Upcoming Events and tagged Tomatoes, vegetable gardening, Vegetable gardening class, Wichita garden classes. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
The Demo Garden Blog 
I will probably not be entering any Lemon Boys. Here’s one of my plants: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silver_seams/4775535261/
I’d suggest we have a competition for the biggest, but alas the ducks (yes, pretty sure it took more than one) have eaten the competitor. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t win the unique-container prize; I understand tomato growers have had their plants in these since forever.
Bummer! You have rotten luck with chard and now with yellow tomatoes! 🙂 And hey…if you’re the only entry in the unique tomato growing photo category, then you’ll still win!
Good news on the chard front. Something (I suspect grasshoppers, though I wouldn’t rule out a particularly long-necked duck, or maybe the cottontail) has nibbled all but the ribs on a couple of chard leaves, but otherwise the chard has finally established itself, to the point where the (non-nibbled) one in the hanging basket was pretty enough to take to the Delano market for a demo. I haven’t harvested any yet, but only because I have had SO MUCH kale lately.
The poor little Lemon Boy has one leaf left, but I figure it’ll bounce back. They were late planted, but should have had enough time to develop enough roots to recover from this. Just not in time for Tomato Day.