Vegetable contest draws big produce

FAIRBANKS - The monstrous early August vegetables on display at the Tanana Valley State Fair often come with a question: Just how much bigger could this stuff get?

The folks at Alaska Feed Co. wanted to find out.

"Lots of time people aren't ready to harvest their vegetables at fair time," store manager Stephen Davila said. "We thought it would be interesting to see what's around at the end of the season."

The stuff that's around is pretty impressive, it turns out.

After working their way through a quirky growing season, local gardeners managed to line the tables at Alaska Feed with all kinds of brawny produce on Aug. 29.

A 9.14-pound turnip was tops in the tuber category, while a couple of 36-pound cabbages overflowed from the buckets they arrived in. The biggest potato weighed in at just less than 2 pounds, while the top tomato nearly made the 1-pound mark.

The monster zucchini at the event was a 9.83-pounder and rested next to an 11-foot, 2-inch sunflower.

"I like my gardening, and I think I do a good job at it," said Shirley Glaudo, who hauled in a 34-pound pumpkin. "I thought it would be fun to try."

Hannah Dunaway, 10, and her sister Hailey, 11, didn't win any of the largest produce categories, but they offered a bit of variety with a 2-pound sugar baby watermelon.

"It's twice as big as it's supposed to be," Hannah said.

Not many watermelons are grown in Interior Alaska, and the Dunaway family found out why. Not only did they require their own miniature greenhouse, but they also needed to be covered with a tarp each night to simulate darkness.

On the plus side, the melons turned out to be pretty tasty.

"We just babied 'em, I guess," said their mother, Terri Dunaway.

David Underwood, the Alaska Feed co-owner, said the idea for a fall produce contest had been around for a few years. This season, the College Road business finally decided to make it happen by offering prizes for the biggest veggies in Fairbanks.

Alaska Feed Co. gave gardeners a good incentive to show up, offering $100 gift certificates for the winners of six categories and smaller prizes for second and third place.

Davila said Alaska Feed Co. is considering making the contest an annual event as the word spreads among local gardeners that there's another place to show off their veggies.

"We want to see what people can do," he said.