Mountain Folklore: Theres Lots To See, Do And Eat At The Oley Valley Community Fair

It’s time for the Oley Fair, and that’s exciting because it means you can enjoy several days of delicious, signature, freshly cooked french fries, lots of enjoyable entertainment and fun socialization.

You also can see all kinds of interesting exhibits, including the fascinating and educational 4H livestock displays and judging. Plus, let’s not forget that the Oley Fair is a give-back event, which means the fair board makes generous donations to worthy community organizations from the fair’s profits after it ends.

As a home garden hobbyist, I enjoy leisurely strolling through the produce and vegetable area. I like to see who grew what, how it appears, how it’s presented and, in some cases, how big it got.

In my own raised-bed garden, I’ve found what I’m sure every other home gardener has discovered. Stuff from my garden tastes fresh and delicious. It’s harvested at the peak moment and generally consumed on the same day. In terms of veggies, what tastes better than veggies grown in your own garden?

At the Oley Fair, a home gardener can discover lots of useful information. You can see for yourself the finest examples of beans, potatoes, eggplants, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, gourds, squashes and pumpkins, and you can also learn how to preserve a bumper crop because there’s a place in the competition and judging for preserved, pickled or jarred produce.

For me, visiting the produce display at the Oley Fair is like visiting a vegetable museum. Call me a geek, but I enjoy literally seeing the fruit of other peoples’ labor. It takes dedication, energy, investment of resources, passion and an affinity to be in connection with the land to raise a successful garden, and winning a ribbon at the Oley Fair is something that can be considered a lifetime  achievement for a gardener or farmer.

I’ve often thought about entering some of my veggies in the Oley Fair, but I always end up eating the stuff while it’s ripe and tasty.

Once I grew a vegetable called West Indian Burr Gherkins. I had no idea what I was growing, but it was exotic and different, and part of my gardening adventure includes experimenting to see what happens. That year I had so many West Indian Burr Gherkins I didn’t know what to do with the all.

I tried giving them to friends, family and neighbors, which is another joyful thing I appreciate from gardening, sharing the harvest and such, but these little curiosities, while very flavorful, come with sharp pointy spikes and, if unfamiliar with them, the spikes become an aversion.

The solution is a no-brainer: you simply peel the skins and burrs away like you would peel any other vegetable, using a glove. What remains is a sweet version of an almost seedless cucumber. A couple of inches long and oblong, they were fantastic in salads.  Maybe next year I should grow some of these and enter them in the fair. I’ve never seen any of them at any fair so that might give me a ribbon advantage. I’m all about strategy.

Just kidding, but did you know that home gardeners can enter their crops in fairs like the Oley Fair? The best thing to do is contact the fair board or association well in advance of the fair to see when the deadline is for submissions and displays.

Browsing the produce entries at the Oley Fair has often given me ideas for varieties to try growing in the coming season. A nice rule of thumb that I believe is if you see that someone had success with a certain variety of vegetable displayed at the Oley Fair, it probably means that variety does well in our particular growing zone and is therefore a logical candidate to try planting in your own home garden.

I’ve had tremendous success growing an heirloom variety of tomato known as Pink Jazz. The tomato in the photo with this story is one of my Pink Jazz heirlooms, and they are wonderfully tasty.

I’ve been raising them from seed, collecting the seed from the largest tomato each season, and I’m now in my fourth season. Last year I grew a 2.8-pound tomato. Though it sounds a bit incredible, it is not uncommon for this heirloom variety to produce lots of 1-pound and over tomatoes from a single plant. We had so many of them one year we were able to make and jar enough spaghetti sauce to last us almost two years.

Not every growing season is the same, and there are no guarantees. That’s part of the mystery of gardening and growing crops. But again, viewing the displays at the Oley Fair will give you an excellent advantage in knowing which varieties most consistently yield successful harvests year after year in Berks.

Go to the Oley Fair, have fun, eat, listen, look and learn.

Dave Kline is an award-winning writer, photographer, show host and producer, singer-songwriter, travel guide and community advocate. Reach him at davesmountainfolklore@gmail.com

Gulls can detect food 3 miles away & are more likely to steal food after they see someone touch it.