[tjg911]

it's going on this sat and sunday and is in it's 6th year. i went today for the 1st time ever. all these years i have heard how great this was and is a must go.

look folks (in this area) save your $6 and time! i hate to be so negative but this was a total waste of my time and gas. i may have been the most knowledgeable person on the fair grounds, i certainly was one of the most! most of the vendors and speakers said things that i know for a fact were completely wrong, yet the people there look at them as experts not knowing they are being given incorrect info. you know if i attended a brain surgery fair and was told a bunch of bs about neurosurgery i wouldn't know the difference. that sums up the crowd, too bad they don't understand a lot of what they were hearing was not correct. it's amazing to hear vendors and lecturers saying things that a confused newbie gardener might say but at least the newbie gardener has an excuse, these vendors are farmers! i actually helped a lady asking questions of a vendor when he was obviously giving her incorrect advice. pitiful.

there were maybe 12 vendors, virtually no variety of garlic unless you only wanted german red and german white the exclusive varieties sold by about 98% of the vendors with no other choice, one guy had lorz italian another had spanish roja, bulbs about 3/4" in size. and small bulbs! most were 1" in diameter! i have individual cloves of music as large as these bulbs! a large bulb would have been 2". i saw some music bulbs that were 1/3 to 1/2 the size of my typical music bulbs... not my huge ones!

only one sold softnecks and many confused softneck/harddneck varieties. some had baskets full of garlic. no name just garlic! i was looking at an obvious softneck probably an artichoke type based upon the clove size and was being told it was german red or white obviously a hardneck!

an absolute waste of time. i went looking for a good artichoke to grow and left disgusted.

tom