Master Gardeners' Booth at the Putnam County Fair

On Friday I visited the Master Gardeners' booth at the Putnam County Fair in Cookeville. The indoor part of the exhibit shows all the shade plants that can be grown in our gardens in the Upper Cumberland.This rain barrel illustrates how you can save water from your roof for your shade garden.

There was also a canning kitchen set up inside the booth:

And a place for kids to play "farmer's market":

Outside, there was a demonstration of a square foot garden. These are made from wood frames filled with a special soil mix. They were very productive! One of the beds had a trellis on it with beans growing on the trellis.

Also there was a beautiful and productive herb garden, with several kinds of basil, a big sage plant, and other kinds of herbs.

There were lots of examples of ways in which gardeners can use containers for food and ornamentals. Carrots were thriving in this container:

These cute hanging containers had succulents in them:

We also looked around in the exhibits of prize-winning vegetables, because we had heard that there were some really big watermelons. The rumor was true. These two melons were almost three feet long!