“Nature’s the Toughest Competitor”: Red Hook Gardener Wins 10th Grand Champion Title at Dutchess Fair Vegetable Contest

Coaxed from the soil. Babied to perfection. Picked at the peak of ripeness. Then displayed, skins taut and shiny, on tables stretching the length of the Dutchess County Fair’s agricultural barn. Competition was fierce at this year’s fruit and vegetable contest. The two judges took hours selecting winners, prodding, sniffing, and squeezing in their effort to determine the best of the best. 

Despite the cornucopia of perfect produce – for the 10th time, a backyard gardener from Red Hook, John Neilson, won the grand champion title, awarded to the person whose entries garner the most first-place ribbons. But it was far from a snap, said the man with the green thumb. 

“The competition is really tough this year,” Neilson said. “The stuff that I normally win is more competitive.” Neilson won 22 blue ribbons. The runner-up was close behind, earning 19.

This year’s contest drew around 400 entries, about a 25% increase over last year. Most came from backyard gardeners, though a handful of small farms also participated. The competition is open to growers from Dutchess as well as Columbia, Ulster, Orange, and Putnam counties. Winners receive modest cash prizes—$10 for each first place, $6 for second, $4 for third. 

The judging began early Monday, the day before the fair opens to the public. On Sunday night, growers hauled in their best harvests. Organizers worked past 10 p.m. to sort, label and slot hundreds of entries into 116 categories. Each entry sat on individual plates, arranged by variety, color, size, and grower, a rainbow of orderly abundance.

For two hours, Judges Chris Kelder and Darryl Mosher moved slowly down the display of vegetables. They were looking for uniform size and shape, proper ripeness, marketability, and freedom from blemishes—the kind a shopper would reach for first at a market. Categories ranged from single-vegetable awards (best melon, summer squash) to quantity sets (three Spanish onions, 10 cherry tomatoes) and curated collections (herb or pepper collections). 

Kelder, whose family has farmed in Kerhonkson since the late 1700s, was judging for the first time. Mosher, of Rhinebeck’s Brittany Hollow Farm, is a longtime member of the Dutchess County Agricultural Society and a former Culinary Institute of America instructor. 

The two men reviewed entries, pressing gently on tomatoes for ripeness, examining cucumbers for signs of rot or pests, lifting onions to check for firmness, and sniffing melons before conferring quietly. Co-chair Roger Hoffman, a member of the Dutchess County Agricultural Society since 1968 and the co-proprietor with his wife of Hoffman’s Barn Antiques in Red Hook, followed behind with ribbons in hand, pinning blue, red, and white to plates once the judges made their decisions. 

Judges don’t taste the entries, save for Hoffman’s occasional nibble on a bean or baby tomato.  “You can tell the ripeness from the coloring,” said Mike Baden, co-chair of the vegetable exhibits. Appearance, he noted, usually tracks with flavor.

At times, the winner was clear. In the red cherry tomato category, a perfectly uniform bunch of bright crimson tomatoes easily took first over a marbled competitor. In the garlic class, however, 13 strong entries forced the judges to award two first-place ribbons, two seconds, and two thirds.

“We’re pretty liberal,” Baden said, explaining that there doesn’t need to be a first, second, and third place for each vegetable, and sometimes there can be more than one of each. And not every category crowned a winner. In the pickling cucumber category, no first-place ribbon was awarded because entries were deemed overgrown.

Looking over a plate of heirloom tomatoes, Kelder remarked, “I really like the color, but they’re not super uniform,” before pointing to another plate and adding, “Now these—these are nice on a BLT.”

One shiny squash drew suspicion from judges — “We say no waxes,” Baden noted. A giant watermelon drew awe. “We haven’t had one that good in a while,” Baden told the judges, eyeing the fruit that dwarfed the rest of the melons on the table.

Major signs of rot, pests or major blemishes will typically mean no awards. Organic growing is not a requirement. Though the organizers have considered adding it as a category, “it’s hard for us to verify whether it is organic or not,” so they haven’t done it, Baden said.

After considering all the entries, the judges awarded Best in Show to a plate of fresh ginger root from the catchall “anything we hadn’t thought of” category—an entry they said was a first for the contest.

Neilson, ever the competitor, watched closely as the judges deliberated, jotting notes for next season. “Too big,” he scribbled beside a rejected summer squash.

For Neilson, the Fair caps a season of hard work. From his densely packed 27-by-30-foot backyard garden, he started digging potatoes last Wednesday, did most of the picking on Saturday, and “finished peppers yesterday,” he said at the competition on Monday. “It’s very time-consuming.” What began years ago as a dozen entries in the competition has grown to nearly 70. The collections, in particular, demand the most time. By the time judging comes around, “It’s like every part of my body aches,” he said. 

The contest, Hoffman noted, has changed dramatically over the decades. When he first joined the Dutchess County Agricultural Society in the late 1960s, commercial growers dominated, and the categories were fewer. “It was all just basic vegetables, meat-and-potato vegetables, so to speak,” Hoffman recalled. “Back then, you couldn’t grow okra. There was only one kind of eggplant. Over the years, it became more and more exotic.” 

Today, more than 90% of entries come from home gardeners. It’s harder for farmers to chase perfection at scale, Baden noted. “The backyard gardeners can give care and attention because they might have five tomato plants to pick from, whereas a farmer might have 500,” he said. 

This year’s fair theme, “Rooted in Tradition, United by Agriculture” inspired some growers to create displays that went beyond simple plates of produce. Neilson’s Victory Garden exhibit, which won a ribbon, paid tribute to his grandfather’s World War I service with medals alongside homegrown vegetables. “I just like the history,” Neilson said, explaining that it felt good to create something that connects his family to his gardening passion.

While the Fair falls at the height of summer, its August date poses challenges. Some crops, like pumpkins and winter squash, are still immature. Others, like Swiss chard and lettuce, wilt in the heat. Growers must coax the right plants into peak condition at the right moment.

“It’s unfortunate the fair was early,” Mosher said, eyeing a spaghetti squash that wasn’t fully ripe.

“Nature remains the toughest competitor,” Neilson said. “There’s never been a perfect season,” he added. “Every year, something does well and something doesn’t.”

This year’s heat hurt his pickle crop. “I usually have nice pickles, but the heat just melted them,” he said. His yellow tomatoes also struggled in the dry conditions, leaving them vulnerable to bugs and chipmunks.

By late morning, the barn tables were crowded with ribbons. To Hoffman, it was proof of the fair’s enduring pull. “Each year, for the last five years, there’s been more and more produce,” said Baden, who first entered the competition as a 5-year-old. As he looked out over the display, Hoffman called the contest a celebration of the Hudson Valley’s oasis of crops and vegetables. 

Organizers contend the contest teaches consumers what to look for while honoring the Hudson Valley’s long tradition of food-growing and the hard work of local growers. 

“Where we live creates this incredible abundance and beauty and community, and all of it comes together in this [competition],” said Thea Harvey-Barratt, co-chair of the vegetable exhibits, who has helped run the contest for 31 years.

The entries will remain on view for the rest of the Fair in the Horticulture Barn (Building 22) for fairgoers to visit.

The post “Nature’s the Toughest Competitor”: Red Hook Gardener Wins 10th Grand Champion Title at Dutchess Fair Vegetable Contest first appeared on The Daily Catch.